And the dates keep changing....

Unmark your calendars! The pumpkin patch field trip is NOT going to be on October 14 as planned due to scheduling conflicts with our bus safety program. We are trying to find another date that works, so stay tuned!

Morning Meeting: greeting, Respect video
Letter Learning: star stickers on socks
Math: patterns
Art: tissue paper leaf painting
Story: Ten Red Apples

Enjoy the last day of September!
Miss Kimpton

How many /s/ words can you think of?

Morning Meeting: greeting, morning song, discussing what it means to "do your best"
Letter Learning: highlight Ss in Six Sisters book, brainstorm /s/ words, cut and glue /s/ words
Math: review sound and color patterns, introduce shape patterns
Story: Dragons and Dinosaurs and Fancy Nancy's ABC
Reading Buddies: explore www.starfall.com
Handwriting: tracing lines that start at a dot, follow the arrow, and end with a dot

Enjoy the sunny weather!
Miss Kimpton

Morning Meeting: Greeting, puppet show for problem solving
Letter Learning: Highlight tape Ss in names, look for Ss around classroom, Learning Letter Sounds song
Math: Counting and Numbers
Reading: The Stoplight Poem for Poetry Folder
Story: Dr. Seuss ABC and Apples

Have a great evening,
Miss Kimpton

Date Change for Pictures

The date has been changed for school pictures. It will be next Friday, Oct. 8. Paperwork for the pictures will be coming home soon.

Monday is P.E. Day!

We had a few students come to school today with flip-flips and sandals on, and I want to remind you that Monday is P.E. day. Students need to wear either tennis shoes (best) or sandals with straps on the back in order to be safe. I love that the weather is nice enough for sandals!

Morning Meeting: Greeting, Problem Solving: Ignore it
Letter Learning: Coloring and reading take-home book "Six Sisters"
P.E. with Mrs. Trollope
Math: Color patterns
Story: Ten Apples Up on Top and Clifford's First Autumn
Center Practice

Have a great evening!
Miss Kimpton

The End of R Week

Saturday Live is tomorrow at Pioneer Park. You should have received maps for the different activities in your child's folder. Please consider going tomorrow as all proceeds go to a good cause...your children! PTA uses the money earned from this to fund field trips, classroom grants, and school-wide needs.

Morning Meeting: Mrs. Goodhearts nephew, Gabe, visited with us about his disability and introduced us to his service dog, Ruth
Reading: My Red Bike (I love hearing the stories about your children reading these take-home books to their families and even the family pets! We practice all week long, so please celebrate your child's hard work. If they have difficulty with the words, encourage them to look at the pictures or sound it out. Much of reading at this stage is memorization, and that's great! Memorization and "tracking print" is the beginning of reading. Encourage your children to point to the words and move their reading fingers from left to right.)
Special Event: Read "Indian Two Feet" in the tipi. This story is about Two Feet and his wish to have a horse. His dad tells him that if he wants a horse, he needs to think like a horse. Thinking like a horse, Two Feet goes to the grass, then the river, then a tall hill, and finally rests in the shade where it is cool. He doesn't find a horse, but a horse finds him! The horse has a sore leg, so the boy has to walk (not ride) back to his tribe and then cares for his sore leg and feeds and waters him. Eventually the boy is able to ride him, and the whole tribe is so proud of him. In part of the oral tradition, the students have practiced retelling this story. Please ask your child to tell you this story. Remember, retelling can be very difficult for a young child, so prompt them with the description above and be patient with them. It is a skill that needs to be developed.
Story: The Alphabet Mystery
Handwriting: Correct way to hold a pencil
Music with Mr. Small
Math: Patterns
Letter Learning: Initial sound /r/

Have a great weekend!
Miss Kimpton

Thursday the Early Out Day

I hope you have had a wonderful afternoon with your children! Today we:

Morning Meeting: greetings, Respect video
Letter Learning: glue rice on red rabbits
Read Aloud: A isn't for Fox (thank you to the student who shared it...It was fantastic!)

