Celebration

Dear Families:
Better late than never... We all have so much to be thankful for so I would like to celebrate tomorrow afternoon in Class
K-207. The children and I have been discussing what we are thankful for throughout the day today. Some of our comments are "I am thankful for my mom," "I am thankful for my dad." "I am thankful for love," "I am thankful for the presidents." Each child has something unique to say. I just love listening to each one. So I am am making a Thanksgiving tree and will have each child put their own leaf (their handprint) on the tree and tell the class what they are thankful for. If you would like to come to our class at 1:30 tomorrow afternoon to help us celebrate, you are more than welcome. I will be in my room - without the chidren - from 12:20 to 1 p.m. if you would like to help set up.

I am listing some of the things that we need to make this a wonderful celebration. Please send me a comment on this blog or e-mail - www.class.k207@gmail.com to let me know if you are able to come and participate in our last-minute celebration. If you notice that someone is not on the e-mail list, please make sure to spread the word. I apologize for the late notice, but since I was out at Teacher's College on Monday, I am a little behind!

I am taking this opportunity to thank all of you for the wonderful support you have given to me and to Class K-207. It has been a wonderful three months. Happy Thanksgiving!
Fondly,
Ms. Graham

I will supply the juice

List of things needed:
cups and plates
forks
plastic table cloth
sliced turkey
cranberry sauce
stuffing (?)
fruit
pies
any dessert

Reading and Writing Workshop at Teacher's College

Dear Families:
Thank you to all of you who met with me last night. I enjoyed our one on one conversations very much. It was a very long night and I apologize for not keeping to the ten minute rule and for keeping some of you waiting so long. I hope it was worth the wait.

I would like to tell you that on Monday, November 24th, I will be attending a workshop at Teacher's College/Columbia University all day. We have a wonderful substitute teacher scheduled to work with our class - so please do not be concerned. I have left plans for her to work throughout the day. The prep that day is Art and it is scheduled for 2:15 until 3:00 in the Art Room. If any parent would like to help out in the art room on Monday and help the substitute teacher get the children ready for dismissal, it would be greatly appreciated.

I know that I have told you that one of my favorite subjects to teach children is writing. I just love to see the progression of the children from September to June - where they become independent author's of their own detailed pieces. I also love to learn as many good things about the writing process as I could so that I can become a better teacher for your children. The conference that I will be attending on Monday is called - "Conferring and Small Group Work to Support Small Moment Writing and Writing for Readers." Our instructer will be Natalie Louis who is that author of Writing for Readers - a book that I use as my bible for writing workshop. I am very excited to attend this conference.

When working in Kindergarten classrooms, it is easy to buy into the idea that little children cannot really articulate what they are trying to do as writers, and that they cannot really make plans and have intentions as writers. But that simply is not true! Five and six year old children absolutely want the chance to think about they they have already done, to imagine what they want to do, and to make deliberate choices and plans for how they will proceed. A good teaching of writing is teaching children to think about their writing..and this means, teaching kids how they can answer questions such as, "What are you working on as a writer?" and "What have you tried so far?" "How did it go?' "What were you thinking of doing next?" I love the small moment writing unit, so I hope to come away with some new ideas that will help your children enjoy it as much as I do and become better writers. I think it is important to show children how to go from KNOWING ABOUT to USING letters to communicate their stories. From their writing pieces so far, I know that they are ready to do this. After all, the only reason to learn about letters in the first place is because you have something to say. You know as well as I do how much they have to say!!!

I know that you can help them with this unit by noticing when your children does something that is a very tiny - SMALL - moment that you bring this small moment to their attention and say something like "wow, that is a small moment...that is something to write about when you write your small moments..." We want children to "zoom in on Small Moments" and then turn their small moments into stories that cross several pages. If you keep refering to the "small" moments that occur in their lives through the day, it will make them comfortable in knowing what to write about when the time comes for them to write. They will have many "small" moments in their repertoire.

Next week is our long Thanksgiving weekend. Our last day of school is Wednesday. Have a wonderful holiday.
Fondly,
Mrs. Graham

Parent Teacher Conferences and Personal Narratives

Dear Families:
Just a reminder that Personal Narratives of your children will be coming home today in your child's bookbag. Please look for them in his or her bag. I personally put them into their red folders. For the first marking period, Kindergarten children do not receive report cards. Reports Cards will be done for the second marking period. Also attached to the Narratives is a reminder of the time of the Parent Teacher Conference that you scheduled with me. Conferences will be held on Thursday, November 20th in the afternoon and evening. Conferences are held for only ten minutes a family to accomodate all families. If you need more time to meet with me, that can be arranged. Please forgive me in advance if I sometimes go slightly over the ten minute mark. I never feel that ten minutes is enough time for me to tell you all the wonderful things I have to tell you about your child, If you did not receive a reminder of the scheduled time from me that is because I did not receive the conference schedule notice back from you. Please look into your children's bookbag on a daily basis to make sure that you receive all the information we send home. Please note that there is a half day tomorrow. Your child needs to be picked up in the cafeteria at 12 p.m. Thank you.
Below are the scheduled conferences:
AFTERNOON
6:00 - Shannon
1:10 - Riana
1:20 - Unni
1:30 - Lucas
1:40 - Emile
1:50 - Dylan
2:00 - Adelaide
2:10 - Clea
2:20 - Chanique

