Happy Halloween 4K families! I wanted to make a short and sweet blog post this week! I have seen so much growth in academics but then also in my student's confidence levels! I am beyond proud of them - expanding their horizons with friends. :) We made "X-Ray's" of our hands and arm, we made our H is for horse letter project. We made ghost pictures with our feet! And then we made spider hats this week that were creepy crawly! :) We started something new with our centers this week as well. The kids each have a folder and it has math and writing in it. They carry these with them to their centers and work on the papers in them. They will take home their papers on Friday's normally but due to this week being Halloween and such, we didn't have time to get everything put in their mailboxes. So they have papers in their folders for the week and then they take them home on Friday's. This takes some getting used to but it seems to be going well and they are learning a lot.
0 Comments
Hello 4K families! Just a quick reminder that this Friday, October 30th is our St. Mary's Halloween Celebration for the kids here at school! :) YAY!! Your child is allowed to wear their costume to school and for the duration of the school day! (seeing as we do not have mass again until November 24th) Thank you, any questions please feel free to contact me! :)
For the costumes - please NO WEAPONS, NO FACE/HAIR PANIT, NO FAKE BLOOD, anything not appropriate for school! :) -THANK YOU **Also if your child would like to bring a trick-or-treat "treat" for their classmates that is perfectly fine! :) Ms. Luce It is that time of year again! The leaves are gone from the trees and the cold winds are blowing in, might even see snow soon! ahhh!!! Please remember to send your student with a hat and mittens to school everyday and a warm jacket. The weather is getting colder and we don't want our friends to get sick. :) I have heard the coughing and sneezing in the school already starting, oh my! Thank you! :)
We had a pumpkin filled week this week! It was so crazy and pumpkin filled I didn't get a chance to finish the blog before today. The pictures really tell it all! We had a fun fall week! We learned about pumpkins, dug into an actual pumpkin and made predictions - then we found out the actual amount of lines and seeds in our pumpkin!! The kids are growing so much - from their work, to helping friends, to becoming more confident in themselves as well as their abilities. There is no limit to what this group of great children will and can do! :)
So Friday and for the rest of the year we will be starting something that we call Recess Buddies! This is something new this year to 4K and I feel that it will really help! After talking with a co-worker she told me about what she did at her old school and I definitely wanted to try it out here! I sent out a sign up sheet to the 4th, 5th and 6th grade teachers to have a discussion with their kids and have the kids sign up to be buddies for my 4K friends. Now the one thing the older kids were wondering about is.... Do I have to play with them every single recess???? The answer is no, this program is being implemented to get our 4K friends that are not playing outside at lunch recess to actually play with comfort. The main part of being a Recess Buddy is for that 4K student to have access to that older student and to bond with them - create that comfort zone - knowing someone is always there.
Lately they have been feeling somewhat intimidated by the older kids in the school and some have not been wanting to play. So this program should really help them out! I am happy to say that we had 15 4th and 6th graders sign up to help out of 4K friends and be the type of "big brother" "big sister" out on the playground for them when they need it! :) Already today (Thursday) I had the big kids that signed up playing with the 4Ker's and wanting to be their buddies! My student's that did not want to play during lunch recess came in today with huge smiles on their faces - saying, "Ms. Luce, I actually played at lunch recess today!" :) Learning is not always easy but God makes it possible to keep going and get over those obstacles. This week was extremely short and fast it seemed but I wanted to give you a little overview of what we were doing this week. We talked about farm animals and made another easy reader book for the kids book boxes. As well we had a lot of fun outside playing in the leaves (as shown in the pictures). We learned a lot about God this week and learned more about the letter Ff! We had a busy week but these 16 friends in 4K amaze me everyday! I am so proud of the growth that I have already seen in my little kiddos! Have a great weekend everyone!
