DIBELS

 Hope you all had a great weekend!  Happy Monday! 

 Alyssa's Cool Cups!

Scholastic Book Orders

Today in folders, be on the lookout for the first Scholastic Book Order. To place an order you may fill out the order form that comes home, or use our online code that is on the top of the order form.  There is NEVER any pressure to order!  Only if you want to!  This is a great opportunity to help your child's home library grow by providing wonderful books at a reasonable cost.  Book orders will be in your child's green folder and will be due Friday, September 18.

Specials Schedule

Monday--Library

Tuesday--PE (wear tennis shoes!)

Wednesday--Computers

Thursday--Art

Friday--Music

Library Card Drive

THESE APPLICATIONS ARE IN FOLDERS TODAY!Please read below from the Johnson County Public Library:

It's almost time to start our next round of the Library Card Application Drive. Once again, we'll be delivering card applications to students during the month of September. This year, the drive is only for kindergarteners. They'll take home the apps, bring the completed forms back to the teacher, and then we'll mail them directly to the student to cut down on the potential of the cards getting lost in backpacks on the way home. All children who respond to this drive will be issued a library card and if they already have a card with fines on it, they'll be given a fresh start. Our goal is 100% of kindergarteners with library cards!

I will be dropping off library card applications to send home with the students on Monday, August 31st. I will return on September 25th to pick up any completed applications.

From October 1st to December 31st we will be running a new program called Library Stars. Kindergarteners with library cards will earn incentives for coming to the library three times during the program - stickers for their library cards, sparkly pencils, their name on our Wall of Stars, and a special Library Stars book back. Our hope is that we can encourage families to become regular library users.

DIBELS

After reading the title of today's post, you may be thinking, "Huh?"  :)  A couple weeks ago we began DIBELS testing.  These tests are administered by Mrs. McCullough, our wonderful Literacy Coach/Title One teacher and her assistants.  DIBELS simply means Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early LiteracySkills.  Translation?  How well does your child know letter names and sounds and picture/sound association? 

These tests give me a really good indicator of what your child is ready for and help me guide instruction to meet YOUR child's needs. The results are being sent home in folders today. And of course, please ask any questions about the test or results!  

Have a great week!

Fabulous Friday! :)

Caiden's Crunchy Castle!

Telephone Book Project
Thanks to everyone who sent back the telephone book project permission slip!  I am still missing a couple.  If you have not sent this in, please do so Monday or Tuesday so I can have time to get the book pages ready for this math project on Wednesday.

Math

Here are the concepts that we have been working on in math over the past couple of weeks.  

 Sorting and counting buttons in math today!

• Explore measurement by comparing lengths
• Identify and describe shapes by exploring pattern blocks
• Understand the concept of "one-to-one" correspondence to count objects
• Count backwards by ones and understand "zero" is the number for "none"
• Represent numbers in various ways
• Find ways to sort objects using a variety of attributes
• Experiment and compare volumes
• Construct a bar graph
• Create and extend patterns with motion and sounds
• Create and extend color patterns/Describe patterns
• Sort coins according to various attributes and count the number of categories
• Count numbers and ordinal numbers in sequence
• Compare heights of objects

Next week we will be doing a lesson that requires the children to know their address.  We will be doing this on Thursday.  Please work with your child on your address over the next week so that he/she may tell me when asked.  Children will only need to know the house number and street for this lesson, but it is a great idea to also practice city, state, and zip code as well!

BINGO for Books

Come on out to Creekside on Wednesday, Sept 2 for BINGO for Books!  This FUN event is FREE for Creekside families!  Come enjoy FREE pizza and drinks from 5:30-6:00 and play BINGO from 6:00-7:00.  Each child will receive a FREE book during the event.  Did I mention it's FREE?  :)

Scholastic Book Orders

On Monday, be on the lookout for the first Scholastic Book Order. To place an order you may fill out the order form that comes home, or use our online code that is on the top of the order form.  There is NEVER any pressure to order!  Only if you want to!  This is a great opportunity to help your child's home library grow by providing wonderful books at a reasonable cost.  Book orders will be in your child's green folder and will be due Friday, September 18.

Writer's Workshop 

For the past couple of weeks, we have been working on our Superkid of the Day project during writing time!  Each day I pick a name, we spell the name in lots of ways (ask your child what their favorite way is!  For some reason, most of them like SHOUTING the letters the best! I can't imagine why.... ;) )  If your child has been the Superkid of the day, they should have brought their book home where each child wrote their name and drew a picture of them.  If you haven't seen this yet, stay tuned!  We should finish this project up next week.  This was a great way to introduce writing time, and labeling pictures!

