Reflection Friday, October 24th ( but it's really Monday!)

Sorry for a late Friday reflection, I as the teacher, was super busy this week!  A new style report card for the first 9 weeks of Kindergarten about did me in...not gonna lie! Plus with planning my wedding....yes, you read correctly, my wedding, didn't make focusing on work any easier.  Don't worry! We still had lots of learning and fun...with even more fun planned for next week (The Candy Corn Bandit is coming....shhhhh).

Here's a great Math center I recently purchased.  Finding pictures, counting and graphing...kinda like an I-spy type activity.

Very cool.  We also played a new counting game called, "Where's my jack-o-lantern's teeth?".  

But after we played this game, the students were responsible for recording their results as well as from a game we played last week. 

We also were faced with a new challenge last week...INSIDE RECESS...yuck!  Not being able to get outside is one of the hardest parts of our day.  Here's some of our choices of things to do during this time:

And of course on Fridays, we have our DW3 time, which everyone loves.  I had to laugh,  most of the class decided to play school!  Really? School?  And they were choosing to write!  Of course when I want students to write, doesn't happen as I would like,  but if I give the class the option to do whatever they want, they choose writing...go figure??!!

And yes, as I mentioned before, I am getting married this Saturday.  When I return on Wednesday, November 5th, I'll officially be Mrs. Boudreaux (pronounced boo-drow...as in grow).  After being Miss Murphy for 17 years, I have mixed feelings about this name change!  We'll see how it goes....

Reflection Friday, October 17th

Another week in Kindergarten checked off our week...wow, what a doozie.  Great things happened in our classroom.  We read a Shared Reading story about pumpkins, wrote some pumpkin patch words we found around the classroom, played a pumpkin patch counting game and had a special visitor...Stonewall Jackson!  Make sure to keep reading to see our week in photos.

We did; however, have to take a few minutes on Thursday to review how to use our words when we want something or someone's attention and getting along with others.  One of the things we teach all day, every day is how to solve your own problems.  We have lots and lots of different strategies we teach the kids to use for different situations.  A favorite strategy of mine is social stories.  Social stories are simple stories explaining the exact behavior or tool you want a student to use in order to get what they want.  They're quick and easy to use!  Here's a link to some social stories if you feel like you could use them at home too.  It never hurts to prepare a child for expected behavior before a situation comes up.

http://www.thewatsoninstitute.org/teacher-resources2.jsp?pageId=2161392240601226415747290

Week of October 13th-17th

Happy Tuesday!  Thank you to all the parents who attended conferences yesterday.  What a busy evening!  Don't forget to check back Friday for our reflection of the week.

Miss Murphy’s Kindergarten Homework Sheet October 13th-17th Monday, October 13th: 1.     No School for students/ISE Day/Parent Teacher Conferences 3:00-6:00 2.     Tomorrow is our PE day, please dress accordingly. Tuesday, October 14th: 1.     Don’t forget to check out our blog.! http://murphyskindergarten.blogspot.com 2.     Please remember to put your child’s yellow reading log back in their folder after recording in it.  I checked the logs last week and didn’t have everyone’s for Mrs. Hill’s  monthly reading challenge. Wednesday, October 15th: 1.     Our second PE day is tomorrow (Thursday), please dress accordingly. 2.     If you haven’t already, please fill out and return with $3.00 the permission slip and medical form for our Honk! field trip next week. Thursday, October 16th: 1.     Your child brought home a baggie with books inside.  Please have your child read these books to you, pointing to all the words.  Record this in the yellow reading log. 2.     If you haven’t turned in your Halloween parade day information sheet, please do so. UPCOMONG DATES TO REMEMBER: Wednesday, October 22nd:  Honk! field trip to BHS Friday, October 24th:  1st nine weeks report cards go home Tuesday, October 28th:  Make-up picture day (Rawyn & Riley) Thursday, October 30th:  Halloween Parade/Party Friday, October 31st:  2 hour early dismissal

Reflection Friday, October 10th

Today is our student teacher's, Mrs. Roush, last day.  We've loved having her and we wish her the best of luck in her next placement in Mrs. Mewshaw's third grade.  Mrs. Roush has definitely taught and guided us into new things but I think our class might have taught her a few things or two as well :). 

We added new October books in our reading/book look area, continued logging into our classroom computers and working on Starfall and worked on some pretty nifty alphabet/beginning sound puzzles.  We put numbers in order from 0-10 and some students even had higher groups of numbers to order, such as a set from 30-40!!

Make sure to ask your child about their school day, everyday!  Click on the picture below to read a great list of 25 different ways to ask your child about their day at school.

Mrs. Roush’s Kindergarten Homework Sheet

October 6^th – October 10^th

Monday, October 6^th

1.   Since it’s fire safety week, talk to your child about a safe exit from your home.

2.  Tomorrow (Tuesday) is a PE day, please dress accordingly.

Tuesday, October 7^th

1.   Please practice sight words.

Wednesday, October 8^th

1.  Tomorrow (Thursday) is PE day, please dress accordingly.

2.  Please practice letter sounds with your child.

Thursday, October 9^th

1.  Your child brought home a baggie with books inside.  Please have your child read these books to you, pointing to all words.  Record this in the yellow reading log.

Reflection Friday, October 3rd

Another successful week in Kindergarten!  I have two special projects I want to brag about.  One of our sight words a few weeks ago was the word "can".  My student teacher and I incorporated it into our weekly writing project.  We brainstormed a list of animals and students were asked to pick their favorite.  Then Mrs. Payez worked with them in hand-painting their animals while Mrs. Roush worked on writing their "I can make a _______." sentences.  They turned out awesome, way better than I expected.  Here are a few snapshots...

 

Cute, right?

The second project I want to brag about was our WV T-shirt contest.  The kids were asked to design and create a WV T-shirt using the colors blue and yellow, the letters W &V and some kind of design.

On Thursday, a fourth grade class came downstairs and voted for their favorites based on the listed criteria.  Our winners were.....

3rd place:  Taylor Randolph

2nd place:  Paxton Pomeroy

1st place:  Patrick Aucremanne

 

(I think our winners really enjoyed the mini trophies.)

 

 

We had a lot of other great WV activities this week, including learning about our state symbols & WV shaped puzzles.  And of course, we had our different Reading and Math centers this week too.