EVENING
6:00 - Shannon
6:20 - Flynn
6:40 - Andrew
6:50 - Marcelino
7:00 - Jocelyn
7:10 - Kevin
7:20 - Grace

Also I would like to thank the parents who purchased books for our classroom at the Book Fair. I cannot tell you how much that means to me and the children to have new fresh books to read!! Thank you.
See you tomorrow.
Fondly,
Ms. Graham

Green Day Reminder

Dear Families:
Don't forget to have your child wear something GREEN tomorrow, November 18th. It's our official PS 154 Green Kick-off Day! The assembly for our Kindergarten class will begin at 9:30 a.m. The children will be singing the Recycling Song. Also the children should bring in items for recycling during the week. All items can be dropped off in the MMR.
* Old sneakers
* Old cell phones
* Empty printer cartridges

TOGETHER WE CAN MAKE A DIFFERENCE!

Head's Up for the Week of November 17th

There is many things happening in Kindergarten next week. Here is a preview of some of the events:

On Monday, November 17th, Author and Illustrator Nina Crews will be coming to our class to read from her book Neighborhood Mother Goose. We will be sharing this event with Ms. Hanson and Ms. Rios' class at 9:30 a.m.

On Tuesday, November 18th, we will be having a Go Green Assembly in the Multimedia Room to talk about ways our school can help the environment. The children in Class K-207 will be singing the song, "We've Been Working on Recycling" to the tune of "I've Been Working On The Railroad." They love it. Ask them to sing it to you over the weekend. We will also be working on a Go Green Day - all day long!

Parent Teacher Conferences will be held on Thursday, November 20th. A sign up sheet will go home today where you can indicate if you would like to meet in the morning or afternoon. If you have more than one child in the school, please let me know so I can coordinate schedules with the sibling's teacher. I will let you know the time of your appointment on Monday. Each parent will be given a 10 minute time slot. If you need more time, I can arrange another date to meet. Thursday will be a half day for the children.

I am going to begin our Fireman/Firehouse Inquiry Study soon. If you know of any FirePERSON who would like to come in to talk to our class, please let me know. We will be going on several trips to the Firehouse so I hope that I can get as many parent volunteers as possible.

If you do not like how your child's school photograph came out, retakes will be December 5. Please let me know if you would like to do retakes. Yet, I think all the pictures came out beautifully!!!

I would like to thank Kevin's mom for volunteering to work on the Art Fair Project with the children. I think we will make a lot of money for the PTA with this wonderful piece of art.

I would love to hear any comments or questions that you may have on this web site since I would love it to be interactive tool for us all to use. I believe all you have to do is press the "comment" button under my posting. Don't be afraid...it is really easy!

Fondly,
Ms. Graham

November News

Dear Families:
Thank you to the parents who came with us on our Prospect Park Zoo Trip. The day was wonderful and we all had a great time. I hope you enjoy the photos. The children learned a lot about the animals and had a great time petting and feeding them. I think they all enjoyed the feeding of the seals. There will not be many days left like that one this winter but there will be many more trips to come.
I am looking forward to meeting all of you next week at the Parent Teacher conferences. Since we are only allotted ten minutes for each family, if you need more time to speak to me, we can arrange another date. The children are all doing great and I am going to love to speak to you about each one.
We are well into our new writing unit - Writing Like Scientists - and the children are writing beautifully. The Teacher College staff developer came into our classroom while we were working on this unit and could not believe how great the children were sounding out their sounds and writing the letters that they hear. I am so proud of them. The children are also really moving ahead with reading. It is very funny that they are reading the labels and signs around the room. They do not even realize that they are reading! For math, we are working of problem solving, patterns and measurement. The children love math - especially figuring out the problems. We will soon be moving into our new social studies unit - The Fireman/Firehouse Inquiry Study. We will be visiting Firehouses in the neighborhood so I hope that I can count on many parents to come with us on our walking trips. More on that later.
Fondly,
Ms. Graham

What is Happening in November in K-207?

I cannot believe that we are into the month of November and that we are well into our second month of School! Time does fly when you are having fun.