Specials Schedule

Monday--Library

Tuesday--PE (wear tennis shoes!)

Wednesday--Computers

Thursday--Art

Friday--Music

Have a great weekend!  See you Monday!

Terrific Tuesday!

Connor's Crunchy Castle!

Art Club

Kindergarten students have the opportunity to join Art Club this year!  If you are interested in this possibility, please let me know by Thursday so I can let Mrs. Garrett know so she can send permission slips home.  Permission slips are due on Friday!

Superkids

Our class met a new Superkid yesterday!  Oswald is the newest addition to our Superkid community!  Can you guess what letter and sound we are working on next!?  :)  Here are some questions you can ask your child tonight (or anytime) to prompt discussion:

• What is the name of the Superkid you met? Oswald 
• What is the sound at the beginning of Oswald's name? /o/
• What letter makes the sound /o/? O
• What are some other things that begin with the sound /o/?  The children will probably name things from Oswald's room...octopus, ostrich, odd animal, etc.    

We did very briefly talk about the letter O making 2 sounds, the other being the sound at the beginning of "ocean," but our reading series stresses the short vowel sounds for now, and gets into the long vowel sounds later in the year.

Math

This week in math we are working on the following skills:

*Number of the day

*Color patterns

*Sorting coins

*Giving the next number in a series

*Comparing heights

*Counting using 10 frames

Have a great week!

Captions and library cards

Name Tags
Thanks for sending students in name tags the first couple days!  It really helps everyone in the building get to know the new group of Kindergarteners!  We are pretty much done with that now, so you can keep these name tags at home.

Superkids
Yesterday we read a silly story about a crocodile that came over to Cass's house for dinner.  We drew pictures of our favorite parts of the story, and I wrote the caption for their pictures. We talked about the terms characters and setting, and that because there weren't any pictures in the story, they would have to use their imaginations to come up with what they thought the characters looked like. 

 Today we had our first SuperSmart lesson!  This lesson at the end of every unit is a non-fiction story that I show from my computer and has lots of info, sounds, and animations!  The class loved it!  We then made mini books to show what we have learned.  Ask your child tonight to show you their book and describe how a pea plant grows!  Monday we will meet our new Superkid!  But I'm going to let it be a surprise on who it is!  Stay tuned! :)

Specials Schedule
Monday--Library
Tuesday--PE
Wednesday--Computers
Thursday--Art
Friday--Music

Lunch Choices
When the children come into the room each morning, they have 5 morning routines to follow (Hang up back pack, turn in green folder, sign up for lunch, answer the attendance question, and sit down and begin their table task).  When the kiddos sign up for lunch, they have to put their clip on the designated side of the basket, based on what lunch they are having (Choice 1, Choice 2, or Lunchbox).  Since they are all still new at this, I have been reading the lunch choices to each of them as they come over to the lunch basket.  As you can imagine, that takes up a lot of time and it's hard for me to help children with other needs when I have to stand by the lunch baskey and keep repeating myself.  This is where YOU come in.  Please be sure that you talk with your child each morning before school so that he/she knows what lunch choice to sign up for.  This will help save A LOT of time and more importantly, will help your child be independent in the mornings.  You can access the lunch menu by clicking on the CREEKSIDE link at the top of the blog, or you can print it from Dr. Heiden's Chronicle each month.  Thanks for your help with this.  

Green Folders
We haven't had any issues with this, but just as a friendly reminder. :) On days you have lunch money, an office form, a transportation note, or anything extra to add to the folder, please put those ON TOP of the homework sheet.  As the children are working on their table tasks in the mornings, I quickly look through folders for these types of items so that they can be sent down to the office first thing.  I may not grade the homework sheet until later in the day, so those things may be missed if they are hiding behind it.

Library Card Drive
Please read below from the Johnson County Public Library:

It's almost time to start our next round of the Library Card Application Drive. Once again, we'll be delivering card applications to students during the month of September. This year, the drive is only for kindergarteners. They'll take home the apps, bring the completed forms back to the teacher, and then we'll mail them directly to the student to cut down on the potential of the cards getting lost in backpacks on the way home. All children who respond to this drive will be issued a library card and if they already have a card with fines on it, they'll be given a fresh start. Our goal is 100% of kindergarteners with library cards!

I will be dropping off library card applications to send home with the students on Monday, August 31st. I will return on September 11th to pick up completed applications and then again on September 25th to pick up any remaining completed applications.

From October 1st to December 31st we will be running a new program called Library Stars. Kindergarteners with library cards will earn incentives for coming to the library three times during the program - stickers for their library cards, sparkly pencils, their name on our Wall of Stars, and a special Library Stars book back. Our hope is that we can encourage families to become regular library users.

