Our First Days of Kindergarten!

The first three days of school were busy, exciting, and fun! I really enjoyed spending time with each kindergarten student. I love how the uniqueness of each child adds to the classroom--in just a short time I've learned about some of their interests, what they did over the summer, what they hope to learn this year and how they felt about coming to kindergarten. There are friendships budding and the foundation is being being laid for a strong sense of community. I am truly looking forward to a fantastic year with this kindergarten cohort. Here are some highlights of our first days together:

We enjoyed a school wide assembly where the CCS principals greeted us with some inspiring words to start off this school year.

We reviewed the school expectations: 1) Respect Yourself, 2) Respect Others, 3) Respect Property. We learned that the word 'respect' means to "take care of". Throughout the day, I was sure to point out examples of taking care of our classroom, each other and ourselves. We are well on our way to building a kind  and respectful classroom community!

Librarian Mrs. Heustis read one of my all time favorite books, The Carrot Seed. The lesson of the story was to try, try, and keep trying because you WILL succeed.

Eating lunch in the cafeteria was fun and successful! 

Lunch time is an opportunity to socialize with kindergarten friends from both classes.

All smiles, feeling proud of learning so many new routines in kindergarten.

The children enjoyed Explore. This is a free-choice block where children can move around various activities such as legos, the rice table, art/coloring, blocks, stackers, puzzles, the kitchen, books, etc.

Coloring station

Rice Table

Blocks

Kitchen

We read The Kissing Hand, by Audrey Penn. The children made many connections to the text regarding 'first day feelings'. We talked about how we can have a few emotions at once. For example, we may feel happy and nervous about something at the same time. After reading the book, we shared some of our first day feelings and made a Chester the raccoon to take home.

Proud student!

Hard at work.

Two friends working together to put away Explore materials. This is an example of taking care care of property, and taking care of each other :)

Every morning we read the "Morning Message". The message is rich with literacy--while fun and engaging for the children, they are also working on reading and writing skills. In this message each child was invited to find his/her name and circle it with a marker.

This is another morning message where the children found the missing first letter of their names (the "beginning" sound) and matched it with the rest of their name.

I have introduced some other important adults in our building. This is Mr. DiNicola (Planning Room Facilitator) and Mrs. Nelson (School Counselor). We joined as a kindergarten community to talk about cafeteria routines and playground safety.

We then proceeded out to the playground to learn about the kindergarten boundary, how to use the play structure safely and who to talk to if help is needed.