Dear River Families,
Welcome to Kindergarten! A highlight this week was viewing the solar eclipse on the first day of school and learning about the sun, earth and moon. We had a great first week in River as the children are beginning to get to know the rules, routines and adventures of Kindergarten. This week Literacy centers included building names of classmates using magnetic letters, finding their own names in a word search, making a book of the rules of the classroom and drawing a family picture in their journals. I met with small groups in which we work with letter recognition and letter sounds a-f. The children spent most of the week getting to know the schedule, materials in the classroom and expectations. In Math this week the children were introduced to a timeline calendar, we started counting the days of school and participated in voting (yes or no) for the daily question! The daily question can be anything from, “are you wearing red?”, “do the following two words rhyme?”, or “do you like pizza?”. The child learned many new songs we use every day for transitions into different sections of the day (ex. a fun counting song for math). We did math stations this week where groups of 5 worked on a “grab and count”, where they reach with eyes closed into a bucket and count how many they pull out, making shapes using rubber band boards and creating patterns using counting bears.
One of my personal favorite things about Kindergarten is Peace Lessons with Ms. Charlotte. This is a unique and special experience for the children. These are lessons designed to teach love, kindness, compassion and tolerance. The lessons reinforce how special they are and give them greater understanding of how their bodies, minds and emotions can be managed so that their “love light” can shine through all that they do! On Monday the children learned how to make silence, a self-awareness and breathing exercise. On Friday the children created an object in their minds while making silence and then took a turn sharing and listening to what they created. We had a lesson in Health and Nutrition on “My Plate”, practiced numbers in Spanish, began to read Music (whole notes, half notes) and played a stoplight game in Physical Education! We ended the week with a visit from story teller and musician Beth Epley on Friday.
Please be sure to sign in and out in the classroom notebook outside the door and make sure your child has extra clothes in their bin in the bathroom! Remember – School is from 8:30-3:30 – please arrive on time to start the day with a relaxed opening group. And I appreciate your cooperation and communication if you child needs to be picked up early. In your child’s backpack they will have school work and any extra artwork they completed from the week in their folder. Please empty and return backpacks on Monday. In a few weeks, I will start sending books home on the weekends as well. Please feel free to email me at kindergarten@treehouselearning.com for anything!
Have a great weekend,
Ms. Stephanie and Ms. Kira
**Below is our daily schedule**
Kindergarten Daily Schedule
8:30-9:00 Opening group, share time
9:00-10:00 T/W/TH Literacy Centers with literacy pull out group
M- Journals & Thematic Units F- Peace Lesson Follow-Up
9:45- *Morning snack option
10:00-10:40 Recess
10:45-11:30 T/W/TH Math Mon- Sanford Harmony Fri-*P.E 11:00-12:00
11:30- 12:00 Specials: M/W-Spanish T/TH-Music
12:15 Lunch
1:00-1:15 Handwriting/Read aloud/Independent reading
1:15-2:00 Writing/whole group literacy
*Friday: Finish up Friday
2:00-2:30 Recess
2:35-3:25 *M- Peace Lesson *T- Health & Nutrition*W- Art
*TH- Science *F- Friday pack-up and classroom clean-up
3:25-3:30 Closing group
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