Math

This week in math we constructed a birthday graph and answered questions about it, learned about the term volume, sorted by shape, color, and size, and created and extended sound and motion patterns.  We did that today, and they had a ball creating their own!  

Have a great weekend!  See you Monday!

Have you made a recipe from Cass's Cookbook yet at home?  Here is Grace making the Cool Cups!  Have fun and don't forget to send me your pictures when you make something! :)

Literacy Centers and more!

Happy Hump Day! :)

Literacy Centers
By now, we have learned most of the literacy centers that the boys and girls will do during the 9-9:45 block of time in the morning.  These centers include computers, reading nook, writing center, pocket chart, handwriting, puzzles, and word work.  Sometimes there will be a "must do" practice paper that they will complete first before they do their activity, and sometimes they will go straight to the activity.  Today they started working on their centers independently, and I walked around and helped where needed.  Eventually I will use this time to pull students to work on things and/or pull reading groups to practice reading the Superkids books fluently.

Superkids
Speaking of Superkids, today we finished our Cass workbooks!  Look for those to come home tomorrow with all the extra Cass pages we have finished as well as a letter that describes all the activities.  Please look through those work folders, and then you can keep everything for Cass at home.  

Cass Cookbook
Today during Superkids time, we made our own Cass Cookbooks with 3 recipes inside!  The boys and girls were very excited about trying out these recipes at home!  When you try one out, feel free to take your child's picture and email it to me!  I'd love to see it, and include it on the blog!  Have fun!

Math
This week in math we have been working on the following:
*Number of the day
*Comparing lengths
*Naming shapes
*Sorting objects by size, shape, and color
*Comparing volumes

Homework
Don't forget on Tuesdays when we have the student book to read (Cass last night) that you get to keep the book at home, but please do return the worksheet to school on Wednesdays so I can look at it!  Thanks!

Specials Schedule
Monday--Library
Tuesday--PE (wear or bring tennis shoes!)
Wednesday--Computer
Thursday--Art
Friday--Music

Have a great day!!

TGIF!

It's been a great first full week of school!  Read below for some more important info!

Learning Objectives

Each of our 4 core subjects will have a learning objective to go along with the lesson.  This tells the children what they will be learning.  Often, they will learn more than one thing during Reading, Language (those are both Superkids) and Math, but we will just recite one.  At the beginning of each lesson, I point out, read, and explain the objective.  The children then read it with me.  Many times they will learn new vocabulary during my explanation of the objective.  For example, yesterday they learned what it means to "identify."  As the boys and girls get more and more used to the objectives, you can start asking your child to tell you what they were each day.  Don't expect them to remember all 4.  Maybe just one or two.  Here is a picture of today's learning objectives board:

Powerschool Parent Portal
Today your child is bringing home information on how you can access his her account to check attendance and grades.  Keep in mind that because Kindergarten grades are figured by one-on-one assessments and not daily classroom work or homework, you will most likely not see any grades in there until midterm or report card time.  If you do see your child has an I, N, or U in something at midterm time, rest assured that skill will be reassessed again before report cards are printed at the end of the 9 week grading period.  

Superkids Parent Portal

I have seen that many of you have completed the Superkids parent portal account set-up for your children!  That is GREAT!!  As we do more activities, and meet more Superkids, your child will have more books and games open to play at home.   I hope you will let them get on the website at home and have fun!  If you don't already have an account set up, please do so.  You should have gotten an email from Superkids yesterday.  If you need me to resend the email with instructions on how to finish the set-up, please let me know.

Bucketfilling

Creekside is a Bucket Filling school, and on Monday I read a book to the children about how to become Bucket Fillers!  Our school counselor, Mrs. Vidal also came Monday to talk more with our class on the importance of filling buckets.  Be on the lookout for more information on how we will be filling our classroom bucket as well as the Kindergarten bucket in the hallway near the office.  Bucket Filling is a concept taught through the book Have You FIlled a Bucket Today? by Carol McCloud.  It teaches up that everyone has an invisible bucket that holds our good feelings and good thoughts about ourselves.  When our bucket is full we feel happy and when our bucket is empty we feel sad. 

Car Rider Reminders

1) Students MUST exit and enter vehicles on the sidewalk side. This is for their safety as we have buses and vans coming down the other lane.

2) Students should be getting in and out of the vehicle independently without parent assistance. 

3) Parents help remind student to always WALK to the door and stay close to the grass NOT the cars.

4) Reminder that Parents need to use the main entrance crosswalk when entering/exiting the building during arrival and dismissal times.

