* Hugs!

There are some very nice people in our world. Many of our parents are away from our families serving our country. We miss them when they are away from our home. Some high school students gathered over 500 stuffed animals and delivered them to our school. The animals give us something to hug! We made a sign for them, and we signed our name to the sign. We thank them for their kindness!

Thank You Friends!

* Office Helpers

My teacher says she can't do her job alone! She has a group of friends in the office to help her! They help her with lots of things. When they help her, they are helping us! And that is good. Very good!

Thank you office FRIENDS!

* Objective Learning Board

Every day we read our Objective Learning Board. Our teacher taught us that the word "objective" is a big word because it is a word that includes all of the things we will be learning this year. We can't learn all the things at one time, so we will focus on one learning "objective" at a time. The board helps us keep our focus. It helps us keep on task. We can read the board as a group, we can read the board with a friend, or we can read the board all by ourself. Each day we read the Objective Learning Board with our teacher. This is what the learning board says: "Today I will learn the name/sound of letter(s) ____ (Our teacher writes this in when we read the board). I will learn to use this letter(s) when I write words and stories. I am learning to read and write! Thank you Objective Learning Board for helping us keep our focus!

* Numbers Numbers Numbers

These are the number cards that are hanging in our classroom. We have big and little cards. We use the little cards in our centers. The big cards have magnet on the back, so sometimes we take them off and use them on the white boards. These number cards help us learn how to write the numbers 0-30. We learn how to make the strokes of the numbers so we don't make the number backwards.

Each number has a song that helps us remember how to write the number.

We also look at the value of the number on a ten frame. This helps us see the relationship of the value of the number to the value of 10.

We like learning about numbers. We plan to learn about numbers to 100 (even though we only NEED to learn to 30 in Kindergarten) because we are SUPER DOOPER SMART kids!

Our teacher made the number cards. If your Kindergarten would like a copy of the number cards and number songs, please email jprobert@dsdmail.net and write Number Cards in the subject area.

Click here and here to view number songs on line.

Numbers Online Game

Number recognition
It helps to have concrete numbers (plastic or foam) the children can touch. Other than that, games are again an excellent way to reinforce learning.

Here's a simple game: Have a bunch of foam numbers and/or plastic magnetic numbers, and make a heap of them between you and the child. You pick one, hold it up high and call out loud its name, such as "Number five!" and put it to you personal pile.

The child will then find the same number (make sure there are at least two of each number) and does the same, calling its name out loud and gathering the number to himself.
Then you reverse it so that it is first the child's turn to pick any number from the pile, call out its name, and put it to his pile, and you have to find the same number. After all the numbers in the middle pile were gone, the task is to arrange the numbers you have in order.

Play all kids' favorite card game: UNO. That'll motivate children to learn to recognize numbers quickly.

DotMath for kids practices number recognition based on the dot patterns on a die. Several pages of the book are available online (as images).

Abacus Online

http://www.tux.org/~bagleyd/java/AbacusApp.html

* On Schedule

This is a picture of our Schedule Board. Our board has many different cards with words and pictures that tell us about our day. The word/picture cards are attached to the board with Velcro Tape so that we can arrange them in order for the day. On the back of each card our teacher also added magnet strip. This allows us to use the schedule word/picture card on the white board when we are learning to read and write. Thank you Schedule Board for helping us keep our day organized. Have a happy kindergarten day!

* November Friendship Feast

Thanksgiving is celebrated in November. We learned about the first Thanksgiving. We talked about the traditions we have in our family during Thanksgiving. Every day at our school we eat lunch together as friends. So, we say we have a Friendship Feast everyday!'
Our teacher says we are good eaters! We make good choices when we go to the fruit and salad bar.
We are healthy kids, and good friends forever!
To Help us learn about Thanksgiving, we clicked here.

* Dads and Donuts

Today we welcomed our Dad to school. The PTA provided donuts and juice. It was fun to see all the friends and their dads.

My Dad
Original Author: Wendy Silva

My Dad is one of those special Dads that every kid dreams about.

He loves me unconditionally, and for this I have no doubt.

My Daddy loves to spend time with me no matter what it is I do.

And I seem to have much more fun when I can count on two.

He is the person that can cheer me up when I am feeling sad.

He is my friend and my teacher and I am proud to call him Dad.

* Courtesy: Marvin and Jessie

Every month, the a group of teachers and staff members at our school perform a play for us. They plays are about building good charactor. There are always 2 characters that stay the same. They are Marvin and Jessie, two kids who make good character choices while they are growing up.



This month, our teacher was in the play. She was Madame Magenta. Her character created a machine that would take a person into the future. Marvin and Jessie were acting rude. Madame Magenta asked if Marvin and Jessie would like to go into the Magnificant Future Machine. When they went into the machine they found out that if they were rude when they were kids, they would probably be rude when they were grown up.

This play taught us to work on courtesy so that we can be courteous kids now and courteous adults in the future.

We thank our teacher for taking time to teach us to be courteous each and every day.

We look forward to learning each month from Marvin and Jessie!