Have a great evening,
Miss Kimpton

Wednesday, September 22

I'm sorry I didn't get this posted until this afternoon! Here it is:

Morning Meeting: greetings, Respect video
Hearing Screenings
Math: Read Ch. 2 Story (Scaredy Skunk) to introduce patterns, create own movement and sound patters
Centers: Puzzles to practice working together, cleaning up, and whisper voices
Fine Motor Skills: coloring and cutting /r/ words
Letter Learning: highlight all R's and r's in My Red Bike
Word Learning: highlight tape "is" in "Is Your Mama a Llama?"

Rachel's Challenge

We went to an assembly today called Rachel's Challenge, and there is more information for you in your child's folder. I highly recommend attending the presentation at Castle Rock (Thursday, Sept. 23, 7-8 pm) to learn more. This is not an appropriate assembly for children, but it will have a powerful effect on you. I had the opportunity to listen to Rachel Scott's father speak, and the message of Rachel's Challenge encourages some meaningful thoughts and discussions.

Morning Meeting: greeting, problem-solving skills
Letter Learning: Rr, brainstorm initial sound /r/ words, read "My Red Bike"
Library
Fine-Motor Skills: cutting out a red rabbit, coloring
Assembly: The kindergartners were AMAZING during the assembly and were fantastic listeners!

Enjoy the last evening of summer!
Miss Kimpton

Is that a bat? What is a bat?

We had a great opportunity to see a bat today outside a door at school today! Many kids had never seen a bat nor knew that they are, so we had an impromptu lesson on safety around wild animals and took a trip outside to see it. We will be learning about bats later this fall, so it was a excellent experience.

Morning Meeting: Practicing good mornings, skits to practice problem-solving skills (talk it out, apologize), Respect song/video clip
Letter Learning: Rr, the sound of /r/, finding Rr in students' names
Reading: New take-home book "My Red Bike"
Math: Picture Graph "How old are you?"
Reading Buddies: Starfall website
Handwriting: Drawing straight lines from point to point
Initial sounds worksheet

Have a great night, and thank you for your comments on the format of the blog!

Miss Kimpton

The End of M Week!

Although we will still be learning about Mm all year, using it in our writing, and practicing its sound, it is the end of the focus week. You will see many Mm papers coming home today. Please find an important place in your house to display these so the students can celebrate their accomplishments with Mm.

Morning Meeting: practice saying "good morning" using each other's names
Letter Learning: Mm, finishing My Mitten book, making marshmallow m's, initial sound WS
Art: beginning painting project of favorite colors (will be working on next week)
Math: sorting colored marshmallows, counting
Music with Mr. Small!

Have a great evening and stay warm and dry this weekend!

Miss Kimpton

P.S. As the fall weather changes each day, please send the appropriate clothing. Many students were very cold today, and it is better to be too warm than too cold!

We learned our first word!

It's always an exciting day in Kindergarten when the students learn their first Word Wall Word (otherwise known as Sight Word). Today, they learned "is", practiced verbally spelling it, and highlighted it in "Cat's Colors" and in their take-home books "My Mitten".

Letter Learning: initial sound /m/, cut and glue pictures that start with /m/
Math: sorting game "What's My Rule?'
Morning Meeting: practicing saying "Good Morning" with each other's names, asking others when you forget their names
Story: Cat's Colors and highlighting "is"
Centers

Cookie Dough Order Forms Due Tomorrow!

I am sure you saw that order forms for the Cookie Dough Sales are due tomorrow. I am so impressed with how many students have sold items. Thank you so much for your hard work to do this! One student in our class even won a gift certificate from Target for having her name drawn (pink slips that certifies that your child sold more than ten items) from the canister.

Letter Learning: highlight all of the Mm's in "My Mitten", make a capital M using paper strips, read Mm words poster
Fine Motor Skills: color in "My Mitten"
Social Studies: Morning Meeting, solving conflicts by apologizing (saying "I am sorry for..." and looking the other person in the eye)
Centers
Handwriting: right hand (shaking hands, lotion on hand as a tactile way to remember the right hand)
Reading Buddies: Weekly Reader, ABC/Library books

I am trying a new way of explaining our day rather than paragraph form. Give me feedback as to what you like best!

Enjoy the sun,

Miss Kimpton

The Sandstone Tipi

From Miss Kimpton's Kindergarten 2010-2011

Click on the image in order to watch the slideshow.

