Welcomes, 50th Day, and Weekly Highlights

What an exciting week! I am pleased to introduce you to Ms. Desiree Bailey, the newest member of our kindergarten classroom. Ms. Bailey is joining our kindergarten family as our classroom assistant.  Ms. Bailey has been in the Head Start program for 10 years.  She holds a BA.  She says that children are like little sponges and she loves to help them discover new things.  Ms. Bailey enjoys knowing she is helping to shape the future generations.  We are so excited to have her join us for the remainder of the school year.  Ms. Bailey has been so eager to get to know our kiddos, our classroom, and Irving School.  Please make sure you introduce yourself to Ms. Bailey at arrival or dismissal.  We are so happy to have her!

We began our bear unit this week! With the start of our bear unit, the countdown has begun for our kindergarten field trip to the Brookfield Zoo.  The kiddos were so excited to share their prior knowledge about bears, read fiction and nonfiction bear books, and create their own brown bears in a den.  Our story of the week was Bear Snores On by Karma Wilson.  The kiddos identified the characters, setting, and main events in the story.  Take a peek at our kindergartners completing their reading blueprints detailing the story elements.

We continue to build on our early reading and writing skills during Daily Five literacy stations.  Take a peek at our kindergartners hard at work!

We continue to practice reading with a partner during reader's workshop.  We are building partner reading stamina. We hope to add reading with a partner to our Daily Five rotation soon.

In writer's workshop, we continue to explore composing personal narratives.  A few of our kindergartners have completed their first book! Please encourage your child to build writing stamina at home.

During whole group math, we introduced Top It.  Top It, similar to the card game War, helps us to identify numbers greater than and less than.  During math stations, we continue to explore number identification, dice addition, decomposing numbers, shape identification, and tens frames.  Take a peek at our kindergarten mathematicians!

A special thank you to our parent and grandparent volunteers this week.  Take a peek at the fun we had with our family volunteers.

Last, but certainly not least, we celebrated the 50th day of kindergarten on Wednesday.  Take a peek at our kindergartners during our Sock Hop!

Upcoming Events
Month of November--Student Council Mitten Drive
November 19th--Irving Turkey Trot- We will cheer on our 5th grade Book Buddies
November 24th--Brookfield Zoo Field Trip
November 25th-27th--Thanksgiving Break
December 1st--Paul Orchoski Author Visit
December 4th--Kindergarten Hibernation Day
December 17th--Winter Concert