Busy Days in Room 108

Room 108 has been buzzing with activity! We have been discussing Fall, Apples, Germs, Good Citizenship, Numbers and Letters! Johnny Appleseed even visited on his birthday - Sept. 26! We made applesauce in honor of Johnny's birthday and enjoyed eating it out on the playground with our other Kindergarten friends.

Buster the Bus visited and reminded us all about ways to stay safe around our school bus. He even taught us how to cross the road in front of a school bus dropping us off! Miss Honey also visited! She is so funny!

Mr. VanEll's high school students came to our classroom at the beginning of October to teach us about Germs using the Scrubby Bear program. We learned about how to get rid of germs, where germs live and how germs make us sick. Our high school friends even had a really cool black light that lit up our germs after we rubbed 'magic' powder into our hands!

The most amazing of all was being able to meet a real-life Clarkson Golden Knight hockey player. Kevin Tansey, #10, came to our room and visited with all of us. He spoke to us about the importance of being responsible citizens and about how important it is to do well in school and to try your best!

Please enjoy the following slide show containing pics from all events mentioned.

Our year has gotten off to a great start and we are all settling in nicely to our routines. Enjoy the beautiful weather this weekend!

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Welcome to Room 108!!

Welcome to Kindergarten at Lawrence Avenue Elementary! Our first few weeks have been filled with fun...getting to know new friends, reacquainting with old chums...learning new routines and getting into the groove again! I don't think I've had such a large group of nappers since I started teaching kindergarten!

We have enjoyed nursery rhymes, Buster the Bus and reviewing shapes and colors as well as singing and dancing to many new songs.

This year will be full of new experiences for your child and for me! Lawrence Avenue faculty has been researching and learning all about the Daily 5 management strategy for our Reading time. It's a way to structure our time to best meet the individual needs of our students in the area of Reading. In order for the Daily 5 to be successful, students are trained to be independent learners in the classroom (you may have heard your child mention the word stamina). They are given more and more responsibility as the year progresses. I am very excited to implement this strategy in my classroom this year.

Below you will find a slideshow of our class in action during the first weeks of school. I would like to thank you for all the donations you have made to our classroom and I thoroughly enjoyed speaking to you at our Meet the Teacher Night. Please don't hesitate to contact me concerning your child.

Thank you for sharing your child with me! I can already tell we are going to have a wonderful year!

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Kindergarten Has Come and Gone

Amazingly enough, we are in our final days of your child's first full year of elementary school! Congratulations...you made it!

It has been an absolute pleasure getting to know you and your child this year. We have had lots of fun and grown so much together...the children teach me just about as much as I teach them! It's amazing what you can learn from a child...

Thank you for all your support this year. We made a great team.

Below you will find an attached slideshow highlighting many events from this school year. (It's a LONG one, but you can press the arrow button to move through the pictures faster if you wish.) If you see pictures of your child that you like, don't worry...I am sending home a complete DVD of ALL the pics I took this year. You can download/print what you choose.

Savor the younger years...they go by too quickly.

Enjoy your summer!

Fondly,
Kate C.

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Ives Park and Fun Day

It was a beautiful week last week with lots of fun here at LAE! On Wednesday, the Kindergarten took their annual trip to Ives Park where we enjoyed a picnic lunch, rounding out our walk downtown with a trip to Scoop's Downtown! Thanks, Mrs. Sheehan, for our YUMMY treats!

On Friday, we had our Kindergarten Fun Day! Thank you to all our volunteers! Our day was a success largely due to you! The games were fun and the BBQ was delicious...topped off with cotton candy! Yuuuummmmmmy!

As we wrap up our school year, please remember...

"Let them be little,
'Cause they're only that way for a while.
Give 'em hope, give them praise,
Give them love every day.
Let 'em cry, let 'em giggle,
Let 'em sleep in the middle,
Oh, but let them be little."

