Today during our reading time everyone was given a book baggie with several books they could read.   For most children these are emergent texts that have just a few words.  They follow a predictable pattern with pictures that provide clues about the text.  For example I can run, I can jump etc.  The books are a mix of homemade books that the children have written some of the words in, and real books, which tend to generate a lot of excitement.   Some children will read these books by focusing on the words, while others may rely solely on the pictures.  At this point either is fine and both provide great practice for future reading.  After several weeks of practice the homemade books will come home to make room for new ones.

Today we also worked on illustrations for our mouse story.  We began by sketching the pictures to make sure they were just right and included lots of detail.  Later we painted them.  Once they are dry we will put the words on and put the pages together to make our book.

As I'm sure your child told you, last week during ECO we spent a significant amount of time building mouse houses.  Since then we have been working on a class story about a little mouse who lives in the Wu Forest.  Writing a story with the input of 16 authors takes some time and discussion.  We have been slowly plugging away at the story, talking about the important elements to include in any story (beginning, middle, end, problem, solution), gathering ideas and voting if necessary.  Today we added some final details and the written version of our story is complete.  Ask your child to share it with you.  Our next step will be to break it into pages so each child can be part of the illustrating process and then we will turn it into a class book, with potential for a sequel!

Today in your child's folder is a list of the first 20 words on the Fry's sight word list.  Recognizing some sight words is an important component in the development of reading and kindergarteners are expected to recognize 15-20 sight words by the end of the year.  We have been focusing on is, at, the, you, on, I, and am.  Many of these appear in our morning message every day or at least several times a week and I and am occur frequently in writing.  I am sending this list primarily for informational purposes, but if your child has an interest in working on them he or she could create flash cards to practice them, or practice them through short notes- either your child could write a note to you or you could write a short note to your child and have him or her try to pick out certain words.

Today the boys in the class met with Katie Babic our guidance counselor.  They worked as a team to create a giant tower!

We had a fantastic ECO morning in the forest.  Thank you for sending your children prepared- it was definitely chilly in the woods.  The highlights of our morning were building mouse houses and choosing nature names.  We also learned a new song, heard a story about a tiger and a mouse, and had tea that was prepared in a kelly kettle.  Ask your child to tell you about all of these things- this afternoon they were eagerly sharing their nature names with anyone who passed us in the hall and there was a general buzz of excitement. When I asked the children to share their favorite part of the morning most couldn't pick just one thing!  Thank you to our adult helpers Lucy's grandma Maria, Jack's mom Erika, Keegan's mom Stephanie, and Matthew's mom Sheila.  Please let me know any time you would like to join us.

Today in your child's orange folder is an informational sheet about number sense and ways to help develop this along with a packet of math games that I have collected from various resources. They vary in level of difficulty and skills, but hopefully there is at least one that will appeal to everyone.  We have played Five Frame Fun and Build a City in class and your child should know each of these.   If your children are like my son, they may enthusiastically play the games at school, but prefer not to play them at home- that's fine!  I'm sending them along as an option, but not something that has to be done.

Katie Babic, our guidance counselor has been meeting with all of the boys and all of the girls on alternate Thursdays to work on friendship skills.  Each group has gone once and both loved it.  While on group is with Katie I have the opportunity to do similar work with the children who remain in the classroom.  Coincidentally both groups worked on friendship skills today by building.  The boys who were with me worked in 3 groups of 3.  Each team had the same 30 blocks to create a structure.   When they were finished we were struck by how different each structure was, even though each group used exactly the same blocks.  The  7 girls worked as a whole group building a tower with Katie.

It is getting chilly and our playground is notoriously windy.  Please make sure your child come with good clothing for recess.  At this point everyone should come with a jacket- we can always remove them if it is too warm.  Thank you for your help with this!

We have a very enthusiastic bunch of writers in our class.  During Writers Workshop the last couple of weeks children have been working on making books with a beginning, middle and end.  We started with planners to help us map out our stories and then we have used these to create the pages of our books.  Many children are starting to write some if not all of their own words as well.  When the books are finished we have been putting laminated covers on them and children have been using permanent markers to write titles. (This step is very motivating as I have almost every color marker!)  We have a basket in our room that holds a growing collection of kid written stories.  After we have had a couple of weeks to enjoy them here they will be sent home to make room for the next batch!

In science we have been documenting the rapid transformation of our corn seeds.  Children have been making scientific drawings in their science notebooks showing the change that has been taking place over time.  We are working hard to show the different colors we see and to label our drawings.  As our discussion of living things has shifted to plants we have also been checking out the different kinds of trees that we have growing around the school and collecting leaves from these to make leaf books.  We were slowed down just a bit by the damp weather this week, but hopefully our books will be completed by the end of next week.

During ECO on Wednesday we did a scavenger hunt looking for colors of the rainbow outside.  We are now representing all of those colors in a class weaving.  We have a stick loom hanging on our wall and are slowly weaving in the different colors.  I have loads of yarn for this, but if anyone has brightly colored ribbon they would like to donate we would love to have it.  In preparation for our walk back from the Wu Forest during our next ECO session today we took advantage of the fantastic weather and walked down the sidewalk about halfway to Bridge Street.  We will try to take at least one more practice walk next week.

Enjoy the three day weekend!

We had a fantastic first day of ECO despite the rain!  It was pouring!  The children didn't seem phased though and they were wonderful participants for the two hours that we were outside.  We engaged in a variety of activities around the playground from playing a tag game to creating our faces with clay to gathering all of the colors of the rainbow- ask your child what was his or her favorite part.  Thank you to everyone for sending your children prepared- being dressed appropriately makes a huge difference in  comfort and happiness!  Also a huge thanks to our two volunteers, Keegan's mom Stephanie and Lucy's grandmother Maria.  For our next five sessions, which will take us through December 12th, we are planning to visit the Wu Forest, accessing it via the cemetery just over the Bridge Street covered bridge.  We will be traveling there by bus each time and walking back to school at the end of the morning.  While we had a fantastic day today, the playground itself can be a bit distracting and our options for exploration are somewhat limited.  We are very excited to get into a forest setting.  Please let me know if you would like to join us for any of the sessions.

OUR FIRST DAY OF ECO IS TOMORROW!  You will notice a little tag attached to your child's backpack reminding you of this.  You can just leave it on the backpack and I will collect them tomorrow!  Please make sure your child comes fully prepared.  We expect to be outside from 8:00-11:00.  While it is forecasted to be fairly warm, it also may be wet (even without rain the ground is pretty damp early in the morning).  Rain pants, rain coat, and mud/puddle boots will be essential.  If you indicated you were missing items from the check list I sent home, I have extras for your child.  Also please make sure your child has  snack and a water bottle.  Something easy to carry and easy to eat outside is ideal.  If your child usually gets hot snack at school he can still plan to do so.  You will also notice a similar note in your child's purple folder.  Sorry to be redundant- I really want everyone to be prepared!  We have a very exciting morning planned.