Thank you for coming to our Open House! I hope you enjoyed your time visiting our kindergarten classroom. Below is an outline of what we are working on.

Last week we learned about the letters Aa and Ss. This week we are learning about the letters Dd and Ff. We will have our first two 'letter experts' this week to help us learn about Dd and Ff. Practice printing these letters and identifying the sounds they make. Be sure to check your child's folder each day. Every child will eventually get the opportunity to help us learn about a letter. Two children will be selected each week. Thank you for your support with this important task!

We are also continuing to learn about one another as we crown a new child king or queen for the day! We have been having so much fun interviewing our friends and learning all about our likes and dislikes. This is also helping us to learn about our names, how many letters are in each name, and whose name is the longest. We are using unifix cubes to 'build' our names each day. This helps us to compare how long or how short our names are! We are 'sneaking' in some math and counting during our literacy work. :)

During math, we are practicing counting, writing numbers 1-5, and arranging and rearranging objects to match numbers. We can move objects around but the number is still the same! Continue to practice counting and printing numbers at home too. Talk about which numbers come before and after a given number.

During science, we will begin a fun mini unit on apples. We will read many nonfiction books about apples and create several projects to go along with this theme. We will even use real apples for some of our projects. Feel free to send in a picture of your family if you have been apple picking! Write a sentence to go along with the picture and we can share them during this unit.

Thank you so much for your support. We are looking forward to a fun week of kindergarten learning! :)

Sincerely,
Mrs. Eileen Browne

First Full Week!

I hope you all enjoyed the beautiful weekend and are ready for our first full week of kindergarten together! The children have been doing a terrific job transitioning into a full day of kindergarten at Eagle. I am so proud of their efforts and am looking forward to a great week.

This week we will continue to work hard on learning our routines, learning about one another, and forming friendships in our classroom each day. We are reading some great books about going back to school. So far we have read The Kissing Hand books by Audrey Penn. We even had fun making our very own hand prints during one of our work stations. This week we will begin reading books such as Chicka Chicka Boom Boom! to help us recognize and identify letter sounds. We will also read books by one of my favorite children's authors, Kevin Henkes, that will help us learn more about comparing and contrasting our individual names as we continue to learn more about one another.

During math, we are using manipulatives to practice counting each day. We are also learning to recognize and print numbers correctly. Practice counting during everyday activities at home too. Make it fun! :)

Thank you for your support as we begin this exciting school year together. I hope to see you all on Thursday at 7:30 for our Open House!

Sincerely,
Mrs. Eileen Browne

Welcome to Kindergarten!

I hope you are having a terrific summer! I have been busy spending time with my family. We have spent a lot of time swimming and visiting with family and friends. I am also busy reading and planning all of the fun things we will learn about in kindergarten!

I will use this blog throughout the school year to remind you and your family of upcoming events and learning activities. It will be a great way to communicate. We will be saving paper at the same time. Be sure to bookmark this page and to check our classroom blog weekly!

Enjoy the rest of your summer. Have fun! I'll see you soon. :)

Sincerely,
Mrs. Browne

Thank You!

We had a terrific Field Day today. The weather was absolutely perfect for our day outside. The children and I had so much fun participating in the many different activities throughout the day. As you could tell when your child arrived home, we had a lot of fun getting wet during our last station...water relay races! The children should definitely sleep well tonight! :)

I wanted to take a moment to thank you all for your support during the school year, for helping with our many celebrations and activities, and for the generous gift I received today from the class. I am very proud of your children and will truly miss them next year as they move on to first grade. I hope you all have a fantastic summer! Read, write, play, and stay safe.

Sincerely,
Mrs. Eileen Browne :)

Kindergarten Graduation!

It is hard to believe that the end of the school year is here. I am so very proud of how much we have grown as individuals and as a classroom community since September. Though we only have a few days left, we are still very busy reading, writing, singing, creating projects, and participating in our Kindergarten Countdown activities each day!

Our Kindergarten Graduation will take place this Thursday at 9:30 in the cafeteria. The orange graduation t-shirts have arrived! The kindergarten teachers will help put the t-shirts on when the children arrive to school on Thursday morning. We will send the shirts home at the end of the day. During the graduation, the children will sing a few songs and then go back to the classrooms for a refreshing snack. These activities will last until approximately 10:30. We are looking forward to a fun morning!

Please feel free to contact me with any questions. I will see you soon.

Sincerely,
Mrs. Eileen Browne :)

I hope you all enjoyed your long weekend with family and friends. We are now officially heading into the final stretch of our school year, but we are not finished with our kindergarten learning!

This week we will continue to learn about the ocean and sea creatures. So far we have learned about crabs, jellyfish, seahorses, fish, and sea stars. Today we began learning all about sea turtles. The children are very anxious to learn about whales and sharks too! We have been having so much fun with this interesting unit and have been incorporating all that we have learned into our reading and writing activities too.

During math, we have been learning all about measuring. We have been using many different kinds of materials to measure objects in our classroom. We have measured the length and height of various objects using crayons, markers, cubes, and paperclips each day. We will also begin exploring weight and capacity this week. These concepts will fit nicely with our science unit as well.

As writers, we have begun wrapping up our poetry unit. The children and I have had so much fun exploring poetry. We read poems and even wrote our own. I have been typing some of the children's poems. They love to see their writing in print and I am so very proud of their work! Their poems are absolutely precious.

During reading, we continue to work on our Daily Five Literacy choices. We are also learning about D.E.A.R. time (Drop Everything And Read) during the day. Now that we are all readers, we are working on finding a quiet spot in the room and curling up with our books as we practice for first grade! We have grown so much since the beginning of the school year. We also continue to practice our Word Wall words each day. We now have 54 words on our wall! I will send home a copy of our words this week so that you can practice reading these words at home too.

As always please feel free to contact me any questions or concerns.

Sincerely,
Mrs. Eileen Browne

PS Our kindergarten graduation will take place on Thursday, June 14th at 9:30. It will be a short celebration with some songs and a morning snack for the children. I look forward to seeing you there!

Glue Sticks Needed

We have been creating many projects throughout the year and are constantly depleting our glue stick supplies. It would be greatly appreciated if each child could bring in at least two large glue sticks for their supply boxes. We have been doing a terrific job sharing our supplies, but we still need more. Thanks so much! :)