Superkids
Tuesday we met our first Superkid!  The children each have their own book that they will work in daily during our Superkids lessons.  You will get to see all of their work once we finish this first unit, which will be sometime next week.  Here are some questions you can ask your child to prompt discussion at home tonight:

• What is the name of the Superkid you met? (Cass)
• What sound is at the beginning of Cass's name? (/k/) (read as the sound, not the letter "k")
• What letter makes the sound /k/? (C)
• What are some other things that begin with the sound /k/?  (Answers will vary.  Some of your children may try to say "casserole concoction" because Cass made this in the book).
  

Have a great weekend!  See you Monday!

Happy first Monday of the school year!!

Welcome to my first blog post of the school year!  A goal of mine for this blog is that it is a "one-stop shop" for a resource at home.  Along the top of the blog, you can find links for Creekside's webpage, Creekside's Facebook page (be sure to "like" if you haven't already!), My First Toolbox, which has links inside to all of the websites that we use here at school, and the Classroom Calendar, where you will see upcoming events and dates at Creekside and/or in our classroom..  Along the right side you can find links to Superkids Online, Scholastic Book Orders, and our Kindergarten Standards (what we will be teaching this year in a nutshell).  

Superkids
Tomorrow, we will start our Superkids and Everyday math curriculum.  We will meet our first new Superkid!  As you talk with your child about what they learned during Superkids, here are some questions to prompt discussion:

• What is the name of the new Superkid character? 

• What sound does the Superkids name begin with? 

• What letter makes the sound /k/?  

• At this point in the year, we are only talking about each letter making ONE sound so as not to confuse the children.  

Book Rental

Don't forget about textbook rental.  Kindergarten is $73.  You can send a check in or pay in the office.  

Class Work

You will start seeing more papers in folders and bookbags at the end of each day.  Anything that can stay at home will go in book bags or in the "leave at home" side of their folder. Anything you need to see, sign, and/or send back in to school will still be in folders.  Please clean book bags/folders out regularly and keep those papers at home.

Snack Calendar

The August snack calendar is in folders to come home today.  Please keep it in a safe place so you know when it is your turn to send a snack in.  If your child's name is not on the calendar, you are off duty this month!  When sending snacks in, you don't have to send it something everyday, just one time sometime that week will be fine.

Everyday Math Book

Today your child is bringing home their first Everyday Math home book.  This small book is for you to keep at home.  The activities in the book are great games to play and ideas for practicing math at home.  All the activities are what we are working on in class as well.  Your child will bring home a new book at the beginning of each 9 weeks.  

Breakfast

Your child does have the option to eat breakfast at school.  Let me know if you would like this to be a regular thing for them, if you haven't already, and a will make sure they get off the bus and go to the cafeteria.  If they want to eat only occasionally as well, that is okay too.

Specials Schedule:
We got it worked out that Kindergarten (because of having 5 sections) will have the same special everyday of the week. Here is our new schedule:

Monday--Library
Tuesday--PE
Wednesday--Computers/Superkids
Thursday--Art
Friday--Music

Nurse info:
I don't think this will apply to anyone in our classroom, but please read below from Mrs. Robbins:

Students who brush their teeth after lunch are no longer allowed to come to the clinic to do so.  The reason is the HIPA (Health Information Privacy Act)and the confidentiality that is needed in the clinic.  For now students must brush their teeth in the primary or intermediate restrooms.  If you have a blog for your parents, you may want to pass this on.  Thanks!

Homework

Today your child is bringing home his/her FIRST homework sheet.  Please read over the directions for language and math everyday to your child.  Make sure that you watch as your child writes his/her name, and please use the Superkids handwriting guide that is coming home in the folders today as well. You will want to keep this guide in a safe place that your child can access as we learn to write letters.  As a rule on homework, please DO NOT tell your child the answers.  If you notice an incorrect answer, talk about it, and allow your child to correct the paper.  Homework should not take longer than 10-15 minutes, especially at the beginning of the year.  The homework sheet should come back to school everyday on the right side of the folder.  If you have any questions, please let me know.  

Activity Time

Last week and this week during activity time, the boys and girls learned which groups they will be in, and were able to play at 3 of the 5 areas in our classroom (blocks, Legos, easels, loft, and puppets).  This week, we are adding one more center in, so they will have 3 choices by the end of the week (2 centers and snack).  They also use this time to eat their snack....although some children learned fast that they may want to eat their snack first, as to not run out of time and miss it before the clean-up bell rings.  The groups will rotate each day of the week.  Check out our pictures below from the first few days of center time!

Whew!  That was a lot of information!  Thanks for reading all the way to the end! Don't worry--not all of the posts will be this long! :)  Have a great day!