First Week of School

Wow! I am so excited about the completion of our first week in kindergarten! The children are great! I have eighteen students...six boys and twelve girls. They all have unique, interesting personalities. After this week, I know that we will not have a dull moment in our classroom this year!

What we did the first week in school: Of course, all students only attended two days total, so we didn't actually do a lot of "stuff." Much of our time was spent on establishing rules and practicing procedures. Besides the basics of the beginnings of school, we did do a few activities. I had each student draw a picture of him or herself and then share it in front of the rest of the class. On the first day, we read the book "Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What do You See." I chose this book to help me determine who might not know all of the color words. I do have a few students who need a little work on color words but I have no doubt they will pick it up quickly. We also used felt board cutouts of the characters and placed them in the order they appeared in the book. After reading the book, we made a brown bear face using circles that the students cut from brown construction paper. I was pleasantly surprised that most of the students are able to hold the scissors appropriately and can cut with relative ease. They also did a good job listening to and following directions. After lunch, we learned about sorting objects by color. We first sorted colored shapes on the Activboard. After getting the hang of what sorting is all about, we sorted teddy bear counters. Each child was able to successfully sort by color! We also made playdough! The children really seemed to enjoy making and playing with the playdough. I know that many of you may be thinking why I would choose to make playdough with my students. There are several reasons. Most importantly, children of this age are developing their writing muscles. These muscles need lots of different types of "work" to get them ready to successfully write. Playing with playdough helps strengthen these muscles (and the kids just thought they were having fun!) Another reason we make playdough is to show the children the importance of following a set of directions (the recipe). Finally, we make playdough to talk briefly about how things can change when heated. (The playdough starts off as a liquid mixture and when cooked, it is of course a solid.) We also went outside for a brief period of time in the morning (afternoon highs have been over 100!)
I had eighteen children on the second day. ( I had about six children each day for the three days before the "second" day) We went over the classroom rules and procedures throughout the day. We read the sequel to "Brown Bear, Brown Bear What do You See," which is "Polar Bear, Polar Bear, What do you Hear?" We then made a polar bear face out of circles. We traced a large circle and we traced our names. After the children had traced their names, I took note of who knew the letters in their name. For those students who do not know the letters in their name, my assisstant and I will be working individually with them for the next week. If after a week they still do not know the names of the letters in their names, I will make an audio tape for that child that will last about five or six minutes. The child will have a sentence strip with his/her name written in large, colorful letters. The audio tape will direct the child to look at each letter calling it by color and by name. The child will be instructed to trace the letter, and repeat the name of the letter several different times. These tapes will be used until the child can competently name the letters in his or her name. Oh yes, back to day two! We used color tiles to sort by color again today. We danced and sang to "Tooty Ta," "The Button Factory," and "Is Everybody Happy." We also went outside again today. The cutest thing happened when I was reviewing the rules for the playground. I had just reminded the children to not pick up sticks or anything else on the playground when one little girl told me she knew why we weren't supposed to pick up two sticks. I asked her why and she said "If you pick up two sticks and rub them together, you will make a fire!" Of course, I had to agree with her that this might indeed happen so it is best to leave the sticks alone.

The first two days were great! I look forward to a wonderful year with these students and my new instructional assistant Ms. Susan! The children are eager to learn and seem to enjoy school.

Next week we will be working on these state standards:
(Many of these standards will be worked on year long!)

Week 1 Standards:

K 3.03b Spell own first name.
K 1.1b Count by 1’s and 10’s to 50.
K2.1b Communicate using mathematical terms appropriately
· calendar
· day
· months
· week
· sorting
· size

K.2.1.a Sort objects by color.
K.2.1.a Sort objects by size shape and kind.
K.7.1 Identify daily weather conditions
K 14.1 Identify the sun as the source of Earth’s heat and light energy.
K.4.02b. Identify purposes for having rules.
K.4.02c. Be aware that laws and rules are followed and created by the school.
K.1.03e Identify front cover and back cover of a book.
K.1.08d Use illustrations to preview text.
K.1.13i Sequence events in a story
K.1.05a Recognize and name all upper and lowercase letters.

National Reading First Conference...St. Louis

My teaching partner and I were blessed to be able to attend the National Reading First Conference this year. It was held in St. Louis. After a nine hour drive (we did stop for lunch and gasoline!), we arrived in St. Louis. I had never been in Kentucky or Missouri and only had been in the Chicago airport for a layover. The drive was not too bad! We relied on the GPS to for the majority of the way. I was shocked at the condition of the interstate in St. Louis. It was in very poor repair.



Things We Learned at the Conference:



1. Fluency. We learned several things to do to increase a child's fluency in reading. My favorite suggestion involves post-it flags and re-reading text. The child reads the passage for a minute and then places a post-it flag where he or she stopped. The child then re-reads the passage in an attempt to "beat" his/her last time. This process should be repeated three or four times. This puts the air of competition into reading but the child is not competing with others, only himself.



2. Behavior. I have a difficult time with student behavior. I find that I have a difficult time being one-hundred percent consistent. One of the presenters helped me realize another problem I know I have in this regard. She said that you tell students what you want only one time and then you scan the room for those who comply. Reward them with a small trinket and say "Thank you for _____. You never know when you will get a reward." I have a very bad habit of repeating myself over and over. It can be to the point of nagging. I know that many children stop responding if you "nag."



3. Comprehension. Interestingly enough, we learned that comprehension is mainly based on fluency. Reading must sound like speaking for the brain to understand it. (I guess we always knew this...but it is interesting to think about!)

Getting Ready For School!

I can't wait! The first day of school is just around the corner. It has always been an exhilarating anticipation...back to school!

My room is still in quite a bit of disarray. Books and other items need to be re-shelved due to a bit of downsizing. A new reading series has been adopted and room will need to be found for its various components. I do have an extreme amount of work in front of me but know that I will get through it with little or no complaint. Last year, our school was in the process of remodeling. We were not in the building until October. It was impossible to have things the way that I wanted them to be! Some work could have been done in my room over the Christmas holidays but workers were still in the building and we were asked not to come. For that very reason, I am thrilled to be starting the year under "normal" circumstances!

Our school has had many changes this year. We have added another kindergarten class. (I am so excited!) This should keep our class size smaller than in the past few years. We have also added a fourth grade class. The only grade with only two classes now is fifth grade. Our school is growing!

Next time: St. Louis National Reading First Conference