Archive for September 15th, 2009
September 15th, 2009 | Author: Mrs. Monteiro
Today we opened up the Blocks Center. As you can imagine, the children were thrilled to finally get their hands and bodies involved in an area of the classroom that they have been drooling over since day one! We also introduced the process of making choices of their own during Activity Time rather than rotating through centers as assigned by the teachers. The rules right now are that we all stop, clean up, and make a new choice at the same time so that we can be sure no one is monopolizing one center and that they are all having a variety of experiences. It also gives them practice at cleaning up the materials in various centers which promotes independence. As more and more areas of the classroom open up and the children become more and more independent at using and cleaning up materials, Activity Time will morph into 2 distinct parts of our day beginning next week. The more “academic” stations (ABC station, Writing station, etc.) will be open during our Readers’ Workshop in the morning for the kids to work on more focused literacy activities while Mrs. Holbrook and I work with small groups. The other centers (Dramatic Play, Blocks, Sand Table) will be open for a free Choice Time each afternoon.
Just a reminder, all of the children in Kindergarten will have the option of getting lunch in the cafeteria FREE OF CHARGE on Monday! You may certainly choose to send a lunch if you would prefer and/or buy just a milk but if you want to try of the food in the Sheehan cafeteria, Monday would be the day to do that! We will be taking the kids on a tour of the cafeteria on Monday morning in advance of lunch so that they understand how to go through the lunch line to purchase lunch, how to purchase milk, and where they will be sitting. They will all have an assigned seat to reduce their anxiety about being in that loud cafeteria! There will be adults as well as 5th grade helpers at lunch each day to help the kids open packages, etc.
Tomorrow will be the first day that the Kindergarten children will be dismissed with the entire school because it is an Early Release Day for grades 1-5. Kindergarten bus students and Extended Day students will be riding their bus home (or to Extended Day) with the rest of the school. If your child is a “walker” you will see many more parents waiting on the playground. Please feel free to come a little closer to our blue door so that your child can easily find you in the crowd! Also, we will be bringing the K “walkers” outside 5 minutes prior to the bell in order to send them with the proper adult before the chaos of the rest of the school being dismissed ensues!
Each morning we count the number of days we have been in Kindergarten. Ask your child if they remember what day today was!