Thank you so much to the over 40 guests who came to hear our young authors read their books. The pride and happiness on their faces was priceless. We are so thankful for the wonderfully supportive families who send their children to us each day.

Fun Fun Fun! Thank you to all of the wonderful people who contributed time and supplies and energy to our annual Harvest Party. The kids had such a special day.

Rocks Rocks Rocks!
We have begun a fun geology unit. Many children have brought in interesting rocks to share with the class; we have read some really cool books about rocks; and most importantly we are inspecting and investigating rocks. This week we defined the attributes of rocks and learned the vocabulary that goes along with that.

Kindergarten Pumpkin Patch Trip
Thanks to "Big Bear's" Market and Mr. and Mrs. Tobie- for the pumpkins.
We had a great trip to the pumpkin patch and then were hosted to treats at Big Bear's market. This was the 25th year for a great kindergarten tradition. Big Bear's Market's new owners, Karen and Bullet were great hosts. Great fun even in the rain!

These are pictures of our wonderful buddies. Every Tuesday, we spend a half-hour together doing something wonderful. This week, we played a math game. Thank you Mrs. Dawkins' and Mr. Blanc's students! If you want to see more pictures, check out Mrs. Dawkins' and Mr. Blanc's blogs. They have posted pictures too.

Meet the Team
In addition to the wonderful troop of parents who help regularly in our class, we have other caring adults who are committed to your child's success in school. Here they are!
Ms. Russell is a student at Concordia University. She will be with us throughout the year completing her student teaching. As the year progresses, she will take on more and more responsibility for student management and lesson planning. She will always collaborate closely with the classroom teachers.


Mr. Webber is also a student teacher from Concordia University. He is working with us one day a week right now, but will be nearly full-time after Winter Break. He is currently working with small groups and individuals but is looking forward to leading the whole class in the near future!

Meet our community volunteers
Two ladies from our Corbett community are regular volunteers in our class. Neither of them have children at the school, but simply love working with kids.

Ms. Pride has worked with us for a number of years. She loves working with small groups and individuals as they review and practice skills we have introduced in class.

Brianna worked in our class last year and we are happy she returned! She has a wonderful attitude and is willing to do anything to help the classroom run smoothly. She hopes to become a teacher one day.

Fun with Friends

Vegetable Prints

The students were surprisingly thrilled to see that we had brought a big sack of vegetables to school. However, their excitement grew exponentially when they found out we'd be painting with them- printing to be exact. We rotated through stations with primary color paint and had a lot of fun experimenting with different ways to use the vegetables. The finished products are displayed throughout the classrooms.

Kindergarten Open House

What a fun day we’ve had! 19 kindergarteners and their families came to visit for our Kindergarten Open House. We were really impressed with how eagerly the children explored the classroom and how responsible they were to pick up after themselves. What great kids!
The most popular question was, “What does the school day look like?” Although the lines often blur and a lesson will encompass many different skills, here’s the answer:
8:00 Morning Meeting
-greet one another
-poems
-singing
-daily message
8:30 Language Arts
-read alone
-read with a friend
-read in a small group
-read with the teacher
-learn letters and sounds (if needed)
9:15 recess and snack
9:50 Spelling or language arts skills
10:10 Writing
11:00 Math
12:35 recess and snack
1:25 Explore time or PE
2:00 recess
2:20 journals or show-and-tell or singing
3:00 music or story time

Science, social studies, health and art are definitely a part of our curriculum. They don't show up on this "basic" schedule because they are integrated into language arts and math and because when we're in the middle of a big science experiment or art project, we simply clear everything else out of the way to give them proper attention. Therefore, there may be days when we spend 3 hours on science, it's simply not part of this skeletal outline.

Already busy preparing!
Mrs. Shaw and Mrs. Wold have begun planning for an exciting 2010-2011 school year. Last year's blog entries have been cleared off to make room for all of the wonderful things to come.