We finally made it to the fire station! :) The rain didn't hold us back! The kids learned a lot, reviewed what we did last week and they were very well behaved, raising hands, asking questions and participating! :) It was a great visit! Thank you to our volunteer fireman at Luxemburg Fire Station - Especially to Fire Chief Lew, and Fire Captains Al and Steve that helped us this afternoon!! We hope you like your thank you gift - book of pictures the kids colored to say thank you! :)
Sight wordsThe students created another small easy beginning reader book. The students are learning to track with their fingers when reading so they know where they are and what word they are on. This firefighter book will be put into their book boxes for our centers/small group time - along with their bird book. We are continuing to learn more and more sight words - a new one each week and then as the week goes on we also review our words every morning. I have made some flashcards of our sight words for the students to bring home and work on at home when they get a chance with family, mom and dad, etc. These will be sent home starting on Monday. As well as time goes one with our centers and we continue to learn more and more sight words to add to our word wall, the students will be bringing home small group book bags with book(s) they will be able to read and practice at home. Sight words covered already: and, a, is, the, see, I. **We all do one word a week that every student works on during the week, but some of my small groups are working on more sight words, not just the ones we know and that word of the week! CentersThis week I am very excited to announce we have started our centers, and I am very proud of my kids because they have done really well learning the routine. The way that our centers in 4K work is as follows: there are four groups that I have created based on their assessment results and what they need to work on. The four centers that we go through during our late morning are: Center A: back table with Ms. Luce where we really hone in on what they need to work on in different ways than just pencil and paper, but we do that as well. Center B: Working on writing our letters, writing our names (first and last), and sight words. Center C: Writing/Math center - working on our numbers, writing numbers, working on counting, etc. Mrs. Johnson is at this center helping the students. Center D: Tablets - I have added apps to our tablets that I have used with my classes over the years that have really helped them with letters, sight words, etc. This coming week will be our second week of centers, so our third week of centers the students will be able to use their ABCMOUSE.COM accounts that I am setting up for them. The students are doing really well with these centers and have adapted well. This does not mean that we have gotten rid of our letter a week - we still have that right away before centers for everyone - review or first time seeing the letter/sound in a formal setting. Then the centers allow for me to dig deeper into their needs - differentiating instruction. We have four groups, four centers, and two rotations a day - four times a week. This way I can meet with all students twice a week and everyone gets to each center.
This week we worked on the letter Ee, and we talked about fire safety after our morning calendar. We sang songs, created projects, learned poems, etc. The students know not to be afraid of firefighters if they are ever involved in a fire. We were supposed to go to the fire station on Thursday, but we were rained out! We are going this Monday instead right after lunch so the students will be able to get a feel for the station, as well as the firefighters gear.
For the letter Ee we worked on the sound as well as the formation of the letter. With the sound of the letter we really focus on our song and the motion that goes along with the letter. This creates that muscle memory for the students; so much that when reviewing the sounds with the students, when I do the motion of a letter sound, they are easily able to tell me the sound. I am so proud of all of my 4K friends on how much they have grown already within their letter formation and sounds! :) This week was a crazy week! We had school but then on Friday we had two big field trips! One of them was The Farm in Door County, where the kids got to see farm equipment, as well as interact and pet various farm animals. The highlight for most of them was either feeding the baby goats with the bottles or throwing corn into the big ox's mouth!! They had so much fun, and there was so much to look at! To all the parents, the ones who came on the field trip and all of the others, thank you so much for being amazing parents and so supportive of 4K!!! It was great to have you there to experience this with us! This week we did an author study on Lois Ehlert and read a lot of her books. We looked at how she uses normal everyday objects to create her books; making them both entertaining and educational. We also are talking about the letter Dd this week and made our dogs that have been up in our hallway. There has already been so much growth in all of our friends in 4K and it is only the end of the first month! I am so proud of each and every one of them!! :) Our first stop on our day of field trips was to go to Hillside Apple Orchard! This was great because right when we got there they showed the kids where the apples go to be processed, the big fridge, etc. They were very good with the kids and interactive as well. Then we got to go on a wagon ride to go pick our apples and our pumpkins. The kids thought it was the funniest thing that a lot of the parents/chaperones had to walk behind the wagon, because there were so many of them. Again thank you so much for helping!! I told the kids that it was their turn when we went back to walk, and they did not seem up for that! :) It was a great day full of learning, exploring and friendship; I saw friends helping others, using their words and being problem solvers which is what we really work on in 4K. Happy October! :)
|
Ms. Luce
4K Teacher Archives
June 2017
Categories |