Week Six!

Blokus is a good mind-stretching game!  Right now, we are not "playing the game".   For a bit, we will explore the colors and designs of the game pieces.

We use counting and number recognition skills to
match these Chicka Boom cards.

At this math station, the children rolled the 
dot/number cubes to find matching number stars.
They kept rolling until their papers were filled.

This was our first "Write The Room" activity!
For this assignment, the children used detective skills
to find service words in the room.
They could also write two more words from our farm theme.

Pumpkinland!

Our first field trip is scheduled for October 7, Friday, at 9am 
(we will leave school at 8:30)!
We are visiting Thies Farm/Pumpkinland at the Maryland Heights location.

We depend on chaperones to make a field trip a success!  I have already heard from a few parents; if you would like to chaperone and drive, please send me an email.  Let me know the number of children you are able/willing to accommodate.
There are 11 children in our class.  The cost for the students is paid through activity fees, but adults will have an entry fee of $3.50.

Please note that any student without a car seat will remain at school with Mrs. Gregory!
On the morning of the field trip, you may leave a car seat inside the gym door.  Thank you for attending to this crucial detail!  Your child's safety is priority!

Behavior: Demystifying The Color Chart

Each child has a personalized "crayon box" magnet.  The boxes begin the day on green--Ready To Learn.  


As the morning progresses, I may see the need to adjust someone's box to blue--Think About It, or purple--Teacher's Choice (an email, phone call, five minutes off of recess).  This is a logical consequence to a broken rule, following a warning. 


After lunch, everyone is moved up a color.  90+% of the time, this means that everyone moves up to yellow--Good Day.  At this point, if a rule is broken, a child's box will move down one color.  And so on.  At the end of the day, everyone is again moved up one color.  This final color jump will usually land a box in orange--Great Job! 


For example, if your child's behavior calendar shows "green, yellow, green, yellow", you will know that he/she moved his/her box up to yellow at lunch, but then moved it down at some point in the afternoon.  At the end of the day, the box went up more more step, to yellow.


Another example:  The calendar shows "green, blue, green, yellow".  This shows that the child broke a rule before lunch, resulting in a move down to blue.  The box was moved up after lunch, to green, and again at the end of the day, to yellow.


I DO NOT EXPECT PERFECTION.  I do expect to see children improving in the area of self-control, contributing to the classroom community with kindness, respecting the boundaries, and treating everyone as they wish to be treated.


Learning from our choices is a lifetime endeavor.  I've been alive for many moons and God is faithful to redirect my choices and behavior! :-)  Please discuss the behavior calendar with your child, but also give them time to adjust to their environment.    

Farm Life

Cock-a-doodle-doo!

From Sept. 19-30, we will focus on farm life during social studies and science.
Here are a few online resources for fun and learning:

Paint farm pictures here.
Sing along with Animal Sounds.
See photographs of farm animals in this video rendition of 
Old MacDonald's Farm.

Pete and Pine Hill

Last week, we sorted and counted bears during math work stations. 

The children use individual white boards to practice letter and numeral writing.
After completing the writing goal, they were allowed to draw freely!  I love a happy face! 

A Human Square 

The repetitive text of Pete The Cat allows the children to succeed in reading.  We also practiced reading color words during this activity.  A variety of pointers are used in our classroom.  They reinforce eye-hand coordination, assist in place-keeping, and help us to count words!

During Friday Fun, many of the children created a mode of transportation (this changed from train to airplane on a whim) and "moved" to Pine Hill.
You may recognize Pine Hill from our first reader, "New Friends".  I was thrilled to see and hear the children make text-to-self connections with our reading series!

Online Number Games

Count the spots on the ladybugs and match them to the proper leaf!  This game shows different spot combinations for each number.


Sequence numbers in this game!  Finding a missing number is an important kindergarten skill.


Find many games for math skills ranging from counting to division at the main page.

Teddy Bear Picnic

Thank you, everyone, for sharing your bears!

The picnic was fabulous!

We read to our bears during "Read To Someone".

We measured our bears with unifix cubes.

twin sisters, twin bears :-)