Week Two We Had Lots To Do!

 We are continuing to learn about our friends and build our oral language skills.  Every day we have morning meeting.  this is when we practice our speaking and listening skills.  One of the first things we learn is that it is polite to look at the person who is speaking.  These kiddos are doing a great job giving their full focus to a friend:

 We have been doing independent reading every day since the first day of school! Yes, really!  We are lucky to have many "yellow" books that our students are able to read on their own after they are given the sentence stem at the beginning of the book.  The rest of the pages follow the same pattern and students are supported by picture clues.  It is amazing to see the confidence in 5 year olds as they read all by themselves!  Our class has been working on building reading stamina (reading for extended periods of time without stopping or getting tired).  We are able to read for 15 minutes now on our own!  Our goal is to reach 30 minutes.  I am so proud of them.  

Since play is such an important part of a kindergartner's day, we are lucky to have some built in "play time" in our schedule.  First thing in the morning, students are able to choose a developmental center to play at.  This may be blocks, housekeeping, art, etc.  At these centers, students hone their social skills as well as their imaginations.   

 Our reading stations are open-ended stations where students can practice the literacy skills they are learning.  Here, some students practice building words with letter dice: 

 And making words with magnetic letters:

 And using different writing tools at the writing station:

Next week, we will begin learning to sort items by size, shape and color.  We will begin an author/illustrator study of Eric Carle and read lots of his books!  We will still continue to learn about our classmates, classroom and routines.  Have a great week!