Monthly Archives: September 2011

Industrious Workers

We have been producing lots of great work this week, and many pieces went home today in the folder. Here are some explanations about what your child has been learning this week:

Weather Graph: Every day we record the weather. We have been keeping track since the beginning of September. Today, children recorded on their own individual graphs the September weather. Ask your children to show you which weather had the most and the least days this month.

October Calendar: For Project Day today, we made our October calendar. As you can see, we have four children turning 6 next month! Remember to put an X on each day as it goes by and have children count the days coming up to family or school events. Have fun.

My Counting Book: We are nearly finished with our first unit in Everyday Math! Unit 1 focused on number recognition, counting by 1s and sorting. The counting books were made over several days. Ask your child to go through their book with you and explain what they have made.

Fundations letter Practice: Children use dry erase boards, “skywriting” with their fingers and pencils and paper to practice proper lowercase letter formation. You can always help your child’s fine motor skills by doing fun things at home like play with play dough, work with small legos or stringing beads.

Have a great weekend.
Ms. Purdin 🙂

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Apple farm fun for everyone!

What fun today was! Thanks to the weather for holding out one more day! We had a blast visiting with the animals, singing songs on the hay ride and picking (and eating) delicious apples. Brooksby Farm does a great job of keeping us moving and busy. We were moved right along through the morning and made it back in time for lunch and preschool pick up. (I know….just barely!)

Here’s a few cute pictures from our trip. I didn’t get very many, so if you have any to share, please send them to my email bpurdin@johnsonschool.org. I’d love to see them!

Feeding the animals.

Apple picking!


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Busy, Busy Days!

It’s almost the end of another week together! We are continuing to work on building our classroom community. Today we revisited “bucket fillers and bucket dippers.” We also read a story about friendship called, A Rainbow of Friends. Often, we as adults say, “use your words” to our young friends. This statement doesn’t always help. Young children need us to model the language to use when navigating tough social situations. If you see your child having an issue with a sibling or friend at home, take the time to model appropriate ways of communicating to solve problems. Make it fun – children love role playing!

Our days seem to be getting busier as I challenge the children with more academics. This week we began Fundations, starting with the letter T. In Fundations, we focus on the learning how to write the correct lowercase letter formation first, and in the winter, will be reviewing correct uppercase letter formation. Ask your child to “sign” the letter T to you!

A typical schedule of our day.

Last week I introduced academic choice to the children. During academic choice, children all work on the same topic, but in different ways. Children have the choice about how they would like to work. Some topics we have down so far are name recognition, colors, sorting and patterning. Soon information will be coming to you about opportunities for parent volunteers during these times.

Next week will be another busy week! We are off to the apple farm on Wednesday (hope for sun!) and we will be starting a great Johnson School tradition – Kindergarten and 6th Grade buddies! I’m looking forward to it!

Have a great weekend!
Ms. Purdin 🙂

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Friday Notes

Our first full week together! We ended our week with an all school assembly brought to us by the fifth and sixth graders about Constitution Day. In class, we’ve been working on reciting the Pledge of Allegiance. Ask your child to recite it to you. We also had a visit yesterday from our “Principal of the Day,” a third grader whose younger brother happens to be in our class. What fun! 🙂

Just a few quick things…

  1. Children are still getting the hang of their morning “jobs,” which include ordering lunch. If your child is buying lunch, make sure he knows in the morning and where his money is. We collect at the beginning of the day. A note to me is also helpful. Lunch is $3.00 and that includes milk.
  2. Our field trip is fast approaching! If you have not sent in your child’s permission slip and/or field trip money ($10 per person) please do so by Wednesday.
  3. For those of you who have been sending back your child’s completed math home link pages, thank you! While I said it isn’t necessary, I am enjoying reading them and seeing what connections they are making at home. Feel free to continue. 🙂
  4. If you have not sent in $10.00 for the Let’s Find Out magazine subscription and portfolio materials, please do so by the end of next week.
  5. I have added a Kindergarten-Friendly Links section to this website.
Have a great weekend!
Ms. Purdin 🙂
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Classroom Rules and Logical Consequences

Our Classroom Rules Poster

Everyday our class is becoming more and more comfortable with school and classroom routines. We are working on “hallway manners” and on the whole, we receive many compliments as we walk down the hall! Mrs. Spencer reports that the children are listening well and enjoying P.E.

Last week, as a class, we came up with our four general classroom rules. There are four rules the children agreed upon. We all “signed” the rules with our fingerprints, including Mrs. Clark and myself. (We are all accountable.) This week, I am introducing what happens when we break the rules. There are three consequences in our classroom:

  1. “You Break it, You Fix it”
  2. Loss of Privilege
  3. Take a Break
Children were understanding of these consequences. We talked about how everyone makes mistakes or might forget a rule, which doesn’t mean they are bad, just they needed a little reminder. I am confident that these and our classroom rules will allow us to have a wonderful year together.

Guided Discovery of Watercolors

As I said to your children, we have already had many good consequences happen because of their great efforts. We opened up many new materials – including water colors last week! This class sure loves to paint and draw!
Ms. Purdin 🙂
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