Math Resources

Worksheets for shapes, matching, equivalence, more, and less
To recognize shapes and practice matching, you can either use ready-made worksheets or workbooks, or make some of your own.
If you make your own, you can just draw three circles on a page and then 2-5 triangles on a page, and ask the child to match each circle with a triangle by drawing a line from shape to shape. Vary the shapes and the amounts. Sometimes the amounts should be equal, sometimes not.
Another variation is to ask the child to draw. First make some sticks, circles, squares, or other shapes on a page, and encircle them. Make for the child a big "bubble" to draw in, and ask the child to draw either the same amount, one more, or one less.
Also have your child practice writing numbers on paper.

You can find lots of different kinds of basic kindergarten workbooks at LearningThings.com. You don't really need anything too fancy to practice these concepts, so workbooks from many different publishers can work equally well.
Singapore Math's EarlyBird Kindergarten math is praised a lot. Dorling Kindersley's kindergarten math workbook is of good quality as well.

There are of course several fine websites that have free worksheets for kindergarten math, such as:
Kidzone.ws kindergarten math worksheets
Maths is fun kindergarten worksheets
Kindergarten math worksheets from About.com

* Shape Up!

We learn to draw circles. We use the circles to make a picture. This is our friend. She used circles to make a butterfly. She is a happy learner!

Click here to go to a shape snip-it!

* Harvest Celebration

A Colorful Halloween

Halloween is in the fall,

When summer colors fade.

But there are colors everywhere,

In the Halloween parade.

It’s fun to dress on Halloween,

In costumes bold and bright.

An old brown owl, a big black cat,

Or a little ghost in white.

Pumpkins are so fat and round..

A bright orange color, too.

Scoop them out and carve a face.

So they can grin at you.

So have a colorful Halloween

And make October bright.

With all the colors of Halloween: Black, orange, brown and white. ***

We have been learning about COLOR... making books about color, mixing colors, painting, and reading about color! Colors are everywhere!

It has been said that "You don't really understand human nature unless you know why a child on a merry-go-round will wave at his parent(s) every time around - and why his parent(s) will always wave back. ~Original Author: William D.

Thank you to our good parents who help make our class celebrations so much... FUN!

A pirate's life is a wonderful life. ***from "Peter Pan"

Teacher: Read To Me

Read to me riddles and

read to me rhymes,

Read to me stories of magical times.

Read to me tales about castles and kings.

Read to me stories of fabulous things.

Read to me pirates and read to me knights,

Read to me dragons and dragon-book fights.

Read to me spaceships and cowboys and then, When you are finished -- please read them again.

A teacher's constant task is to take a roomful of live wires and see to it that they're grounded!
Author Unknown

* ORANGE

* Follow the Rules ... REWARD Lunch On the Lawn

Yeah! We earned a special reward for our good behavior. We have been working on following all of the class and school rules. Following the rules helps us learn, and helps our teacher teach.

When our teacher noticed we all were following the class rules, we would earn a letter, building the phrase: LUNCH ON THE LAWN. When we earned all the letters we were so excited! We felt pride in our efforts.

















Our class rules are:
1. Listen to teacher the 1st time.
2. Share and take turns.
3. Use appropriate voice levels.
4. Control our whole self.
5. Take care of class materials.
6. Be in the right place at the right time.

When we follow the class rules we keep our kindergarten power!

When we follow the class rules we are making learning choices that will help us be the best kindergarten kids we can be.

We feel good when we keep our kindergarten power. To learn about Kindergarten Power Teaching click here and here.

* Mad Scientists

It's Red Ribbon Week!
What is Red Ribbon Week?

It's a special week when we focus on making choices to keep us safe and healthy. We make lots choices every single day.

These friends came to our school to help our Panther teach us about making choices. They taught us about how taking bad things into our body will make us unhealthy. They taught us how to make choices when making a choice is hard.

We choose to be healthy for all of our life!

* Panther Paw Award

Our school has a special award that is given to a student who does something that is spectacular!

Of course our teacher says that every one of us is awesome, and we all do spectacular things.

But, sometimes, one of us will be what our teacher calls a "SUPER STUDENT!" That's when she reports our actions to the Principal and he presents us with a special award. And... he calls our parent(s). And... they come! And... the Principal tells the whole school about the good thing we did.

And... it feels very cool! We are all working at earning a Panther Paw Award.

Our teacher says we can't ask for the award. It has to come as a surprise, when we don't even realize our "SUPER-NESS!"

That is cool.
Very cool.

* PAINT !

Our teacher has a favorite saying. It is, "Life is one big canvas... Throw on all the color you can!"

We are learning about paint and colors. Right now we are experimenting with color. We learn to keep our colors bright and clean we should rinse our brush before we dip it into another color. We like clean bright colors.

We learn to take care of the paints so that when a friend uses the paint it will be clean and bright.

We ask ourselves this question... What would happen if all the colors went away?" Our teacher says if there were no colors there would be no kindergarten... because kindergarten is all about COLOR!

