Goodbye Summer, Hello Autumn

A look at our learning this week...

Fundations: this week we learned the name, sound and correct letter formation for lowercase c and o.  We learned that c is a consonant and o is a vowel. We learned they are plane line letters.

Please use the following verbal prompts when practicing at home:

c: over, around, open

o: over, around, close

Every day our teacher helper and Baby Echo leads us in practicing our letters and sounds. Check out Austin leading us on Thursday.

Shared Reading: we read a poem called Hello that is sung to the tune of Are you sleeping. Throughout the week we took turns singing it to each of our classmates by inserting their name into the poem.  I continue to model how readers point to words when they read (or sing in this case) and we move from left to right on the page when we read.  This poem has also helped us to continue learning our friends names.  This poem was added to their poetry folder for familiar reading. 

Daily 5 workstations/centers: this week we began Daily 5 workstations.  This is a time when students will rotate through centers with a partner. I prefer to call them workstations, rather than centers, because it reinforces that they are working and learning and not just playing (although some our learning is done by play). During this time they will work on literacy activities to reinforce reading and writing skills learned in the classroom (with the occasional math workstation as well).  Right now the workstations are pretty simple: building letters with pattern blocks, Starfall or Storyline Online on the computer, tracing our friends names on whiteboards, matching our friends names with their picture at pocketchart, etc. but they will get more difficult and skill specific as the year goes on and tie into our daily learning 

We had two goals at Daily 5 this week:

1) Stay at your workstation

2) Use a whisper voice

Ask your child what Daily 5 workstation they went to this week & who their partner is.

We will eventually work our way up to 3 Daily 5 rotations a day.  Once routines are in place, and the children can work independently, I'll begin working with small groups of children on specific skills and eventually transition into reading groups where we begin to learn how to read.  Typically this can happen around mid-late October.  It takes us until then in Kindergarten to make sure the children can work at their workstation without my support and help, that way I can teach skill and reading groups uninterrupted.  

Writing Workshop: we are getting really good at telling a story through pictures.  This week we focused on "writing" (drawing) stories about real things we have done lately.  Notice how well they are doing at drawing people using shapes and making sure their story has a setting/background! Next week we will begin learning how to label our stories with beginning sounds or words. 

Nicholas eating dinner at El Maguey with a friend and their family

Paisley playing dolls with a friend.

Alaina drew with sidewalk chalk outside last weekend.

Harper jumped on the trampoline with her sister and friends.

Math: we continued to explore shapes and made patterns with shapes.

We also learned some fun math games!  Match It!, which is similar to the board game Memory, but matching dot cards to help us with counting and recognizing groups of dots/numbers. We also learned Top It!, which is similar to the game War, but with dot cars for counting.

Friday Craft: to celebrate the end of summer and the beginning of Autumn (on Monday) we read the book Goodbye Summer, Hello Autumn and made beautiful Fall collages.  The children wrote their own poem to go along with it.  These are coming home today for you to enjoy. They told me what they wanted it to say, I wrote it on a separate piece of paper for them and they copied the words.  The idea itself is from them on their own!  They are so cute!

Walking Tickets: now that we have been in school for over a month, and expectations have been taught and they have had time to adjust, we are really stressing the importance of making good choices and doing the right thing even when no one is watching.  We use this phrase a lot.  I will always give children many chances and reminders to do the right thing, however if the poor choice behavior continues we must follow through on consequences.  

At Beulah Ralph, and most schools in CPS, we follow these procedures for discipline:

1) verbal reminder (in Kindergarten it is several reminders)

2) safe seat: a spot in our room away from others where they can sit and calm down and think about how to make better choices

3) buddy room: the safe seat in the teachers classroom across the hall.  We utilize this when the verbal reminders and classroom safe seat haven't seemed to work.  At times, the children will fill out a "think sheet" while here that explains their behavior and why they are there.  If they receive one of these it will come home to you in their folder.

4) principals office: when none of the above work, the child will be sent with an office referral to talk with the principals and a phone call home will be made. 

We also use walking tickets and it varies how these are used.  In my classroom, if a child is sent to the safe seat by a teacher, they will have an automatic 5 minute walking ticket.  This means at recess they will have to walk back and forth on our line up zipper spot for 5 minutes before they can play.  They are still getting exercise during this time and movement is being allowed, but their free play time is taken away as a consequence.  If they go to the buddy room, it is a 10 minute walking ticket.  If they visit the office, their entire recess is spent walking.  

Sometimes we also give walking tickets even if they don't go to the safe seat.  Not all behaviors warrant the use of the safe seat.  Sometimes walking tickets can be given for just a minute or two if they are having a hard time making good choices and have needed an excessive amount of reminders.  

Please know we do our best to avoid the above and if they receive one of the consequences it is because we have exhausted other options and they are taking away the learning of their peers.  I am sure at home when they don't listen, follow directions or make good choices you have to take things away or have a consequence and this is how we handle it at school to be fair and consistent with every child.  

With all of that being said, if your child is consistently receiving walking tickets or any of the above I will put their walking slips in their Friday Folder each week for you to see. I don't want to send them home daily because some children may "lose" them knowing they don't want you to see them.  If they are in the Friday Folder, which they know is for parents, they are less likely to be mis-placed before making it home.  However, if it is just a one time thing (or even two or three times....we all make mistakes) I probably won't communicate that with you.  I want the children to know that we all make mistakes and it is ok and they can trust me. I don't need to run to mom and dad telling them about every mistake they make because it's not necessary and causes unnecessary stress on the child. Some problems are just school problems that we can work out here ourselves. But if it is something that is repetitive you will definitely see those tickets or hear from me.  Thank you for understanding.  It's a hard job raising little humans and I'm here to help!💓😀

Reading Logs: September is coming to an end.  Don't forget to read to your child (or have them read to you if they are able) at least 4 times a week for 15 minutes at a time.  September reading logs are due on October 1st.