We Are Readers!

We have been working hard in Reader's Workshop.  Students have loved reading nonfiction books and have learned how much more they can learn when they reread a book.  We are also retelling our books to partners and starting to make connections to our own lives or other books we have read.  We will be moving on to story books soon and seeing how great it is to reread the same book more than once.

Fire Safety

We were so lucky to have the Stratham Fire Department come to SMS this morning to teach us fire safety at four different stations.  Students learned about the fire fighter's equipment, creating a plan with their families, how to "stop, drop, and roll",  and how to check doors to see if it is safe to escape.  We also met Sparky.

Planting Daffodils

Today the kindergarten classes helped plant daffodils in the SMS garden.  We also took a tour around the garden and saw everything in it.

Students found some great leaves on the ground.

Open Circle

This year our class is piloting the Open Circle Curriculum, a comprehensive social and emotional learning program that support children in developing the skills they need to be successful learners and build positive relationships. Twice each week, the class will meet in a circle for about 15 minutes. Lesson topics will include listening well, including one another, cooperating, understanding feelings, teasing, recognizing differences among people, getting calm, problem solving, positive self-talk, and more. The goals of the lessons are to create a safe, caring and highly engaging classroom environment and to give children the skills they need to succeed academically, solve interpersonal problems and build positive relationships. We will begin these official "talks" this week. I'll let you know what skills we are working on in my email for the end of the week wrap up. This week will only be an introduction on how the group will come together and how we must take turns talking.

Pictures From Our Week

We have continued to enjoy the playground so much!

We learned a new math game called Turtle Walk.  It is also the math game in the "Butterfly of the Day" bag so students can play with their families when they are it.  

Fun times during Choice Time!

Students have had so much fun building with Magna-Tiles.  It has been great to see so much collaboration on different projects.

Our Classroom Rules

Last week we worked together to create our rules for our classroom.  The students came up with the following rules:

• Be safe
• Be kind
• Take care of materials 
• Listen to others and wait your turns

We read the book What if Everybody Did That? after we created the rules and used the book as a reminder for why we have rules.  We thought of how people might break the rules and asked "What if everybody did that?

Examples: 

• Shouting out when you have an idea could get really loud if everyone did it. 
• Rushing to be first in line could be unsafe if everyone did it because people would get pushed.

Here is a recording I found of the book if your child would like to listen to it again.

Pictures from our Week

We have been so busy this week.  Students have been reading lots of good books and talking about them with friends.

We have been playing different board games to learn the rules.  Cooties is one of our favorites and we are using a dice to match to the numbers on the board.  

During Choice Time in the afternoon there have been many things built in our block and Lego area.  They are always popular areas.

We had the word "a" as our first Snap Word (sight word) and students worked on reading and coloring the book Little Apple.  I hope they all see themselves as readers.  When some of the students said they weren't readers I reminded them of all the things they can read like signs for Target, Shaws, Walmart, and McDonalds.