I hope that you all enjoyed our production of The Three Billy Goats Gruff on Friday for Parents as Enrichment Partners. As I told you on Friday, The Three Billy Goats Gruff was one of our Star Books which was read everyday for one week. The children loved it and wanted to make a play out of it. I think that the children did an excellent job! Enjoy the photos.

For the month of November our Units of Study are as follows:

READING WORKSHOP: Our unit of study for November is called Comprehension and Partnerships. We will be spending 25 minutes reading independently. For the first 12 minutes, we will read during “private time” where we sit back-to-back with our reading partners. Then, we switch to “partner time.” During this time, we will share one book with our partner. We will be learning to give our partners book introductions and how to discuss the characters in our books with our partners. We will practice reading strategies such as Turn Taking (I read a page, you read the next page), Echo Reading (I read a page, you echo me), and Choral Reading (we read each page at the same time). We will “shopping” for new books every week to keep in our individual classroom book baggies. We will keep five books in these bags: one Star Book (a familiar story we had read to us 4 times in class) three Just Right books (a leveled book that we can “read” on our own), and one Look Book (a book with interesting pictures we want to discuss with our partners).

SHARED READING: We will begin to make a switch from reading poems and rhymes to reading simple enlarged texts (Big Books). We will be practicing the same strategies for reading that we practiced with our big poems (looking for patterns, rhymes,) and learning some new strategies such as taking picture walks and using the pictures to help us read the text.

WRITING WORKSHOP: We have been writing so much in K-207. In October, we learned how to write across three pages in our Personal Narrative Unit of Study. We learned to pay close attention to stretching out each word slowly and writing down each sound that we hear. We also learned how to read back our own writing and make sure our sentences have spaces. For November, we are becoming Scientists and looking very closely at leaves. We collected leaves in Prospect Park last Wednesday and are examining them very closely as a Scientist would do. We learned that leaves have veins (or bones), they are different shapes, some leaves have edges, some are big while other are small. We are making books about our findings.

WORD STUDY: We have begun using Words Their Way, a program that teaches children to use spelling, phonics, and vocabulary through picture and word sorts. This program teaches students how to look at words so that they can construct an ever-deepening understanding of how spelling works to represent sound and meaning. We are using this word study program for 10 to 15 minutes of practice every day. The children are working in small groups, doing various sorts such as sorting pictures by beginning sounds, sorting letters of various fonts, and sorting pictures that are the same. To complement this program, I have begun teaching the children one high frequency word (sight word) a week. Our sight words so far are: the, and, a, I and in. We have learned that when we see a sight word in a book, we can read it “in a snap” and when we want to write a sight word, we can also write it “in a snap.” We can also look on our classroom word wall to find a word that we already learned.

MATH WORKSHOP: We are having such a good time doing hands-on activities in Math Workshop. This month, we will look for symmetry in autumn leaves, explore the balance scale, and begin investigate the temperature. We continue to do math word problems everyday.


SOCIAL STUDIES: We have investigated our found materials or "beautiful stuff" that the children brought into class. We sorted, compared, constructed and created, various projects with our beautiful stuff. This unit was open-ended, and we are allowing the children to take the lead as to where their "beautiful stuff" took them. Outside our classroom on the bulletin board are collages of the found materials that the children created. Enjoy it.

Reminders:

*Monday, November 10 - Prospect Park Zoo Trip for K-207
*Tuesday, November 11- No School
*Thursday, November 20th-Parent Teacher Conferences (sign up sheet for times will be sent home

Trip to Prospect Park Zoo on Monday, November 10, 2008

Schedule:

• 9:30 Meeting Time: Please be outside the main entrance of the school. Our class
will aim to be downstairs at approximately 9:45 a.m.

• 9:45 Departure: We get on the bus. You can help by reminding the children that they are
to sit with their partners and by buckling seatbelts.

Since so many of you generously volunteered, I was able to make partnerships for this
Trip. I will let you know your group when we get settled on the bus.

• 10am-11am Walk the Discovery Trail – We will start out together but feel free to take your
pair and explore at your own pace. If you finish the trail before 11, please feel free to explore the other areas like the zoo, such as the indoor baboon area, barn, etc.

• 11am Lunch. Meet at the Sea Lion café area. Weather permitting we will all eat lunch outside at the tables. The children all have bagged lunch in their backpacks. I have baby wipes, and hand-sanitizer. There is a water fountain nearby if children are thirsty. Please know that our classroom policy is that we do not share food. If your pair of children finishes early, feel free to walk them around some more, or take them to the bathroom.

• 11:30am: Sea Lion feeding at the Sea Lion Court.

