We had an amazing first week of school in the Kindergarten classroom. It was so much fun to meet all of our new classmates. We started our school year off by reading the story Miss Bindergarten Gets Ready For Kindergarten. We read about all the different things Miss Bindergarten and her students do to get ready for the first day of Kindergarten. Then we each said something we did to get ready for school. This week we really worked on some of our daily routines like lining up, walking in the hallway, lunch time, and so on. Finally, we did several Kissing Hand activities. We read four different books about Chester the Raccoon. We also made a Kissing Hand book, learned about being a bully, and created a Chester Raccoon.
Monday:
Labor Day
Tuesday:
Happy First Day of School!
It was an exciting day in the Kindergarten classroom. We spent the day getting to know our teacher and new friends. (There are 11 students in kindergarten this year.) We started our day by learning our morning routine. When we enter the school in the morning, we need head down our classroom. Our first task is to empty our back pack and hang it up. When we enter our classroom, we put our folder in our mailbox and take care of our chair. Once our morning jobs are done, we get to find something to play with.
We started our morning with prayer and pledge. On Mondays our class gets to raise the flag outside. Since it was the first day of school, everyone gathered together at the flag pole this morning. After flag and prayer, we took some pictures before we headed back inside.
Next we put away all of our supplies. First we separated out the things that have a “special” spot like the glue, baby wipes, paper plates, napkins, and kleenex. Then we added our names to our headphones, folders, notebook, and binder and put them away. The last thing was to put our supplies in our pencil box and cubby like pencils, erasers, scissors, crayons, paints, and paint shirt.
Part of our job today was learning some of our daily routines. Besides our morning routine, we practiced lining up, walking through the hallways, entering the classroom, lunch, and washing our hands.
After snack, we had recess and music. When get got back we had a few minutes before lunch, so Ms. Torborg read us a story, Miss Bindergarten Is Getting Ready For Kindergarten. We heard about all the different things Miss Bindergarten and her students did to get ready for the first day of Kindergarten. Then we each said something we did to get ready for school.
In the afternoon, we had PE time with Mrs. Thompson. Ms. Torborg also read us a story about Chester the Raccoon, The Kissing Hand. Chester doesn’t want to go to school, so his mom tells/shows him a secret: The Kissing Hand. She kisses the palm of his hand. Then when he is missing her, he just needs to touch his check and he will know that his mom loves him. Our project today was to make a poster with our handprints around a poem of our first day of kindergarten. We each meet with Ms. Torborg so she could help us press our hands on a huge ink pad and put them on a special paper with a poem.
We ended our day with some free time.
Wednesday:
We started our morning in our classroom by learning our morning routine. We need to unpack our backpack, put our folder in our mailbox, and take down our chair. After completing our morning routine, we had some free time in our classroom.
After a little free play time, we start our day with prayer and the Pledge of Allegiance.
We were introduced to several new things during our reading time. It started with Ms. Torborg giving each of us a whisper phone and explaining how to use it. We put one end by our ear and then speak into the other end. We can whisper a secret and we are the only one who can hear it. Our whisper phones are kept in our reading bin and are used during quiet reading time.
Next Ms. Torborg explained to us how to read a book by doing a picture walk. We start at the beginning of the book and tell a story by looking at each of the pictures. After Ms. Torborg showed how she does it, we each gave it a try. We took our reading bin to a quiet spot in the room, picked a book out, and created a story from the pictures. After 7 minutes, we came back together to talk about how it went.
After recess we were back at reading, we read the story A Pocketful of Kisses. Chester the Raccoon gets really jealous when his mother gave his little brother a kissing hand. But then Chester's mom gives him a very special gift, an extra kiss to keep in his pocket. Then we made a kissing hand book. We each made our own kissing hand. We started by having a partner trace our hand. Then we traced a heart in the middle. Finally, we colored it to look just like our hand with a red heart in the middle. When everyone has their page done, Ms. Torborg will bind it together to look like a book. She will also upload the book on our website, so we can share it with our families. When we were finished, we spent some time playing with play-doh.