Thank you Mrs. Chesterman!

 

These are a few pictures I was able to take of Mrs. Chesterman as she read to the students.

What a great school!

I am constantly reminded how wonderful Sandstone School is! Today, as I was walking back to the classroom after eating lunch, I passed by the lunchroom. Tracy Chesterman, our head lunch clerk, was sitting in a chair, reading to ALL 69 kindergartners as they ate their lunches! I have never seen the kids so relaxed and peaceful at lunch as I did today. It is such a caring thing that she did, and the kids loved listening to her read.

The march towards learning the letter Mm is continuing on! The students are starting each day coloring and practicing reading their "My Mitten" books, and we made a poster filled with all sorts of items that start with /m/ (mouse, monkey, mug, marker, etc.).

During our Morning Meeting, we discussed and acted out ways to solve problems by talking them out. I modeled how to talk to a person that is causing trouble, and then we played through many scenarios of kids pushing, throwing rocks, or otherwise causing problems and the different things we can do in response. By using words to talk it out, the kids learned that the problem can be solved without anyone getting hurt. However, I did clarify with the kids (in one of the skits) that if someone is hurt or feels scared, they do need to get a teacher for help. The main goal is to stay safe!

We made our first graph today of our favorite colors! The students practiced coloring a color card, then we sorted the cards into color piles, and then put our data on a bar graph. Oh, the things we learn in Kindergarten! We will use this graph to talk about the concepts of more, less, and same, and we will make many more graphs in the future.

Have a great evening,
Miss Kimpton

It's an "M" kind of a Monday

Welcome to the fourth week of school! Today, we started our first "letter study" for the letter Mm. All week, we will be learning the letter Mm, its sound and shape, and brainstorming many things that start with "Mm". The students started coloring their take-home books, "My Mitten", filled with M objects, found all of the m's in our classroom names, and looked at Mm on www.starfall.com.

We also had a very special treat today-A Crow cultural team put up a tipi at our school today (one of eight throughout the schools in Billings) for students to use and learn about. We had the honor of watching part of the ceremony as they raised the poles and wrapped the canvas around the poles. We will use the tipi as a class for many different experiences. During recess, the tipi is off-limits to students.

We also read "Cat's Color's" that we will use to launch many other activities: graphing our favorite colors, painting our favorite colors and making a book with them, and learning the word "is".

Enjoy the sunny evening!

Miss Kimpton

What IS inside a coconut?

Well, after we read Chicka Chicka Boom Boom (the alphabet climbs up a coconut tree), made coconut names, watched and listened to many different coconut songs...we finally opened a coconut! Three of them, to be exact!

This morning, we used our Five Senses to describe the coconut: feel, see, hear, smell, and taste (we had to leave that one blank until later today), and the students watched as I showed how to write, and then they discussed amongst themselves the different observations they made. We made predictions as to the color of the "liquid" (a new science word!) and whether or not the students would like the taste. Then, we drained the liquid (ask your child what color it is! Clear) and your brave students sampled small amounts. Only two of our 23 kids "kind of" liked it, but after Music, they will try the flesh.

The greatest part of the whole activity was their excitement! When we finally got the coconut open, most said," There's nothing in there!" We will scrape away at the "nothing" to get little bits of the white for them to try. You will need to ask them if they liked it after they try it!

Well, we had a fantastic day of Science learning the Five Senses, new words like predict, observe, and liquid, and both the students and I experienced something new: the inside of a coconut!

The students are bringing home their ABC books. Each Friday, the kindergartners will have take home books that they have spent the week coloring and practicing reading. Please celebrate their hard work with them by commenting on their coloring and listening/helping them read. These books help with their reading skills and also fine motor skills. They need to practice reading every day, even if at first it is memorization. This is a step of reading to be proud of.

Enjoy your weekend, and I'll see you on Monday!

Miss Kimpton

PTA Meeting Tonight!

The PTA is meeting tonight in the Sandstone Library at 6:30 P.M. The PTA has funded many beneficial things for our school and classrooms, such as buses for field trips, classroom grants, document cameras and projectors in EVERY classroom, and much more! Please consider joining the PTA in order to get involved.

