Walk-a-thon!

Thank you, Belmont families, for helping to raise money for the PTO!  That money will be used for students, classroom learning materials, and school events.  You raised over $8,000!! Yay!! Here are some pictures from our great morning.

Syllables!

We introduced syllables today! We had fun clapping names-- we even got to clap a few names twice (once for their birth name, and once for their nickname!). You can see a couple names that are in the wrong column-- for example, we call Briseis "Brie", and we chose to graph "Brie" instead of Briseis.  The idea was student driven! 

Syllables help us with stretching our words into sound spelling-- when you break up the word into syllables, it's easier to hear more sounds in a word!  Be ready for your child to start clapping every word you say!  ;) 

We made applesauce!

Enjoy some photos of our fun filled morning!  Thank you to all who donated apples!

We made observations about our apples: 

Then we got down to business:

We cooked the apples in a crock pot all morning and part of the afternoon with cinnamon (no sugar needed!), stirred, and smashed the apples into sauce.  Try it for yourself!  Yum!

Who Stole the Cookies?

Our class has done such a nice job at learning routines and building words, so I wanted to reward them with a small treat-- a yummy (dairy free!) cookie! But... When I got to word work time, I noticed that they were gone... Someone stole my cookies!  We went through the entire class list with a poem:

But I quickly learned my munchkins didn't take the cookies.  Miss Butterfly came out to help us learn our new word wall words (to, you) and she shared a secret-- she took the cookies and hid them!  We searched the classroom high and low...

This sweetie pie found them!  YUM!

Cementing routines!

We are continuing along! Take a look at some of the anchor charts we made!  We are learning the three ways to read a book:

And cementing new Word Work routines. Yesterday, we made a Pete the Cat book and buttered our popcorn words.  Today, we painted our words!

We even added 2 words to our word wall-- THE and I!

We've also practiced our social contract over and over. The class even got a classroom job and started earning Beach Bucks!  Yay!

We also practiced sitting knee to knee and eye to eye with a partner, talking about things we know and thigs we can do-- look at the chart we started!  Adding more and more this whole week!

Here are some pictures to help spark more conversation:

Our first week!

What a fun filled first week of school! Please show your child some of the pictures to help spark conversation!  Enjoy! 

We wrote our Social Contract on Friday.  We talked about how we had to be SAFE, RESPONSIBLE, and RESPECTFUL.  Here are some students showing us how to be safe-- we walk in the classroom!  The Social Contract will be reviewed over and over again... More pictures to come!

The First Day

We made it! Another first day in the books, and all of the munchkins did so well.  I am a very proud teacher!

Today, we learned about routines: making lunch choices, putting away our belongings, and how/when to listen to the teacher.

We took a tour of the school, went to music class, and played on the playground (some people even chose to take their stuffies with them!!)

We learned how to take care of our toys, and how to rotate through centers.

Here is our first Anchor Chart to guide our practice-- pictures to come tomorrow!  Look at how well we played :) 

After lunch, we had some quiet time.  Some chose to read books, others wanted to relax :).  For now, that's ok!  This time will slowly transition into "read to self" literacy block.

We even played a math game-- we had to find a friend with the same length of paper as our own.  We learned to "touch the ends" to compare!

We ended the day with indoor recess.  The class was tired, so I popped in a short LeapFrog video-- the Letter Factory! You can find it on Netflix!