Veteran's Day

Today we remember and thank all the brave men and women who have served our nation.

For joint worship this morning we sang "soldier songs" and learned about being soldiers for Jesus. We also heard the story of a true hero Desmond Doss. After learning a little more about the meaning of Veteran's Day, we made this wordle:

This afternoon we decorated stars to make a poster showing our gratitude.

If you know a veteran or someone who serves, remember to say thank you. And on a personal note, I'm very proud to be able to say "Thank you" to my dad for serving!

 

Where's Ms. Fawn?

So all the kiddos are at school right now and I'm not not! I'm sure they've asked Mrs. Webb a million times where I am so I thought I'd fill you in.
I am in San Antonio, Texas right now at a training for the new NAD Kindergarten curriculum "Stepping Stones". We're learning about new themes and strategies as well as getting new materials to bring back to our classrooms. The next few days will be exciting and informative, but I miss my kiddos already! Hope you are having a great start to your week, I'll see everybody back at school on Thursday.

Here are a few of the activities and ideas we've already learned about!

Eating Worms

It's been ages since my last blog post, I'm sorry! I meant to post last week, but with Parent/Teacher conferences I got so busy I just forgot. I really enjoyed having the chance to meet with most of you though.
We've been doing lots of great things in Kindergarten the past few weeks and I'm sure you've heard about a few things. One of my favorite parts of October is our author study of Eric Carle. During the past month we've done art projects based on Eric Carle's illustrations, learned about his life (he grew up in Germany during WWII), read at least one book by him every day, and yesterday we even had a special Eric Carle snack! Ms. Wendy came in yesterday afternoon to do a beautiful fall scrapbooking page with the students and we ended the afternoon by eating dirt and worms (pretzels too).

I'll try not to take so long between posts again, see you soon!

A Brownie Celebration

As I told you last week, the Kindergarten class filled up their brownie tray, so they earned a party. I was really impressed with how well behaved the class is though and I decided they deserved more than just a party, instead we had an entire day of celebration.
We played in the park, ate treats (popcorn, juice & brownies of course), watched a movie, had extra play time, and Skyped one of our classmates. All in all it was a great day and we can't wait to do it again!

Having fun in the park!

 Enjoying our treats and the movie. 

 Our special art project for the celebration, Eric Carle's hungry caterpillars. Can you see what we used to make the circles?

The boys taking advantage of the extra center time and the iPads.

Hope you has as much as us on Friday!

 

Brownie Party Time!

Yep, that's a full Brownie Pan! The class is very excited and I'm very proud of them. We're having a Brownie Party tomorrow to celebrate their outstanding behavior. I'll post pictures of the party soon!

Fire & Police Department Field Trip

Here are the long-awaited pictures of out first field trip! Thanks for being patient, enjoy!

Practicing stop, drop, (cover your face), and roll.

 Checking out the ambulance. According to one kindergartener "that bed looks comfortable".

 Officer Coughlin locked them up!

 The police siren is SO loud!

What the back of the police car looks like.

The class with Officer Coughlin at the end of our trip.

We are especially thankful to our police officers and firefighters for a great afternoon and all their hard work!

Let's Move!

As part of First Lady Michelle Obama's health initiative and in keeping with our church principles the North American Division of Seventh-day Adventists is sponsoring a Let's Move Day this Sunday. The goal is to walk/run 100,000 miles across the division that day. To do our part HAA is aiming to walk 1,000 miles. We are inviting you to come to the school from 1:00 to 2:00 Sunday. We will be walking laps around the field. Not only is this an opportunity to do something healthy for yourself, it's a chance to have some fun as a school family. Hope to see you there!

Week of Prayer and Then Some

I fully intended to post at least three different times last week, but things were just so busy! Here's why:

Week of Prayer - Our theme was The Bible as THE Best Book

Mrs. Courtney a former teacher/principal from Australia presented engaging Bible stories to the elementary students.

On Friday the Kindergarten class led out during praise time at Week of Prayer.

 

In addition to our Week of Prayer meetings we had special reading visitors on Wednesday. Mr. Dunham's Impact class came down to our classroom and read with the Kindergarteners. We're hoping they will be able to come back regularly throughout the school year.

  

As I previously mentioned, the students are loving our Mandarin Chinese classes with Ms. Winni. 

On top of these events we managed to fit in our regular academics, remember 9/11 heroes and victims, and even lose some teeth!

From One Week to the Next

Last week was a great week, with lots of firsts!

We started the week with DIBELS (Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills), each students was given this assessment and I will use the results to plan individual, small group and whole class instruction.

On Thursday we had our first Mandarin Chinese class with Miss Winni. The Kindergarteners loved her and I'm excited to learn right along with them in the coming months.

Friday was the first day of our PeeWee sports program. Thankfully it didn't rain and the students were able to start playing soccer with "Coach" Jackson.

Of all the highlights this week, I think my favorite part was our Friday morning worship service with First and Second grades. Listen to how wonderful the kids (and Mrs. U on the piano) sounded during our praise time! This special worship time is something we do every Friday, as I mentioned in a previous post we love to have guest presenters at these worships, if you would like to be a part of our worship please email me.

This week we are looking forward to commemorating Patriot Day tomorrow, a blessing-filled week of prayer, and more new experiences!

By the way, I was finally able to upload my video from Back to School Night, here it is.

Back to School Night Video

So far I haven't been able to load the video I made for Back to School Night, but in the meantime here is the link to the video Ms. Cherie made. I will keep trying to load my other video as well.

You're Invited!

