K-1 2018-2019 from Lauren Glaser on Vimeo.
We spent this first week reading and comparing books with the lovable character, Chester the Raccoon. On the first day, we read The Kissing Hand, a story where the mother raccoon shares a kiss in Chester's hand to remind him that her love is always with him, even when he is at school. Chester was feeling nervous about his first day of school, just as many of us were! When we finished the book, we discovered that Chester left us a clue that kicked off a scavenger hunt around the school! We spotted raccoon tracks in the hallways, and followed them to find important places like the LMC, art room, music room, gym, and office. When we returned to the room, we found special hearts that Chester left for each of us. Our special hearts remind us that if we are ever missing someone at home, we can touch the heart to remind us that our grown ups love us!
Over the next few days, we read more Chester stories: A Pocketful of Kisses, Chester the Brave, and Chester and the Big, Bad Bully. Chester helped us learn about overcoming our fears and being a good friend. We also made our own Kissing Hand projects, which we brought home this week. Everyone did such a nice job following step by step directions!
We also compared Chester's school experience to our school experience, and worked together to identify a few differences between the two.
Calendar time is an important part of our day, as we tie in math concepts as well as weather observations, along with establishing a sense of community and starting our day together with a familiar routine. We began introducing some of our calendar routines this week. Each day there will be a different "Hello Helper" who will be our calendar assistant for the day.
During math, we have been exploring the numbers one and two, and will be focusing in great detail on the numbers 1-5 throughout this first unit of our Math in Focus curriculum.
We dipped our toes into writing this week, as we drew pictures of things we like, and then took the next step to add a label if we felt confident in doing so. These labels could be just the beginning letter of the word, or sounding out the word to include more sounds. Just a picture without labels was totally acceptable as well!
Some other highlights of our week included playing with friends, both at recess and during play centers time in the classroom, as these young friends learn to navigate social interactions and gain independence!
Curriculum Night
Don't forget that this Thursday, August 30th, is Curriculum Night at Dryden! Join us in our classroom as I go over our classroom routines and Kindergarten curriculum from 6:00-6:40 pm. Hope to see you there!
