November's Almost Here!

       Hi Everyone! I cannot believe that November is almost here! These past two months have flown by. It is so much fun to see how much the kids have already grown in kindergarten this fall. We have been working with our data notebooks, which are binders that each student has to keep track of their progress in kindergarten. It helps every student to see where they are in terms of being secure in our kindergarten standards. Right now, we are working really hard at learning our letter names and sounds, and reading, writing, and sequencing numbers 0-31. A progress report will be coming home soon for you to see exactly where your child is at this point of the year in kindergarten and how that compares to where he/she should be. Along with that, we will be sending home some ideas for you to do to promote learning at home. 

     Last week, we had the Stroll for a Goal, and it was a huge success! Our Sibley kids raised over $21, 000 dollars, which is $5,000 more than last year! WOW! We had such a fun day going on our walk. Some of the kids even got to jump on the bungee trampolines. You will find fun pictures below!

      Our fall party is on Thursday, October 31st, in our classroom. If your child chooses to bring a costume, we will be changing into them after lunch and changing out of them immediately after the party. Please choose costumes carefully! We do not allow scary costumes, any costumes that depict violent or evil characters or weapons of any sort. Please try to choose a costume that your child is able to put on by him/herself since we have limited adult help. The best are costumes they can put over their regular clothes. Also, please label any small pieces so that they come home safely. I apologize for all the reminders, but it sure is nice to have your help to make our fun day go as smoothly as possible. 

COLOR

WEEK!

       Starting this Friday and into next week, we will be working on color words. If your child wants to dress to match the colors of the day, you can find the schedule here:

Friday, Nov. 1  – Red & Blue

Monday, Nov. 4 –  Yellow & Purple

Tuesday, Nov. 5 – Green & Pink

Wednesday, Nov. 6 – Brown & Orange

Thursday, Nov 7  – Black & White

Friday, Nov 8  –  NO SCHOOL

Lost and Found

     Our lost and found binds (located in front of the office) are very full. We will be cleaning them out next week and donating and unclaimed items to the Salvations Army. If your child is missing anything, please have him/her take a look by the end of the week. Otherwise, feel free to stop in sometime and look through them to see if anything looks familiar. 

We Love Learning!

      We have had a great first month in kindergarten! It has been so much fun getting to know all of these kindergarteners and watching friendships blossom in our classroom family. 

      Our day is jam packed with routines and procedures that make sure everything we do runs smoothly. It's amazing to see how independent and responsible the kids are becoming as they internalize those routines and our classroom rules.

      Did you know that the kindergarteners have a wiki where you can find resources like activities and games for you to do at home? Please check the wiki out! It's easy to get to, and we will continue to add resources for you to use at home. You can find it on the home page on my blog. 

http://sibleykindergarten.wikispaces.com 

                                              

        Recently, you found an envelope with information about our school's Stroll for a Goal fundraiser.  We are asking you to help us raise money for our school in order to fund things like field trips, special assemblies, class parties, movie nights, etc. 

        This will be the second year that our school has used this type of event for fundraising and we are extremely excited to do it again.  As a school, we will be having a walk-a-thon and are asking your and your child to ask people to sponsor them for the walk.  Older students will be walking 3 miles, but kindergarteners will be walking a shortened path. 

        In your child's packet, you will find an information letter about the fundraiser, a list of the prizes and a green permission form.  Please return the permission forms ASAP. Also, turn in your fundraising envelope and funds by October 11th.  The walk itself will be on October 15th. 

         You will notice that one of the prizes is for the classroom with the best theme.  Our class has decided that our dress up theme will be "When I Grow Up."  Sssshhhhh....it is a secret.  Be thinking about how to help your child dress for the job they wish to have when they grow up.  We had a conversation about how, unfortunately, none of us will be superheroes like Superman when we grow up because they have super powers.  That would be a great Halloween costume, but we want to dress as something we could really be when we grow up.  Your child will be wearing their costume the entire day and walking in it, so think about something that isn't distracting or fussy. 

       Thank you for supporting our school and all of the wondrful things that these funds will provide for our students! 

 

     I took many pictures the last couple of weeks to show some of the things that we do throughout our day. Most of the pictures below show some of the activities that we have been doing in math to practice identifying and writing numbers and counting. Along with those things, the kids got to use white board tools, dice, unifix cubes, and spiders (for spider week). We also compared numbers and identified numbers that are more or less by using two different colored unifix cubes.

     On Thursday, we had some awesome visitors come to room 206: the firefighters! They taught us some important things to remember when it comes to fires and ways we can stay safe. One of the most important things that the firefighters wanted the kids to remember was that firefighters are not scary; they are there to do their job and help people.

       We have been learning about journal writing as part of our writer's workshop with the new Benchmark curriculum that is being used across the district. Each student has a journal that he/she writes in every day. We have been working on brainstorming a topic, "turning and talking" to a partner about those topics, writing our names and the date, and creating an illustration that matches the words that we choose to write. It is important that our picture tells the story along with our words. Right now, we use lines to symbolize the words, with finger spaces separating each word. We are also working on adding some letters, as we have been learning the letters and their sounds during Phonics. The pictures below show students sharing their writing with their "turn and talk" partners during writer's workshop.