Cartographers and Calendars

Welcome to a new year!  We all had a wonderful first day of the 2013 school year.  To recognize the changing of years the class each created a journal entry highlighting some of the fun events we did in 2012.  Tomorrow we will create a list of what we would like to learn and accomplish in 2013.

We also enjoyed perusing some calendars today.  Everyone found their birthday using the 2013 calendars.  We also learned that some of us have birthdays on full moons.  We read a book about a wild toboggan ride and created a new poster in the classroom for "Words We Love."  Our first word is "swerve."  Then we acted out the word swerve.

In the afternoon I was assessing how many letter sounds the kids could identify.  I couldn't believe the growth these kids have made since early December.  Some of the sounds still giving our class trouble are the vowels, w, y, q and x.  You could practice these sounds in the car or at the dinner table.

Then to end the day we made a map of our classroom.  After I showed the class how I would make a mp of our classroom, several children decided to be CARTOGRAPHERS (map makers) and try their hand at mapping our room.

The next two months will be spent learning about our place in space, from the classroom, to the school, to the town, to the state, to the country, to the world, and then to the solar system.  As we go on this adventure we will also be talking about the weather and how it is different in different places.

We have the benefit of a student teacher in our class for the next 8 weeks.  Mrs. Keach will be working with our class.  She has already won over the kids.

Our January words of the month are:  at, do, no, on, am, and yes.  You can practice these at home by writing them in shaving cream, hiding the words around the house, or finding them in the books you read at home.

Now that snow is here, everyone should be coming to school with snow-pants, boots, hats, and mittens. I find the best way to handle all that gear is to get a REUSABLE Hannaford bag (the Hannaford bags are big enough to store all the gear).  Write your child's name on the Hannaford bag and then all the gear  can simply go in the bag back and forth to school, rather than trying to cram it all into a backpack.
There are about a million black snow-pants and boots kicking around the school.  PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE, write your child's name in all their boots, snow-pants, coats, hats and mittens.  This gear can be expensive to replace.  Labeled clothing has a better chance of making it to the correct child's home.

Remember, our classroom has a blog.  This newsletter and all the others go on our blog, as well as frequent updates about our days.  This can be a very useful resource for you and your child when it comes to talking about school.  The blog's address is: http://msroperskindergarten.blogspot.com/
You can sign up for the blog or choose to follow it by e-mail.  The e-mail option sends you a message whenever a new entry is posted.

We are off to a great start in this new year.  If you want to come visit or volunteer, let me know.  My number is 882-7585 or broper@svrsu.org.  Here's to a wonderful month of learning and fun!