Happy New Year!!

Well, 2012 is here...a new beginning. Upon returning to school tomorrow, Room 108 children will be busier than ever learning many new concepts, while at the same time continuing to become more independent little individuals. We will be delving into reading sight words and writing more rigorously. We will also be going full swing into our Daily 5 approach to literacy (small group work, much like centers...which is why we need to be working on our independence in the classroom).

But before the new year begins at school, I must share some pictures and news from Nov. and Dec. of 2011. This year, for some reason, has proven to be much busier than most years for me...thus there have been many fewer updates to this blog than I usually post. Therefore, one of my New Year's Resolutions is to post updates more often for those of you who find this page a helpful resource.

In November, we were busy with MANY things. We had our Native American Craft Day, our annual Kindergarten Thanksgiving Feast and our first Royal Reader (thank you Mr. Rossner!!)

In December, we filled many days with fun crafts and activities including our Gingerbread House Project (thanks again to all parents, grandparents, as well as our friends from the SUNY Potsdam Mens' Hockey Team, who helped make this project a success!) as well as our Holiday Concert.

Please take a few moments to view the following slideshow. And thank you for sharing your child with me. It amazes me quite often what 'little sponges' they are! Their little brains soak up so much at this age.

Happy New Year!!

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Pumpkins and Reading Buddies

First of all, I would like to thank the entire Room 108 family for all donations to our Thanksgiving Feast on Monday! Such generosity and sharing help make your child's feast day one to remember!

If you are volunteering to help, we are asking volunteers to arrive at school by 10:30 am Monday morning. This should give us plenty of time to set up before our first serving at 11:30!

Also, a HUGE "THANKS A BUNCH!!" to parent/grandparent volunteers on Friday for our Native American Day! The children had fun and I could have not done it without you! Unfortunately, time was so tight I forgot to take pictures...;o( But rest assured, there will be plenty of pics from our Thanksgiving Feast coming up tomorrow!

Below is a slide show of activities from October. Miss Miriam Johnson was a Block 1 student from SUNY Potsdam. She visited our class for a total of 8 visits, learning first-hand about teaching our youngest children. She was a wonderful addition to our class. The children adore her. They were extremely excited to see her return voluntarily on Friday for Native American Day!

In the slideshow you will see pictures of children gutting pumpkins. This was an exciting part of Miss Johnson's lesson she taught on counting, using the pumpkin seeds the children took from the pumpkins. Later that day, we decorated tiny pumpkins brought in by our classmate, Raegan, and her family. Much fun was had by all!!

You will also see pictures from our first session of Reading Buddies. Our Reading Buddies this year are from Mrs. Martin's Fourth Grade Class. It is fun for both sets of students to experience such a worthwhile event! We will continue Reading Buddies every Day 2 from now until the end of the year.

Thanks again for all you do for our classroom. I am thankful each day for my Room 108 family! Happy Thanksgiving!

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Granny Prix...a Room 108 Favorite!!

Please ask your child about Granny Prix...a website we visit almost every day to practice our simple addition facts! I was turned on to this site by another kindergarten colleague while I was training as a facilitator for our last Superintendent's Day on the New York State Math Common Core Standards.

The site offers fact practice in addition, subtraction and multiplication facts. According to the new set of learning standards recently adopted by New York State, children in Kindergarten will be responsible for fluently adding and subracting within 5 in order to be a successful math student at the first grade level.

The children love designing their own GRANNY and wheel chair and racing to find all the sums to win the race.

Take some time to experience this motivating activity your child loves.

You can find the link below...or to the right as part of my Educational Links section.

Enjoy!!

http://www.fun4thebrain.com/addition/addgranny.html

Fall Fun

October was full of FALL FUN! We visited the Potsdam Fire Station, Breezy Maples Farm near Massena and we also celebrated Fall with our monthly Kindergarten Mixer where we all enjoyed home made pumpkin muffins (Thank you to Mrs. Parker for making them for our class, as I was sick! What a bucket filler Mrs. Parker is!!) And of course, who can forget Halloween??!! We enjoyed treats brought in by Mrs. Cruikshank and classmates and we even had a costume parade in the middle school. All those big kids loved us!!!

On Monday, we had the Army Band come and perform for us. They introduced instruments to us...even playing a song from Harry Potter and, of course, ...Stars and Stripes Forever!

Enjoy the slideshow! I look forward to meeting with all of you next week for Parent-Teacher Conference.

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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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