- Billy Dean

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Kindergarten Visitation

Today was a wonderful day in Room 108! As much as I missed seeing my Kindergarteners today, I was overjoyed to meet my new friends coming to Kindergarten next year! We had lots of fun getting to know each other, playing on the playground with Mr. Jenne, making a sunflower project and eating in the cafeteria like the 'big kids'.

Thank you for sharing your child with me today. We had a day full of fun! I can't wait to see you all at Lawrence Avenue Elementary in September! Enjoy your summer...play hard and be safe!

Don't forget to plant those sunflower seeds!

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My How Time Flies!!

It is amazing to me that we are already into the second week of June! It also amazes me how far your children have come since September. (I was reminded of that today as I visited with some of the in coming Kindergarteners for next year.) Your children are now reading, writing complete sentences (don't worry, phonetic spelling right now is alright) with capital letters and periods, solving simple addition problems, dressing themselves and even tying their own shoes! Congratulations on a job well done!!

Our classroom has been busy as usual. Last week, we were fortunate enough to have Aaron's parents, Annetia and Kevin, visit us in class to discuss their role in the Air Force and the importance of Memorial Day! Aaron's brother, Aiden, was a special visitor as well. I would like to thank Aaron and his family for their willingness to share their experiences with us, making the celebration of Memorial Day more relevant to our class. We appreciate all you do to make our country the best place on Earth to live!

We also got to enjoy a special performance by magician Rick Smith Jr. (http://ricksmithjr.com/)! He was awesome and had the attention of EVERY student at LAE for almost an hour straight! Check out his website! He really is amazing!

Don't forget about our trips next week to Ives Park (Wednesday) as well as our Fun Day (Friday)!

As always, thank you for sharing your child with me and for all your support throughout the year.

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My apologies for not posting sooner than this. It has been a very busy Spring here at Lawrence Avenue. Since my last post, we have had Spring Break, Passover, Easter and Tas Cru in the house!

It seems as though many of you had exciting adventures over Spring Break! Whether you stayed in the North Country or traveled south, the children came back to school excited to share their adventures. My family traveled to South Carolina for the very first time during Spring Break. Although I was dreading the long car ride, I found it was more enjoyable than I had anticipated. Not only did I get to spend some quality, up close and personal time with my family, I was also able to reconnect with two of my former teachers who have retired to the area I visited. Mr. and Mrs. "H" had such a profound effect on me while I was in school! I only hope I can touch the lives of my students as they have touched mine! (They were my 5th and 6th grade teachers!...see pic.)

Mrs. Williams came in to our classroom and shared another Sammy Spider adventure with us. This time, the Shapiro's were preparing their house for Passover and unknowingly destroy the Sammy the Spider's web. Though Sammy becomes fascinated by his mother's explanations of the holiday traditions, he is repeatedly told, "Spiders don't celebrate Passover. Spiders spin webs." Following instructions, Sammy completes a new web?and participates in the Shapiro family observance after all. Using cut-paper artwork made festive with cheery patterns, Kahn depicts a contemporary human family and a mother-son spider duo reminiscent of Eric Carle's creations, complete with a review of basic shapes. We also got to taste unleavened bread dipped in chocolate. Thank you, Mrs. Williams.

Next, our 4th grade friends visited us donning their Easter Bonnets. Each student designed his/her own bonnet to mirror individual interests, etc. We really enjoyed their visit!

Finally, on Monday, April 25th, Dr. Rick Bates, professor of Literacy at SUNY Potsdam (aka Tas Cru, who participates in the North Country's Blues for Books campaign) visited our classroom and performed several of his blues songs based loosely on Eric Carle's books. The children thoroughly enjoyed Dr. Bates' visit, as did I! I ran into Rick in Saratoga Springs last month while attending the NYSRA Reading Conference. Rick was my sponsor teacher many moons ago when I was his student teach at SUNY Potsdam's Campus School. Thank you, Rick!

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