Water bottles are becoming an issue in our classroom. Each student has a cup and access to the sink. If you do send a water bottle with your child, it must have a secure cap that doesn't need to be removed in order to drink. Please do not send the disposable bottles with screw-on lids as they are spilled too often.

One more issue-the students are getting more comfortable with each other and are using their hands/feet to solve disputes (hitting and kicking). As a class, we discuss, practice, and implement better ways to solve problems, however, please talk about how to solve problems without violence. At Sandstone School, we do not hurt other people. It is just not allowed. As the weeks go on, the students will learn ways to solve problems, and hitting and kicking will never be a solution. Some ideas are: walk away, play another game, find another friend to play with, say "excuse me" if someone is in your way, ask a teacher for help, or discuss the problem.

The students were quite busy this morning. They have been coloring and practicing reading their ABC Stories book each day, and tomorrow they will take it home to continue reading. During the Morning Meeting, we sang our song about having a great day, and then the students cut out yellow pictures from magazines for our Yellow poster. During Math, the students learn to sort the same objects using different criteria (such as sorting by shape or color). After Lunch, the students and I read a Winnie-the-Pooh ABC book filled with rhymes about each letter. The students then worked in centers while I worked with small groups for Handwriting. After recess, the kindergartners finished their work for "Miss Kimpton's Letter Factory" to build a new alphabet strip of letters made with their bodies. I took pictures, and we will use this in our room. It was a great experience to build teamwork skills and solve problems. Some of the students are going to finish up their letters tomorrow and then they will get "paid" (treats!).

Enjoy your evening,

Miss Kimpton

It's All About the ABC's!

We are totally immersed in the alphabet in our classroom right now. Chicka Chicka Boom Boom has been a favorite for the last week, and we are reading some great new Alphabet books. Today, we read "Handsigns", and the students had to guess the animal based on the picture and the letter of the alphabet it is pictured with. This is a great activity as it deals with letter names, letter sounds, initial sounds of words, and even showed us the sign language alphabet. I also "hired" the students today to work in teams to create letters with their bodies in order to make our own alphabet strip. The students did so well as they worked together to solve problems (How are we ever going to make a Q? -They haven't solved that quite yet), took turns being team captain, and truly experienced the letters. Hopefully they will go home tonight and invite the whole family to make letters! They only made a few letters, and we should be able to finish up tomorrow, and then it's payday for them! Treats!

I asked the students today as we started Math what "Math" means. I got a lot of "I don't know", "numbers", and " The white thing that moms and dads hold up and then you have to say the answer." That one was my favorite! We sorted colored alphabet letters today and then the students worked in pairs to sort their own. This was only a community-building activity as they practicing taking turns and communicating with each other.

Mrs. Hilden, the school counselor, joined us this morning to show us a video and discuss personal safety. We also practiced for a fire drill and worked in centers!

Enjoy the nice weather this evening.

Miss Kimpton

Back from Labor Day weeekend!

The students acclimated so well to school today after their long weekend. After we have worked so hard to know the routines and procedures, they knew exactly what to do today. This really helps them to adjust to the "school lifestyle". I posted a collage of pictures of an activity that we did today to practice building names. The students used paintsticks, clothespins with letters, and a namecard to scramble and then unscramble the letters in their names. They had so much fun rearranging their letters and then asking me what it spelled. What a silly time while learning!

We started off the day today coloring an "ABC Stories" book that I will send home on Friday. The students practiced poitning at each letter as we read the story. After that, we learned a new song today called "Have a Great Day" that we sing/move to during our morning meeting and afternoon wrap-up. In it, the students practice starting off the day with movement, smiles, complements, and a hand shake. We end the same way. Next, we read "Puddle's ABC" and then transitioned into our name building activity. After lunch, I introduced a matching and initial sound center and the students worked in their centers. I worked with small groups in readiness activities for Handwriting.

The students went to Library today with Mrs. Mayhall, and then finished watching the Letter Factory. We have really been working on letter names and sounds, and the students are starting to make some strong connections with letters they already know. We also practiced reading our Stoplight Poem, and your child may surprise you already by reading parts of it tonight!

