September wrap-up!

It's hard to believe that its October already.  I am so proud of our kids and the great direction the class is taking.  Their brains are little sponges and I get really excited when it's clear they have learned something.  September was a busy month and we're not slowing down for October. 

We have had three  special group projects just in the past two weeks that hopefully they will remember.  We had our "Apple Week".  That consisted of learning about fractions, graphing and counting, how apples grow and ,of course, making apple butter.  Knowing we (America's Public Schools) are moving to a universal set of learning standards, I thought I would use this project and future projects as a spring board to test myself to see if I could "teach" to most of the Reading/language and Math standards for Kindergarten. 

One of the big ideas of the new standards is placing the accountability of good instruction on the teachers rather than the "learning responsibility" of the student.  Students will be asked Who? What? Why? a lot and then expected to provide proof or a solution to "problems".  Good teachers show and model children how to find the answer rather than know the answer.

As for my teacher friends...I'm still working on my three lesson plans for you titled, Apple Core, Algebra Chain and It's Fall, How do you know?  Stay tuned.

Parents of my students...Our classroom newsletter will be coming home soon with cute pictures of our activities.

Student's Photos

After a lot of thought I have decided not to post any pictures of my students.  I know some of you check out this blog to see your child's pic with our activities or to see the things we are doing in class.  It's simply unsafe and I feel it's to risky. 

In lieu of this I will have a special surprise for you and your child at the end of the school year.
Stay tuned!

Apple Week

Hello all!  We have just finished a great week learning about apples, Johnny Applseed, fractions and other math skills with apples.  The kids enjoyed apple cider after recess one day and we made our annual batch of applebutter in the classroom. I will post a picture here of our bulletin board for my fellow teachers.  As promised, I will align our apple activities with the Common Core Standards.

Thank you PTO

Last night at the August PTO meeting they decided to help each teacher with "Back to School" expenses.  Each teacher was given a check.  I appreciate this very much, as I have spent nearly $600.00 this summer for supplies. 

Thank you, Thank you, Thank you
Mrs.Nation

Our Kindergarten Room

These picture were taken June 6, 2011.  Our mobile classroom is being replaced by a newer model.  All of the contents were moved into the main building last week.  A lot of it was placed in our room. 
I finally moved all of my stuff into the room also.  It is full.  However, I used this time to clean and sort through all my teaching supplies.  I de-cluttered by half; gave some away, threw some away and brought unnecessary things home.  It was a good reminder about how much money a teacher spends on their own supplies.  I am guessing that I spent about $500.00 on supplies, crafts, projects and teaching materials just last year.  This profession will nickel and dime you!!  I love it though.  Keep tuned in to see the progress.