Happy 2009 and Welcome Back!!! Week of Jan. 5-9

Hello and Welcome back!

I hope you were all able to rest, relax and enjoy special moments with family and friends over the past two weeks.

One of my new year's resolutions is to become more technologically advanced. :-) I realize there is always more to learn when it comes to technology, but now that we have a SMART board in our classroom, I want to learn even MORE and share the amazing things that this technology can do with the kindergarten students. Also, to make life a little easier, I will not be using our classroom website anymore. Instead, I will only post information on this blog so please be sure to check this blog weekly for any updated information. (I will put a link to the classroom website, so you can be sure to access this blog from our school and classroom website.)

After resting and spending quality time with my family, I am geared up to start the "New Year" and get back to a daily schedule.
This coming week, we have quite a bit going on.

Here is a glimpse at our specialist schedule and a few other events:

Monday: Art, having Character Class (Honesty) with Mrs. Swanson and we will be
celebrating Sami's Birthday!

Tuesday: P.E.

Wednesday: Library (remember to return your books!) and Music
and we will be celebrating Cody's Birthday!

Thursday: Art

Friday: P.E.

This coming week we will also be welcoming a new friend to our classroom. We are looking forward to having Tsione join us! We will also be concentrating on our first vowel of the year - letter A. We will be concentrating on the sounds the letter A makes and how to write it correctly. With the "new year" we will also be starting a new math chapter! Chapter 5 will be reviewing some concepts we have learned, but will also start introducing some geometry. In computer, we will be starting Type to Learn, which is a program that helps students understand the keys of the keyboard.
In the next few weeks I will be assessing the students to see where they are at with their reading skills, letter identification and letter sounds. These assessments will be used for upcoming report cards and will also help me identify our reading groups as we begin "Guided Reading" in a couple weeks. Look for more information to come on how these groups will work in the coming weeks.