Have a great evening!

Miss Kimpton

Building Names

 

Fantastic Friday

Thank you for visiting out classroom, watching the slideshow, and listening to me speak about some of the important things in our classroom. To recap, the expectations/assessments that I showed you last night will be sent home in the first report card so that you can see what I am assessing. You can also read the expectations for the rest of the year to give you an idea of how Kindergarten progresses. For behavior management, if a child is not following a rule, I will give a verbal warning/redirection, then each further "offense" causes a number of that rule to be placed beside the name of the child. For each number recieved, a student loses 2 minutes of recess. If a child has 3 numbers beside his/her name, I will send a letter home for you to read and discuss with your child. I found that many parents like to ask their students after school if they recieved any numbers. It really helps to open discussions about behavior. If you have questions about the numbers or want to know if your child received any that day, you are welcome to email you and I will respond as quickly as possible. I can SOMETIMES remember after school, but in the busy after school acitivities, my mind is mainly on making sure that the students get connected with their adults safely. The last topic I discussed was checking the white folder everyday after school, emptying it, and then sending it back to school the following day.

Today, we started off the day building and sorting with shapes, listening to "Miss Bindergarten Gets Ready for Kindergarten" on tape (preparing for the Listening Center), singing the song "Learning Letter Sounds", reviewing position words, shapes, and colors with our Stoplight Poem, listening to a story called "Jungle Bullies" (teaching the students about standing up to Bullies in order to share and play together), centers, Music, and watching the Letter Factory (teaching letter names and sounds).

Post the Stoplight Poem at home in a visible spot. We will continue to practice reading it at school, and soon your child will read it at home as well. Use our Math Words "under, on, above" to ask questions for your student to answer: ex. What color is under yellow?

Have a great long weekend and enjoy spending it with your children!

Miss Kimpton

Open House Tonight

The highlight of our day today was our Friendship Web. Each student held onto a section of yarn and passed the spool to another student, thus creating a web that showed the students that we are all connected together and each an important part of the team. It was so meaningful as students helped others to toss the spool or to pick up their section of yarn if they dropped it. I heard a student say during Centers when his group was all connected with a Sorting Circle: "It's just like the Friendship Web!" It was a powerful way to start our day.

Chicka Chicka Boom Boom continues to be a big hit in the room as we continue to see and hear different song versions, add a coconut tree to our Magnetic Letter Center, and even handled real coconuts! The book has led us to different ABC books, and I have so many to share with the students. Today, we read "G is for Goat", an ABC book dedicated to goats. The kids loved learning that a boy goat is called a "billy" and that goat children are called "kids". We'll reexamine these ideas when we learn about farms.

Handwashing is such an important skill for children to learn. We watched Crawford the Cat today tell a story about washing hands before eating and how long to scrub hands (sing the Happy Birthday song two times). The students then colored Crawford the Cat. They did a marvelous job of staying on task and doing their best!

I will see you all tonight, and enjoy the nice evening!

Miss Kimpton

Windy Wednesday

Thankfully the rain stopped this morning after school started. As you have probably figured out by now, when the "ducks" are out, the students come into the school in the morning rather than walking the circle on the playground. This is only when it is raining or below zero degrees (in which case the images are snowmen).

The students learned 3 new centers today that they will work in to reinforce skills they learn. I introduced them to the ABC center (complete with a "fishing pond" to go fishing for letters, letter stamps, and LeapPads), Writing Center (furnished with fancy pens, markers, scissors, paper for cards or letters, and stamps), and the Magnetic Letter center (includes matching letters, sorting by color, and special picture magnets). I also read the story "Miss Bindergarten Gets Ready for Kindergarten" that is an ABC book of character names. It shows the students and the teacher as they get ready for Kindergarten. We will work with this book for the rest of the week. For Math today, we practiced counting forwards and backwards ( a daily activity with our cold lunches), and I introduced the words "over", "on", and "under". We used magnetic shapes and pictures of the my two dogs to teach these concepts.

To help review the day, ask your child these questions:
What are some things on the table? Can you crawl under the table? Can you hold _________ over the table? Ask your kindergartner to show you what over, under, and on means.