* October Fire Safety

Sparky the Fire Dog and some Volunteer Firemen and Women came to teach us about Fire Safety! We each went inside the firetruck. We went in a special "smoke house" that shows us what it might feel like if we were in real smoke. We learned many rules about smoke and fire that can keep us safe!
To learn more about Sparky click here.
To learn more about Fire Safety click here.

Addition and Subtraction Games OnLine

Bugs on a Leaf

Sum Stacker

Number Bond

Number Eaters Addition

Number Eaters Subtraction

Save the Whales Bonds of Ten

Aquatic Speedway

Addition

* Alphabet

These are the Alphabet Letters that hang in our room. The letters help us see the strokes to write the letters. We learn that letters are made from lines and curves.

See that pencil in the photo ? It is a JUMBO Pencil. It is 2 feet long! It is BIG. We do big learning in kindergarten!

Our teacher made the big alphabet letters. We have big alphabet cards and little cards. She cares about us and wants us to learn all we can learn. She wants us to do our personal best work. Thanks for looking at our blog. Have a perfect ABC Day!

To learn more about the alphabet click here, here, here and here!

* September Johnny Appleseed Day

Johnny Appleseed spent 49 years of his life in the American wilderness planting apple seeds. Johnny Appleseed’s real name was John Chapman. Many people think Johnny Appleseed was a fictional charactor, but he was a real person. He was born September 26, 1774 in Massachusetts. He created apple orchards in Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Pennsylvania and Ohio. After 200 years, some of those trees still bear apples.
Johnny Appleseed’s dream was for a land where blossoming apple trees were everywhere and no one was hungry. A gentle and kind man, he slept outdoors and walked barefoot around the country planting apple seeds everywhere he went. It is even told that he made his drinking water from snow by melting it with his feet.
Johnny was a friend to everyone he met. Indians and settlers -- even the animals -- liked Johnny Appleseed. His clothes were made from sacks and his hat was a tin pot. He also used his hat for cooking. There are many tales about Johnny Appleseed. It is said that once Johnny fell asleep and a rattlesnake tried to bite him, but the fangs would not go into his foot because his skin was as tough as an elephant’s hide. Another tale describes him playing with a bear family.
Johnny Appleseed died in 1845. It was the only time he had been sick -- in over 70 years!!!

To celebrate Johnny Appleseed, we planted grass seed, and made paper tin pot hats. Cosco donated a BIG APPLE PIE !!! and we all had a piece of it! We made AB patterns using apple pieces and paint.

Click here and here to learn more about Johnny Appleseed.

* Write On!

Learning to write is very important. We practice and PRACTICE ... We learn to do our Personal Best Work! Today we are practicing on our white boards.

We will practice writing all of letters of the alphabet many times this year in Kindergarten!

Practice makes perfect! Of course, our teacher thinks we are already perfect!

Our teacher thinks we have the BEST smiles !

We are happy learners!

* Meet Our Teacher

Hello!

I have a passion for teaching Kindergarten - "The little people at the fresh end of education!"

I have also taught 1st, 2nd and 3rd grade. Working with children is one of the most rewarding things I do. I enjoy watching them grow right before my eyes. I have been a classroom Early Childhood Educator for 15 years. Prior to my work in the classroom I worked with children as a Reading Tutor for 5 years. Prior to my tutoring experience, I worked in Child Care for 5 years. My total years in Early Childhood is 25+ ! I am proud to have patience as one of my biggest charactor qualities. I am also a quick and spontaneous thinker, often coming up with our best learning experiences on the spur of the moment... it always helps to teach to the needs of the students at the time they need you. I have created many of my own teaching materials. I have shared these learning materials with many of my peers over the years. I have instructed on many different levels in many different venues. Many of my teaching aides are available on CD or Download. You can contact me at jprobert@dsdmail.net if you are interested in hearing more about these materials.

To the parents of the little ones I teach... I thank you for trusting me to be a part of your team as we work together to bring knowledge and social responsibility to the little people of the world.

Stuff For a Good Teacher by Allison Age 7
1. Loves her kids.

2. Helps you out.

3. Always has a smile.

4. Is fair with her kids.

5. Is full of surprises.

6. Takes good care of me.

7. Has smart brains.

8. Tries her best.

9. Likes to laugh.

10. Listens to her heart

More about me:

I have been married to the love of my life for 36 years! We have raised 2 sons and 2 daughters. We are grandparents! We have 3 grandsons and 3 grand-daughters. We have 2 grandbabies on the way, a boy due in March, and ??? due in August.

My parents live close by. My father is healthy. My mother is not so healthy, she is in an assisted care center.

My hobbies include: Technology, Electronic Scrapbooking, Traditional Scrapbooking, Reading, Hiking, Family Fun Time, Organizing, I love the Mountains, I enjoy walking and swimming. I enjoy meeting new people, and making friends.

* Our Mascot & Teacher

Our teacher is crazy about our NEW SCHOOL MASCOT!

Our Mascot the Peace Panther.

This is going to be a great year because our Mascot will join us at different events throughout the year. Our Mascot will bring lots of school spirit to our Kindergarten!

Go Panthers!

Click on the word panther to learn more about this beautiful cat.