Sharpen the Saw

The seventh habit is, "sharpen the saw." Take time with your child over track out to rest, refuel, and relax! We recently learned about this habit and how to balance your life. Learning, exercising, relaxing, eating and socializing are all aspects to having a balanced life. We take time everyday to sharpen our saw on the playground and just enjoy being a kid! 

Even Miss Quinn takes time to sharpen her saw! Take a look at what I've been up to...

The Leader In Me

Lake Myra was very fortunate to earn a $250,000 grant to become a leader in me school. What does this mean? Check it out at www.leaderinme.org 

I'm really looking forward to what's ahead for LMES. The staff will be trained over track out to start implementing the leader in me even more when the students come back second quarter.

Last day of the first quarter

We had a blast on our last day before track out. The kids worked so hard their very first quarter of kindergarten, I decided they earned a special celebration! They looked cozy and cute in their PJ's. 

They were excited and anxious to introduce us to their special stuffed friends at show and tell. We wrote about them and they were glued to their hips all day. Part of our celebration was going outside to play with chalk and bubbles. Then we came in for bagged lunch in the classroom and watched PBS shows. It was a great end to our first quarter together! Enjoy your time with them over track out. I look forward to seeing them in a few weeks and hearing all their stories.

Classroom website

I apologize that the tab I created to take you to the classroom website isn't working. I'm trying to fix it. In the mean time to access it you can go to http://missjennquinn.weebly.com

End of Quarter Conferences

Report cards are going to be delayed due to a glitch with the new electronic system. I have sent home a note from WCPSS explaining it in more detail. Students will receive report cards once we track back in. I will have final grades and assessments done in time for conferences still. We can still discuss your child's progress and I will let you know what you can expect to see on their report card. If you haven't already signed up for a conference, please do so! The conference day is Tuesday, October 8th(I apologize for the mix up on the newsletter).The link to sign up is below with the remaining slots. If for some reason none of those times work, let me know and we can work something out! I can't wait to brag about how wonderful all your children are doing:) 

Q1 Parent Conferences

Kid Humor

 Here's a little something to make you teachers and parents laugh! This video might be how you feel when you are doing math homework with your child or teaching a new math lesson. Click below to enjoy!

Show and Tell

Every Friday we have show and tell. Students can bring in something special to them to share. Show and tell is limited to one item and must come in a bag. The idea is that it should be a secret and the class has to guess what it is. Students should have three clues in mind or help them write it on a piece of paper to read to the class. 

September Birthdays

Happy birthday to Aniyah, Ricardo and Valerie this month!! Feel free to send in cupcakes for your child's special day. We enjoyed some yummy cupcakes for Aniyah's 6th birthday today:)

What could it be?

As scientist we played a guessing game that only allowed us to use our sense of touch. Students were able to explore the sense of touch through feeling around in a bag of items to figure out what it was or were blindfolded and put their hand in a substance. We also explored how we can make observations using our sense of hearing. I played different noises, the students made guesses then I revealed the pictures on the smart board of what it was. We will be testing out our keen sense of smell next! 

Fun Run

While it was a hot one, fun run was a success! Way to go everyone who participated and a big thanks to all the parent volunteers. 

Literacy centers

Guided reading groups have been up and running. This is a time where I pull groups of students to work on certain areas of need or to help further develop their literacy skills. While I'm working with 4-5 students at a time the other students are working at independent centers or with the TA, Mr. Chakmakian. The students rotate through centers to ensure that I'm meeting with all groups of students. The center activities you will see below are to enforce letter Identification and sound. Even once your child learns the alphabet, it is still essential to continue reviewing and practicing to engrain it as second nature. To be able to match the letter sound with the letter fluently will help them as emerging readers. Another center below is helping them to begin to stretch out and write three letter, cvc(consonant vowel consonant) words. The kids are very excited that we have begun to use the iPads! There are apps for phonics, sight word recognitions, reading, letter ID and sounds, etc. I will direct individual students to apps that will target individual skills. 

Writers workshop

When I asked the question whose favorite subject is writing, every hand flew up in the air! Writers workshop is a time for students to start developing emerging writing skills; writing down letter sounds, handwriting, stretching out words, putting thoughts on paper, etc. This week we are working on putting thoughts to a story or event they are writing about in a sequential order. They are creating books page by page of what happened first, next, and last. After the students have finished we will begin the editing process or looking back over our work to make it the best it can be and then we will "publish" to share with the class.

Help us win $ for our classroom!

There is a contest going on for NC teachers to win up to $1000 towards their classroom! As a beginning teacher funds are low and materials are in high demand. This would be a wonderful opportunity for the class. Please take a minute to vote for me!!! Be sure to cast your vote here: http://goo.gl/LQfmLG

Becoming Scientists

What is a scientist and what do they do? These are the two essential questions we use to start our first science unit. After exploring what different scientists do and the steps they use to form ideas, we started to try it out ourselves. One of the first thing scientists need to do is make observations. As scientists, we stepped outside our school to observe nature and all the surroundings in the environment around us. Students shared what they saw, heard, touched, and smelled. Through exploration the students discovered that scientists use what we call "the five senses." 

We are going to be focusing on each sense individually to get a better understanding on how we can make observations using them. The first sense we focused on is the sense of taste. What better way to start the unit right?! I can't say we tested anything too exciting though. I used baby food to make this taste testing game a mystery. Students weren't allowed to see, smell, or feel the food(at least not in its original state). Even if the kids peeked the mushed up pears, bananas, peaches, carrots, and apples hardly resembled their original state to give it away. By taking away their other senses, it helped them to only hone in on the sense of taste. Students had to try to take what they already know to make observations on the food through taste to discover what the food was. Check back soon to see how we explore the other senses!