We started math by completing our calendar binder. As Ms. Torborg completed each part of the calendar on the SMARTboard as we did it in our calendar binders. We had to make a tally mark, graph the weather, check and graph the temperature, and write the number of days we have been in school. Then we played a game. Ms. Torborg gave us of us a piece of paper. It was our job to find the person with the same size paper. We had to work together to measure the pieces and compare the sizes. We had to determine if our piece was longer or shorter or the same size. We tried to see who could find their partner the fastest.
We say prayer several times a day. Each time we say prayer, we start with the Sign of the Cross. Today we started learning the proper way to do it. We start with our right hand. When we say “In the Name of the Father”, we touch our forehead. When we say “And of the Son”, we touch our chest. Then we say, “And of the Holy Spirit”. When we say Holy we touch our left shoulder and Spirit our right shoulder. The last word is Amen and we fold our hands in front of us.
We ended our day with some free play time. We also each took a turn to meet with Ms. Torborg so she could get to know us a little better. We answered some questions like what is our favorite color or what do we want to learn in Kindergarten. She wrote down all of our answers and is going to make a special book for our class.
Thursday:
In reading, we were introduced to a new sight word, I. Then we used our new word in a sentence. Ms. Torborg wrote down each sentence we created. Next we listened to the story Chester Raccoon and the Big Bad Bully. Before the story, we talked about what a bully is. We decided bullying can be pushing, shoving, hitting, and spitting, as well as name calling, picking on, making fun of, laughing at, and excluding someone. In our story, Chester Raccoon and friends suddenly don’t want to go to school anymore because there is a badger that is bullying them. Mrs. Raccoon gathers a group of forest animals together and tells them a tale that helps them find a solution to their problem. Chester and his friends learn that the best way to get rid of an enemy is to make a friend. Our project was a Chester Raccoon color by number. First we worked on identifying the numbers and then the color words. We colored the number next to the color word, so we would not forget. Finally, we took some quiet time to color the picture.
Everyday we complete our calendar binder. We were introduced to our calendar binder on Monday. Since today starts a new month, we added a couple of new pages. For our lesson today were introduced to different shapes. Today, we examined the attribute blocks. (I can’t believe how smart everyone is!) We found a green triangle, tan rhombus, blue rhombus, orange square, red trapezoid, and yellow hexagon in the box. (Rhombus is a special name for a diamond.) Ms. Torborg also had pattern card that we could used to create different shapes.
In religion, we talked about Saint Mary, the Blessed Virgin Mary. Mary is the Mother of Jesus. She said “Yes” when God asked her to have a baby and name him Jesus. We honor Mary for everything she did and ask for intercession. Her special feast day is September 8th. After coloring her picture in our saint book, we watched a video about her.
Friday:
We had a spectacular first week of school. This week we really worked hard on listening for directions and waiting for the teacher to tell us to go before we start moving. We also practiced social distancing, lining up, walking in a straight line, lunch routine, bathroom behavior, and so much more.
We started our day off with a ride on a bus. For some of us, it was our first bus ride! We ended up at the church. There we attended Mass together as a whole school. We did a great job following directions and listening to Father.
When we got back we had snack and recess. Then we sang our better alphabet song before we completed our calendar binders. Then we listened to the story Chester The Brave. Chester was scare of answering questions in front of his class. Chester's mom told him a story about a little robin and three special words- Think-Tell-Do. “If I think I can’t, I tell myself I can and do it!.” Chester found it worked for him. Now he is able to conquer his problems.
After lunch, we had Spanish class with Mrs. Kramer and Library with Mrs. Joyer. After that we spent sometime finishing a coloring project, meeting one on one with Ms. Torborg, and enjoying some free play time.
We ended our day with our Marathon Rally. We started with an activity. After getting into groups, we had to work together to try to find Waldo in a picture. It was really tricky since the lights were off and the shades were down. The room was really dark. Eventually each group was given a little light. That made it a little easier to find Waldo. As time went on, we were given more and more light and as we worked together we were all able to find Waldo. Jesus is our light. If we keep him in our life and work together with the people around us, we can do amazing things. After our activity, we prayed for our Marathon intentions. Then we found out we have raised $1195. That means we earned our first Marathon incentive. One day next week, we were have any recess time.