• Noon: Feel free to explore a bit more with your group. If your pair of children is feeling a bit tired, let us know. In that case, we will have them sit down at the stairs by the entrance and I can read them a story.

• 12:30: Meet back at the zoo entrance and get on the bus.

• 1 pm: Return to School. Please help me line up outside the school. We will say farewell to you then.

If you have any questions, feel free to ask me on the bus on our way there.

Please note: In an effort to ensure a positive experience for all, I ask that parents do not make purchases for children on school field trips.

I am looking forward to this fun trip!

If it is pouring rain…..the trip will be postponed and will then be re-scheduled.

Annual Winter Fair a PS 154

Dear Families:
Each year the Winter Fair auctions off a class art project organized and run by a parent from the class. The project is a collaborative one and should involve all the students in the class. Ideas for projects include photography, collage, sculpture, painting, quilts, whatever you can imagine. The fair is December 6th, so we need the project no later than December 5th. I would like to know if any parent in Class K-207 can head this project and work closely with the class on it. Please let me know as soon as possible. Also, if any parents are interested in volunteering in other capacities on the winter fair please contact Emily O’Connor – brendemily@earthlink.net. Thank you again for all your support.
Fondly,
Ms. Graham

Writing Workshop - New Unit

Dear Parents:
I am very excited that we are beginning a new unit for writing workshop to help children think like scientists and "write what we see." We will be looking very closely at leaves and plants. I know that the children did bring in leaves for Science for Ms. Rosen's unit of study on plants, but I need the get more leaves and be with the children when they pick them. So...tomorrow - November 5, 2008 - we will be taking a walking trip through the neighborhood, picking up different kinds of leaves. I would love it if I had several parents who could accompany me on this trip. We will be leaving the school at 9:30. Please let me know if you could join us. Thank you for all your support. I would also like to thank you for purchasing the ticket for me to the Parent's Night out last night. It was really wonderful and everyone seemed to have a great time.
Ms. Graham

November 2, 2008

Dear Families:
WOW...I want to thank you for all the very generous goodies and decorations that you sent in with you children for our Pajama Party on Friday. We received and ate wonderful homemade brownies, the most gorgeous white and chocolate covered pretzels I have ever seen, great homemade cookies...the list goes on and on. Thank you. We had so much fun - reading spooky stories, playing chess, listening and dancing to The Monster Mash and making smores in the microwave. I hope the children did not get sick from eating all these delicacies.

The children are really working hard. We are working on our partnership reading and learning to be good partners. The children sit knee-to-knee and read their star books to each other. Half the children are apples and the other half are oranges. So if you hear the children telling you that they are an apple during reading, they are telling you the truth. One day the apple reads and the next day the orange reads. I always get a kick out of it when the kids come up to me to ask if "apples will be reading or will oranges?"

A parent brought to my attention her concerns regarding the private Back-to-Back reading because of the small lice issue we are experiencing in our class. I take these concerns very seriously and have changed my policy on this procedure. The children will be sitting at least 12 inches away from their reading partner during the private reading times. Thank you for letting me know your concerns.

During Shared Reading, the children are reading the weekly poem. Right now, it is the Alphabet Poems. We look at these poems very carefully - picking out the rhyming words and their word wall words. By the end of the week, the children know how to read these poems and are very proud that they can “read.” Every child wants a turn to recite it during Shared Reading. I am very proud of them. You should be too.

During the week, I conference with several children a day both in reading and writing. It is amazing how they are progressing. For writing, we are continuing with our three-finger stories - learning to stretch out words. They are getting better everyday.

For Math, we are working on problem solving and working on number sentences. We are looking at patterns all around and measurement. The children love math and working on math problems. We are well into our “Beautiful Stuff” Social Studies Unit. The children are having fun looking through the "stuff" and showing it to their friends. We are sorting, measuring, and looking very closely at all the items. We are going to be working on a collage with the materials we have.

This week, we were fortunate to have Dylan's grandmother come to visit and work with the children on an art activity. Dylan's grandmother, Abby, is a retired Art Teacher and she worked with the children on making paper collage figures. The figures came out amazing and soon will be hung inside our classroom. I love them. You will too.

Below this posting, I have included a slide show of some of the many things we are doing in Class K-207. The pictures include reading our published pieces to Mrs. Concannon's First Grade Class, playing chess, working on the art activity with Dylan's grandmother and our wonderful Pajama Party. I hope you enjoy the show.

To give you a head's up. On Friday, for Parent's as Enrichment Partners, the children of K-207 will have a little surprise presentation for you. I hope that you will be able to join us. On Monday, November 10, we will be going to the Prospect Park Zoo. For those of you who have not returned the permission slip, please do so. Thank you.

Have a wonderful week.
Ms. Graham

K-207 Reads Published Pieces to 1st Graders