Newsletter for September 8th-12th, 2008

Dear Families,
if you could step inside of our classroom during our day, I know you would be extremely proud of ALL the children in our class! They are doing an outstanding job (credit to you for being GREAT parents!!). After reading a book about LIteracy Stations this summer, I decided to put it into action, and I am AMAZED with how well the children are doing. You can see the kinds of things we are up to on my blog that I created for teachers and families. http://www.kpoindexter.wordpress.com. It is different from the classroom blog in that I have EVERYTHING we do and use daily on it for other teachers and families to use at home. I snapped some pictures last week and those are there so enjoy them! Please be sure to leave me a comment so I know if you’re visiting! :)
Our Literacy Station encompass much of what we do during the day, Big Books, searching for letters, words, and sentences, manipulating letters and sounds, and the awareness of print going from left to right and top to bottom.
We have been busy learning about Monarch Butterflies again this week and thanks so much for all your cute e-mails about what your Kinder. kids are teaching you each evening about Monarchs! We have made our symbolic butterflies-paper butterflies that will be mailed to Mexico to winter there and then be sent back in the Spring. We would like to collect some money to send with them to help the Journey North organization replant some trees for the Monarchs to roost in. If you are able to send in any money (ANYTHING!!) we would love to collect that and send it on. Our goal is to send $20.00 with our Monarchs. We will be keeping a chart next week to see how close we get. Just send it in with your child in an envelope marked, “Monarchs” and we will count it as part of our math!
Speaking (or typing, I guess!) of math, we have learned several new math games this week. Cube Grab and Record was a big hit--the children reached into a brown paper bag and pulled out a handful of cubes. They then recorded how many they grabbed on a graph. We also played Finger Count--each child listened as I played notes on the xylophone. For each note I played, they added one cube to the top of their fingers. We used different amounts of cubes each “round”. Another game we played was called Grow and Shrink. I gave each child a math mat (1/2 sheet with 10 black dots on it) and had them show me various quantities with cubes. We then used dice to roll and add or take away that number of cubs from their mat. I watched the children to see if they needed to count the cubes that were left on their mat each time or if they could just add or take some away with out counting. Very Interesting!
The information for our trip to Stuckey Farm will be coming home today, so be sure to watch for that. If you would like to go with us, be sure to include payment for yourself as well when you return your child’s money. I will post that form on the blog as well incase you lose it! :)
We fortunate to have a Junior Education Major from Marian College joining us in our classroom on Fridays from 8-11. Her name is Olivia Newhart and she loves being around children! :) Welcome Olivia!
We have started our classroom jobs this week and responsibility has stepped up a notch! :) The children are falling over each other with excitement to get their jobs done! Today was our first payday and the children got to go to store to celebrate their new jobs. Be sure to ask your child what their job is and what they like about it. We will be changing them in a few weeks, so encourage them to stick with them if they would like another job! :)
Take time to get outside and enjoy a nice walk with your child and ask them about their week! :)
www.poindexterpress.blogspot.com
Have a wonderful weekend!
Kristen Poindexter