Mrs. Miller & Mrs. O'Toole's Kindergarten Class

We are so happy to be your child's teacher. This kindergarten year will be a year of new beginnings, a year filled with large and small accomplishments, a year of trying new things and making new friends. Kindergarten is an important year in your child's education. It sets the foundation for future years.We are honored to be on this very memorable and special journey with you and your child! We will be updating this website weekly with our K1 Newsletter, class photos, important dates and information.

We look forward to working with you this year! 

Important Dates:

September 18 - Fall Picnic

October 12 - Teacher workday - no school for students

October 19-23 - minimum days - conference week - all K classes meet 8:15-11:45

October 30 - Halloween celebration - Minimum day for K all students meet 8:15-11:45

Hello Families!   

We welcomed the week with attitudes of gratitude! Each day we held someone in our hearts that we were grateful for and did “gratitude breathing.” We continue to take many mindful moments during our busy day to help us find calmness in our bodies, minds, and breaths. Mindful breathing really helps us focus and stay in the moment to get the most out of our day. One of our favorite songs in our class is I am Yoga by Emily Arrow. This delightful song helps us regulate our bodies through movement and breathing while putting joy in our hearts.

We are also practicing “positive self talk” in our classroom.  Affirmations not only boost self-esteem and promote a growth mindset, but they also help combat intrusive negative thoughts and those pesky automatic negative thoughts. For this reason, affirmations are a powerful tool for kids who are struggling to manage emotions. One of our favorite affirmations is, “I can do hard things!”

In social emotional learning, we worked on “Whole Body Listening.” This book works on the idea that listening is an “active” process. We listen with more than our ears. We listen with our eyes, ears, mouth , hands, arms, legs and feet! It involves how we listen and the nonverbal messages we send when we are part of a group and when others are talking with and to us. Listening with our whole bodies and focusing on and thinking about the group sets the stage for successful communication and interaction. 

Mrs. G came into our classroom on Tuesday and  talked about “the size of a problem.” If a problem is small, you can usually solve it yourself. If you need help, that is a bigger problem. The children quickly figured out that most problems they encounter each day is a small problem.

In phonics and word work, we focussed on the sounds /b/, /t/ and/i/. We used our knowledge of sounds and letters and did a fun writing activity on Friday. 

This week we began to learn about high frequency words or as we call them in kindergarten “red words”. This week we worked on the words “the” and “a”.  Every child has their own Red Word box that is kept in their individual book bin to have access to and practice their words each day. We are also working on hearing words that rhyme and matching pictures that rhyme.

We started a nursery rhyme unit this week. Since nursery rhymes are patterns; they help children hear rhymes, are easy to recall and fun to memorize. Nursery rhymes usually tell a story with a beginning, a middle, and an end. This teaches children that events happen in sequence, and they begin to learn how to understand stories and follow along. Also these rhymes are fun to chant and sing!

In math we worked on number writing and matching a number to an equivalent group. The children played a fun math game with a partner to practice number writing and graphing. Most of our math curriculum uses hands-on learning, through the use of manipulatives and or games. The math workbook pages that come home after a unit only show a partial part of our new Amplify Math lessons. Much of the pages may not be finished by your child, but the concepts have been taught and practiced using games and mini lessons.

Most Fridays are “Fine Motor Friday” in K1. Next week our fun way to strengthen our fine motor skills will be working with playdough placemats for a fun way to embed emotional literacy practice into our fine motor practice. Each mat provids a blank face paired with a feeling word and emoticon that the children can use to model the feeling on a face out of play dough. I'm sure they will love this hands on activity.

Thanks to everyone that signed up for a parent conference. If you have not had the chance to find a time please do so asap! It will be a pleasure to meet with all families and talk about how your child is acclimating to kindergarten. Please remember that if you ever have any questions or concerns, we can be reached by email.

Have a wonderful weekend! - Kathy & Stephanie