ChRiStMaS wIsHeS.....

Ever wonder what a Kindergarten Kid would like for Christmas? Well, I did! So I took a minute to ask! Enjoy! Hopefully Santa is watching.......

Callie Cat, Christmas, Candy and Cake!

Bet you couldn't guess what letter/alphafriend we are meeting this week?!?!?! The letter C and Callie Cat is the perfect alphafriend to help us with that!!! Even though Callie is an amazing cat that can cook (Sure wish she could teach me!), the best part about learning the letter C is that our favorite holiday begins with it, CHRISTMAS!! Oh Boy!!!
In Kindergarten, this is the best time of year!
It is so much fun to watch the kids get excited about the holidays! We even have a Christmas tree in our reading center for us to sit by and read! There are even some lights up and we will start Christmas projects to help our room look more festive! Come in sometime and see! Maybe we can talk you into staying a while and helping us out! We would love to have you!!! We will even write letters to Santa himself! Wahoo! Christmas is just the best!

In the meantime, have fun looking for all the words that begin with the letter C. Be careful, as we have been learning.....it is a tricky letter. It can sometimes be confused with the letter K!

M is for Mouse (Mimi Mouse that is!)

We have met another alphafriend! Mimi Mouse!

Mimi Mouse, Mimi Mouse,
Minds her Manners in the house.
When she sips her Milk
She never Makes a Mess!
Mud pies never stain her dress!

We not only learned the letter M and the sound the letter makes, we got to shove Marshmallows in our Mouths and see if we could sing the song. If that wasn't crazy enough, we had some good old fashion fun playing in the Mud!

Maybe Mrs. Ryan has lost her Marbles!!!

We were not as good as Mimi though. There were a few of us that might have stained our "dress"!

Thanks Moms and Dads for being such great sports! We had a great time!!!

A HuGe SHOUT oUt.......

Our week has been full of meeting our new alphafriend, learning classroom routines/workshop time and how to be at school, learning our first "Heart" word AND we even had the extra special treat of working with 5th graders AND playing with snakes!

Yes, I said snakes but 1st things first, the 5th graders!

Mrs. Dobson's 5th grade class had an assignment to create a letter book and they were kind enough to come down to our room and share them with us! The alphabet books turned out fabulous and getting the chance to work with brothers, sisters or the "BIG" kids made our afternoon perfect! The best part was finding out that not only did they get to show us their books, they also are going to give them to us to keep in our room! Thank you Mr. Dobson and 5th Graders! You are all amazing and we LOVED having you!!! Hopefully you will get to come and work with us again!!

Now on to those snakes! In our newsletter, I asked you (the parents) to send in old ties that dads might not miss for a project. Well we didn't receive enough for each student but we did have one family donate 25 snakes for our classroom. Thank you Mrs. H!! You are the bestest ever!! Anyways, we didn't have enough for us to make the snakes but my mom so graciously made the 25 ties into "classroom" set of snakes for us to dance and sing with ! Thanks Mom!! We are so appreciative and LOVED playing with them! I couldn't think of a better way to make the /s/ sound with than with an actual little snake that we could hold! Fun, fun times in Kindergarten!

The kids met our very first alphafriend this week!! The best part of learning to read is meeting our alphafriends throughout the year and the songs that go along with them! As silly as these songs are, the kids LOVE them!!! These catchy little tunes tend to get stuck in your head and will never leave and that is the goal! If you can remember Sammy, you can remember the sound that the letter S makes!! Let's get ready to read Kindergarten! Yipee!!! For all of you parents that would like to sing along....

Sammy Seal will sail the sea
When summer is the season.
Sammy Seal will sail the sea
And never need a reason!
Sammy Seal will sail the sea
In very sunny weather.
Sammy Seal salutes a seagull
As they sail together!!!

...and Kindergarten begins!!!

....we have been having fun in Kindergarten our first 2 weeks together! Hopefully you all feel the same way too! Take a minute and enjoy some of the pictures of some of the things we did!

Welcome to Kindergarten!

It was great seeing those of you that came to our Kindergarten Sneak Peek! Thank you for coming! Hopefully, it was a chance for you and your child to see our classroom, meet some friends and/or get some of your questions answered!

I know I enjoyed meeting each and everyone of you! This year is going to be awesome! Thank you for the opportunity to work with your child! I am quite honored and will do whatever I can to help this be one of the best school experiences your child will have!!!

See you on Monday/Tuesday!!! I can't wait!!!

Please check back here often for photos of our school day and other special Kindergarten memories!

AnD wE aLl LiVeD hApPiLy EvEr AfTer......

