The many types of leaves...

Check out this great website! We kinders will be checking out all the different types of leaves -- many of which are changing into awesome colors!

There are also these amazing time lapsed videos of a leaf and a whole bunch of trees as they change over a short amount of time!

A big thanks to the University of Illinois and Virginia Tech for providing some great resources!

An interesting article for grown-ups

I was reading through some news and stumbled upon this article about kindergarten. It presented an interest argument. How prepared should our students be going into kindergarten? There are definitely new parameters as our students enter a new world of learning - a definite line where we aim to have them reading when they enter first grade. However, I believe (along with my team) that we must nurture the entire student -- not just the academic portion. We want to send to the next grade students who have skills in all areas: socially (sharing, caring), fine motor skills (cutting, handwriting, coloring, gluing), academically (reading, writing, arithmetic), and emotionally (creating an environment where they feel proud and capable, and love coming to).

So, check out the article! Let me know what you think!

Camping & Conferences & Fall! Oh, my!

What a week last week was! Our theme that surrounding our learning was based on camping. For our Smart Centers, we focused on developing our social skills (camping together), listening for position words (a poster made with shapes), learning camping vocabulary (working on a camping book), and working together (painting a mural).




It was a lot of work, but we worked it in between learning how count and identify our numbers (by 1's and by 10's), and calendar concepts (ask about our months of the year dance!). That is only a small amount of what we are learning in math. In reading, we are all going to one of three reading groups. These groups are based on our individual skill levels. The sight words we are working on are: I, a, my, the. The newest one coming up this week is: go.

Thanks to all the parents who came to parent/teacher conferences! It's great to share with you about your student's growth.

Now we move forward and will be looking at the wonderful season of fall! A look at the trees and changing leaves will be something we shall be exploring. Ms. Lo too the opportunity this weekend to drive the Peak to Peak here in Colorado. She was looking for the beautiful change of color in the leaves! Please feel free to make comments about what you are seeing as the fall season is upon us!

What do we know?

Wash your hands - Isaiah

Cough into your elbow! - Erisema

Germs get you sick! - Malachi

They fly around the air. - Charlie

Germs...

This week, we will be focusing on.... GERMS!! We are only three weeks in, but figure that we need a week to talk about and learn about germs! It is of utmost importance that our class stays as healthy as we can this season. We've already been working on the handwashing and will continue to do so. Stay tuned! More to come.

I will hopefully be more consistent with trying to keep up with photos. That way, you all can see some of the work we are doing. I will also work on uploading some photos of the work the kindergarteners have done.

**cough and sneeze into your sleeves!**

Apples...apples..

Ah...apples. We love apples! All this week, we've been reading about apples, writing about apples, and doing math that involves apples! It's also a great thing that our school is now a part of a 'wellness' plan. We are promoting healthy eating habits and a more healthy lifestyle for all of our students. Apples are a great way to provide a healthy snack. Here is a link to a video we will be watching in class that supports our findings about the cycle of apples.

Hi everyone. I have received almost every student's permission slip to participate in the blog! Just waiting for a few more. In the next couple of days I will hopefully be posting more pictures and posts about our days in kindergarten. I am hoping to be able to link up a wiki page for you all to access. It will be asking about your favorite types of apples! In the mean time, I have linked up the September newsletter - just in case it got lost on the way home. The newsletter is on Mrs. Ceretto's website. It will open if you have Microsoft Publisher. Feel free to follow this blog and make comments!