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.

It was so nice to see most of you at Open House on Tuesday evening.   The children were very excited about sharing the classroom you!

Today we visited the computer lab for the second time.  Last week children were given an introduction and an opportunity to explore the computers.  This week we challenged them to draw a butterfly and two things it would need to survive.  They did a fantastic job with some pretty amazing pictures.  These will go into their science notebooks, but feel free to have your child share his or hers anytime.  As we continue our study of living and non-living things we have begun talking about the difference between plants and animals.  Yesterday we planted corn seeds and we will be carefully observing these during the next few weeks.


Children were introduced to the letter sounds and formations for m and n this week.  We have spent lots of time practicing the formations, writing letters in the air, on paper, and on white boards.  We have also been working really hard on proper pencil/ marker grip, by pinching with our first two fingers and letting the writing tool rest on our third finger.

Our first day of ECO is next Wednesday from 8:00-11:00.  We will stay near the school for the first few sessions.  We have a very exciting day planned!   I will put reminder tags on your child's backpack next Tuesday so everyone can come prepared- we have noticed that it has been a little chilly and wet when we go out for our morning recess.

We have been spending lots and lots of time talking about treating each other respectfully, being good friends, including others, and branching out to classmates we may not know all that well.  In an effort to mix up the group, each day during snack children choose a labeled craft stick and match it to a table to determine their snack seat for the day.  We began the year with dots 1-5 and have just switched to sight words.  This creates a random mix at each table every day and ensures that nobody is left out during snack.  We have also started doing some partner work and games.  Today the class worked in pairs to find groups of objects outside.  Each partnership had a hoola-hoop to place their objects in with number labels.  Everyone seemed to enjoy this and all of the pairs worked really well together.  Some of the things collected were rocks, sticks, leaves, pine needles, burdocks, milkweed pods, ants!, trucks, and pieces of mulch.

In an effort to help kindergarteners get to know other children in the school, each Friday we have been meeting with 3rd grade learning partners from Mrs. Hale's class.  Thus far we have done a scavenger hunt, read together, and worked on a caterpillar/butterfly project.  We will continue meeting every Friday throughout the year,  changing partners periodically.

We survived our first rainy day with no outside time and actually had a very productive work day, with lots of free choice filtered in between.  Today in your child's folder there is a bit of information about the Fundations program, including the letter formations we will use when learning lower case letters.  So far we have worked on the letters t, b, and f, and we will cover approximately two letters each week until we have completed the alphabet.

This week we have also spent a lot of time talking about respect and the importance of making the classroom a place where all classmates feel welcome and comfortable.  I challenged everyone in the class to do something that might make a classmate feel particularly welcome or included and I encouraged them to do this for someone who they don't know very well or  play with typically.  There has been a flurry of interest in board games the last couple of weeks, which is a great avenue for children to get to know different classmates.

Open House is next Tuesday, September 25th from 5:30-6:30 p.m.

We have had a very exciting and productive couple of days.  During stations yesterday and today everyone had the chance to use the Smart Board, our interactive white board. We worked on building combinations of numbers to make 5, and everyone had a chance to use their finger to write some numbers on the board as well.  We also began the Fundations program, which will focus on letter sounds and formation for the next few months.  We worked on lower case t's.  I will send more information about this in your child's folder in the next few days.

Most exciting was our first butterfly, which emerged around 10:00 on Wednesday morning.  We had a great discussion about what that butterfly would need to survive, noting that we would need to let it go so it could have space.We watched it's wings expand and dry for several hours before releasing it in the garden.

Today we worked on illustrating one hope or dream for the school year- something each child would like to learn or work on at school.   Children shared these with the class and I will keep them in mind as I continue planning throughout the year.  They will also serve as a springboard for a class discussion about rules and general ways of being in the classroom.  To accomplish all of our hopes and dreams our classroom will need to be a place where everyone can enjoy doing things that matter to him or her.

We have continued to watch our caterpillars as they grow and change.  We now have 4 chrysalids, 1 caterpillar that will surely be a chrysalis by tomorrow morning, and 3 little caterpillars busily eating and growing.  The caterpillars have helped us begin discussions about living and non-living things.

Thank you to everyone who turned in the checklists for the ECO program.  If you haven't turned one in  for your child it would be great if you could do so by the end of the week so I can gather any extra clothing we might need.