Our last final days of school, we had the first ever "Kindergarten Fairy Tale Ball". Can I just say, that it was nothing short of magical? I have never had so much fun and cannot think of a better way to end our year together!
After learning to read, we dived right in and started putting our skills to the test! We started reading the Three Little Pigs. We learned about sequencing, story retelling, characters and setting. After that, we went crazy with as many Fairy Tales as we could, Jack In The Beanstalk, Cinderella, The Little Red Hen, The Three Little Bears and many more.
Not only was sharing old-time favorites with my students fun, seeing them reading and actually becoming independent, creative and owning their own work was amazing for me as a teacher! The whole month was perfect! So to top it all off, we (Kindergarten Teachers) decided the best way to celebrate was to have a ball.
The whole day was centered around Fairy Tales. We played games like "Snow White and the Poisoned Apple" and "Sleeping Beauty and the Musical Mats". We had Fairy Tale Centers: (A HUGE shout out to the parents that came in and helped! You are amazing and worth more than gold!) 1)We wished on a star. 2) A Magical Mystery Drawing. 3) Created Fine China! 4) We made wands!
We also had lunch in our classroom on our Fairy Tale Placemats that we created with us! (Can I say that your children did an awesome job? I do hope you will treasure them as I did!!!) Then we taught the other Kindergarten classes a Little Pig song and they taught us one of theirs. (Thanks Mr. "A"! Your song was perfect!!!
Then the day was topped off by an actual dance, yes, I said dance or "Ball". Here are a few of our pictures from our "magical" day! And yes, I can say that I think we will live happily ever after.
The End

Luck'O The Irish To Ya...... or us!!

Last week, something started happening in Kindergarten! There were chairs turned over and on tables, coloring on the tables, toys left out and taken everywhere and to be quite honest a HUGE MESS. Math games were strung throughout the room and there was even glue on our "must dos", not to mention rainbow drawings and shamrocks drawn in odd places!
Can you believe it? Rumor has it that some crazy leprechauns came into our school and tried to learn but have not been taught how to behave and/or take care of our things. We did try to leave them a letter (making sure to be specific) telling them that we don't mind them coming but there are rules in our room and they are going to have to make sure and follow them. We didn't like cleaning up after them (Just like Mrs. Ryan keeps telling us about her having to pick up after us!!)
Of course, those tricky leprechauns left all kinds of "clues" for us to analyze and help us learn about the actual holiday (St. Patrick's Day) but not really enough figure it all out and how to make it stop. The best plan that we could come up with was to build traps! So, that is exactly what we did! Take a peek at some of the traps we built! Every student had great stories on how they would lure the leprechaun in and what would have to take place in order to catch them! Take a look and see traps, a glimpse of the messes and some very interesting clues!!!

Introducing Mr. Logan

I would like to introduce you to our new exciting helper! His name is Mr. Logan Thomas (We like to call him Mr. Logan) and he is a Sophomore from Kuna High School. We are definitely lucky to have him and his enthusiasm and willingness to help out!!! The kids LOVE him already and in a matter of just a few days, I have become quite dependant on him and his help! We are blessed with this wonderful opportunity solely because he chose to volunteer! Mr. Logan finished a Health class early and so he asked if he could come and spend his free period with us! Of course the answer was quickly yes!!! Aren't we lucky?!??! On "b" days, (Sorry, I am of no help here! It is a High School thing!!!It is a crazy schedule like our M-W and T-Th thing. He will be coming every other day.) Logan will join us to help work with small groups, play math games, do testing and whatever else we can think of!
Here are a few things that we have learned about Mr. Logan and thought you would like to know:
**Birthday: August 26, 1994
**Favorite Sport: Baseball
**Favorite Team: LA Dodgers
**Favorite Player: Dustin Pedroia (Red Sox)
**How Long Playing Baseball: 11 years!
**Favorite Baseball Position: Pitcher
**Favorite Subject: Math and PE (In fact, he LOVES PE so much he is currently taking 3 different PE classes! WOW!!!!)
**Career Choice: Become an MLB baseball player (That was an easy one!)
**Dream College: Texas (What!??!?!? No worries, we will sway him to the blue and orange side. However, who could frown upon those Longhorns! Even with their current championship loss!)
**Reasons for Coming to our Classroom: "I enjoy working with kids and thought this would be a good experience!"
**Favorite Teacher: Mrs. Jenkins in 3rd Grade
Welcome Mr. Logan! I am so very excited to have the opportunity to work with you! As are the kids! Thank you for being a positive influence on our Kindergartners and helping them be successful this year! Your help is not unnoticed and/or unappreciated!

HAPPY NEW YEAR and WELCOME BACK!!!!

Welcome Back!!! Did you have a great break? Did you enjoy your time with your family and friends? I sure did! It actually went by rather quickly but I have to admit right after our New Year festivities....my thoughts returned to our classroom and missing my Kindergartners!!!! It sounds like Santa was VERY kind to many of you from DS's, puppies, new clothes and toys! WOW!!!

We spent some time on Monday/Tuesday talking about the New Year (2010) and learning a HUGE word, resolution. We brainstormed what could be some of their resolutions and I thought it would be fun to share them with you. (No worries, we practiced and the REAL cute ones are only in my teacher's journal!!!)

Happy New Year!!!
(Just a quick little poke...Boise State sure did an amazing job this year and ending the season with winning a BCS bowl game! Oh yea! Great Job Boise State!! We, (Well, most of us!) were cheering loudly for you!!! 14-0...WHAT A SEASON! Go Broncos!!!!