Our first full week flew by! We had so much fun and managed to do so many things. This afternoon we created beautiful melted crayon art, but I think the students are most proud of their reading accomplishment. We are launching The Daily 5 which is the structure for our Language Arts curriculum. Basically right now I am teaching the students routines and expectations. We are building our reading stamina and today we set a new record for independent reading; 20 minutes and 26 seconds! Please be sure to congratulate your child and celebrate their success, we're very proud. I'm sure they would also love to tell you about the three ways to read a book and what good reading looks like.

As the title of this post suggests, you are invited to several upcoming occasions.

First, Adventist Hinsdale Hospital is hosting their annual Ice Cream Social Sunday afternoon from 3:00-6:00 pm at Burlington Park in Hinsdale. You can learn more about AHH and the ice cream social here.

On Thursday night HAA is hosting a Welcome Back to School night. Back to School Night Flyer PDF

Finally, you are invited to become a volunteer for our classroom! I am looking for parents who are willing to become familiar faces and those who might be more comfortable helping behind the scenes. There are a number of ways to get involved, here are just a few;

- Guest Artist, we do art projects on Friday afternoons and I would love to have some of you come lead out in a project with the kids.

- Guest Speaker, on Friday mornings we have a joint worship time with First and Second grade. The students love it when guest speakers share the devotional story (by the end of the week I think they are getting tired of hearing their teachers' voices) you can read a story, tell a story or share an object lesson. Extended families are welcome to do worships too, one of our favorite guest speakers was someone's grandpa.

- Special Events, throughout the year we have several field trips and special parties (Thanksgiving, Christmas, Valentine's, 100th Day, etc). I need chaperones for the trips and coordinators for our parties.

- Handyman/woman, a behind-the-scenes job, I would love to have our chairs painted this year. Currently we have a hodge-podge of orange, yellow, brown and one green chairs in our room. I would like to spray paint all the chairs the same color.

- Celebration Chef, another behind-the-scenes job, from time to time we have celebrations in our classroom, such as when we've finished a learning unit or mastered certain skills, I like to give the kids treats correlating with what we are celebrating and I need some help with the preparation.

There are many other ways to be involved in our room, and I will be making event-specific calls as we continue through the year. If you are interested in volunteering please make sure you have filled out the volunteer paperwork in the office and email me to schedule times.

First Day of School & Classroom Tour

I can hardly believe our first day of school is over! This morning flew by so quickly that we didn't even make it through everything I had planned. The kids did such a good job today, we should all be very proud of them! For those of you who didn't get a chance to look around today (or maybe you just want to take a closer look) here are pictures of our classroom from this morning.

Here's a view of our group instruction area. The wooden cabinet at the front houses our projector, document camera, Interwrite Notepad and a few other tech goodies I'm really excited to use this year. In the far corner, in front of the curtain, is our block/LEGO area, always a favorite center.

Our bulletin board is still blank because the kids and I are going to do something really fun with it very soon! This space is our computer center (we have two desktops and three brand-new netbooks). We store our COLOR Books right next to our mailboxes near the door. You can also see our daily schedule hanging up.

This is one of our spaces that I am most excited about! Mr. Jason (my husband) created this great pegboard wall for me this summer and we are using it as our writing center. I'm really looking forward to what this new group of authors will create this year. Our art easel and sink area are also in this space.

There's a lot going on in this photo. First, the large turquoise table is our sensory table, we'll fill it with all kinds of items throughout the school year to help us extend our theme learning and explore science concepts. Next to the sensory table is our felt board which we use a lot in conjunction with our Bible lessons and for storytelling. Beyond the sensory table is the dramatic play area, one of our most popular learning centers. On the left, there are drawers where we store various craft and school supplies. I will explain more about the "Reading CAFE" board on the closet doors soon,it will support our language arts curriculum. You can also see the blue pocket chart we will use for learning center rotations.

This is our circle time or gathering area. We have worship here and meet together in this space during the day share and discuss what we are learning. On the left closet door is our "Bucket Filler" space. We will use these buckets as object lessons for character development, be prepared to hear a lot more about this concept. Next to our buckets is our calendar wall and our birthdays are posted on the last door. The green chair is very special because it is where authors sit when they share their work with the class (we might use it for a few other special events as well)!

Our library is a place that makes me wish I was one of the students! I would love to be able to to snuggle with a stuffed animal or relax on a big pillow and just read for awhile here. Under the windows we have a counter with shelves underneath. We keep resources, manipulatives, games, puzzles, books, and our math and science center activities on the shelves.

Last, we have a view of my workspace and our textbook storage. The file on the end of my desk is where we store our iPads, another great tool we are blessed to have. The rainbow chart on the end of our shelf is a clip-chart for individual behavior management. You can see the door to our bathroom, TV/VCR/DVD player, phonics drawers, our small refrigerator, and microwave all in the corner of the room. Our "Brownie Points" tray is on the whiteboard, this is our whole class incentive system (if we fill the pan with brownies we get a party).

I'm looking forward to having more time with my friends tomorrow so we can do some really fun activities together! Please keep checking the blog and your child's COLOR Book for more information about our school, classroom, procedures, and routines.

ABCs of Kindergarten

As we gear up for school on Wednesday I know many of you have a number of questions. I will do my best to answer your questions over the first few weeks of school. Feel free to look through the following document to find answers to the most frequently asked questions.



See you soon!

Welcome News

There is so much to do before school starts and so much I want to share with you! There are a number of documents and news items I think it is important for you to know about. Here are a few items for you to check out.



I also want to invite you to church at Burr Ridge this week to celebrate education Sabbath.


Keep checking the blog for school information, pictures of our classroom and other developments!

Welcome!

I am so excited to be starting this blog and a new school year with all of you! It is my hope that we will use this blog as a communication tool so you as parents can see and experience what we are doing in class. This blog will be a place where you will be able to find resources and keep up with what we are doing in our classroom. Please check our blog frequently so you are informed about everything we are doing!