Hi JK Families!
We have been learning all about the seasons, and finishing up some farm related things. We are also decorating our classroom for Halloween and continuing our conversation about how we improve our class community and act like leaders!
Social/Emotional:
We talked about worries after reading a wonderful book, Ruby Finds a Worry. The worry in the story becomes bigger and bigger until Ruby talks to another friend about it. She sees that he also has a worry. The worry shrinks and then disappears after sharing it with someone. We talked about our worries, and making mistakes, and how letting someone else know you are worried helps you feel better. Worries in JK might seem quite insignificant to a grown up, but to these children, their worries are, at times, enormous.
Literacy:
We began sign in's of our names using Handwriting Without Tears. We have been pretending to take orders during free play and sounding out words using inventive spelling. Our classroom and school library is full of fiction and non-fiction books to teach us about the seasons and the beautiful Autumn we are enjoying. Reading together and in small groups will be part of our activities all year. We use "witch" or "monster" fingers as we follow text from left to right and underline each word as we read. We letter and word hunt, and talk about the characters in the story and make predictions to increase comprehension.
Math & Science:
We are using manipulatives to practice the one to one correspondence, and to work through word problems/stories while adding or subtracting. We incorporate Math Expressions into our morning meeting by making comparisons and discussing more than, less than, higher and lower, etc.
Fine Motor:
The children all decorated barns and wrote words relating to our farm theme.
They are all working on using rollers to paint and are then decorating their Mini Me people to look like them. It's amazing how like the children they end up looking! We decorate the halls with these to welcome everyone to the EC Wing of Roycemore, so will be sure to take pictures so you will see how great they look.
As cold weather becomes part of our day, please be sure to practice zippers at home. We will help the students get their zippers started, and ask them to zip them the rest of the way. This builds their confidence that they can do it, and we work into all children zipping themselves completely. They should also practice putting on and taking off their boots. They will all be doing this by themselves each day a couple of times. The transformation is exciting as they are so proud when they are completely ready for outside without help. Be sure you send snow pants when the weather calls for it. Even if it's not snowing or snow on the ground, they will still wear snow pants because of the cold and wetness on the playground.
