Family Traditions

Hello Families!
Please consider posting a "comment" below to tell us about a family tradition! It can be something simple about this time of year, or anything else! This is a great way for the kids to be more connected to the blog- you could post together and then we will get on as a class to read and talk about different traditions in different families.

Simply click on the "comments" link below, and type in your comment in the "Leave your comment" box. Then under "Choose an identity" click on Name/URL, and type your name. Lastly, click the orange box that says "Post your comment".

Thanks so much for your contributions!

Officer Tom Nash!

Isabella's dad Tom came in today and shared with us about his job as a police officer. He also talked to the kids about being safe around strangers and online. The kids had many questions and were really interested in everything he had to say! After we got through all their questions, they got to get inside the police car and turn on the lights, and even try out the backseat! At choice time in the afternoon they played "cops" and used the links and blocks to make holsters and lots of gear for themselves. Many of them would like to be "police" when they grow up after today :)

Thanks Tom!

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Fire Station

We had a GREAT trip to the fire station. I was so worried about the rain but the kids assured me they had hoods and didn't care so we went for it and it ended up not raining! When we got there all the firefighters and trucks were at a fire at the Residence Inn, so we started with a tour and then got to see the trucks and ambulances come back in from the call and get washed- it was really neat for the kids!

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Classroom update

We have been very busy the last couple weeks in the classroom with our new study of community and plugging away with literacy and math learning in the classroom. I have really enjoyed seeing many of you these last couple weeks for parent/teacher conferences and look forward to seeing those of you I haven't met with yet!

I hope to get a few pictures up soon, but wanted to update you about some of the things we're doing in the classroom! We have made a "community wall" where the children created/drew many things that belong in a community, and we labeled them with typed words. This is a great way to promote reading skills and connect it to the theme we are working on. We have also been working hard in writer's workshop to write "All About" Books, where we choose someone we know all about, and write at least three things we know about them. Not surprising for kindergarten, many childrens' first all about books have been about themselves :)
We have also been learning about ten frames and tallies in math, and any chance we get we are practicing counting orally forwards and backwards, flashing numbers with our fingers and recognizing written numbers by playing bingo!
In tech lab the children have learned two new programs in the last couple weeks. Type to Learn Jr where they practice keyboarding skills, and Starfall which is a website that has many literacy activities (www.starfall.com). We have focused on the ABC activities where they get to watch a little interactive video about a letter. They love it and they could even do it at home!