What We're Learning: Letters, Sounds, and Social Studies

We have finished two more weeks of kindergarten, and we have been busy!

We're not just learning about letters, but we're learning that letters make sounds, too.  So far, we've learned 14 letters and their sounds!  Ask your child about the sounds these letters make:  a, t, b, l, f, h, p, s, u, m, r, c, g, and i.  In addition, we've been learning how to write some capital letters. So far we've practiced the "frog jump" capitals which are F, E, D, P, B, and R.  Ask your child where we start our letters, and see if they can remember why those letters are "frog jump" capitals. One of the things that these letters have in common is that they all have a straight back.  We went on a hunt to find letters that have a straight line in them.

We've been learning how to get along with others, too.  We've learned that we have to listen, talk, take turns, and make good choices when making friends. Working on knowing how to listen has been a big focus. We talk about having a whole body that listens with not just ears, but we want to show the speaker that we're looking at him or her with our eyes. Also, we want to keep our feet and hands still and our mouth quiet.

Most importantly, we want to know what the speaker has to say!  When it's our turn to talk, we want to make sure our voices are the right size (or volume) for the conversation.  We practiced when it was time to talk and when it was time to listen.

Then we learned about the importance of having class rules and taking turns.  Here we are with our class dragon taking turns:

We made a list of the times where we should take turns in school:

We've learned how to behave, or maybe what not to do, from two of our favorite characters:  David and Pigeon.  Here are the big ideas we came up with from their stories:

Here is what we thought when we talked about making good choices:

Speaking of making good choices, we talked about a way to be proactive is to make the choice to do the thing that needs to be completed:

Finally we made a promise to remember to get along with others:

Stay tuned for updates in both reading and math!

Week in Review

It's been a great first week of school!  I think that can sometimes be easy for a teacher to say, but I truly mean it. I do have one disappointment, however--I didn't get a chance to take many pictures!

One of the things we've worked on this week is learning how to behave in school.  We read several stories to help us figure out some class rules. One of the stories was about a monster coming to school.  That brought us to talking about what things we can do at school, and what things we shouldn't do at school.  We've been calling it "above the line" and "below the line."  That discussion evolved into our management system.  I'll be talking more about the management system in this class at Meet the Teacher.  We read No, David! written by David Shannon, and we learned that it's never too late to start making good choices.  We enjoyed reading Don't Let the Pigeon Ride the Bus by Mo Willems, too.  What did we learn from Pigeon?  "No" means "no" no matter what.  Ask your child to tell you what Pigeon did to try and get his way.

Although the students seemed to enjoy reading about David and Pigeon, the favorite book of the week was Press Here written by Herve Tullet.  We had such a good team-building experience interacting with the book, and I want the students to know how enjoyable a book can be.

We talked about three letters this week:  A, T, and B.  See if your child can tell you the sounds of those three letters.  We learned how to read three words, too!  Red, yellow, and blue are three words we can read, thanks to some songs that are teaching us the color words.  We've been working on learning the days of the week and the months of the year, and specifically what day is which and what month it is.  We've been counting as well.

Lastly, we have learned about squares and rectangles this week,.  Boy, am I impressed with what they students already knew and what new observations they made.  Below is a picture of a Thinking Map we made as a class to show how a square and a rectangle are the same and different.  Thinking Maps are organizers to visually show thinking.  We'll be using Thinking Maps all year.  I'll share more about what we're doing with shapes next week!

I didn't get many pictures (boo!), but here are the few that I did get of us working in action!

Hopefully I'll get to take more pictures next week!

Dear Students: All About Mrs. Trammell

Hello, students!  I am Mrs. Trammell, and I am your kindergarten teacher.  I am super excited to be your teacher this year!  We're going to have a great year!

Scroll down a little and take a look at the picture right over here --------->
That's me!  I get to meet you on Thursday, August 4th at our Kindergarten Round-Up.  I hope to see you there!  You will get to see our class and where you will sit.  You will meet me and the rest of our classmates.  How fun!

Did you know that I have a cat?  Her name is Alice, and she is 18 years old. That's pretty old for a cat!  She loves to eat and sleep, but her favorite thing is to be brushed.  Alice loves to sleep on my son's bed, or on the stairs in the sunshine.  She has a favorite chair, too.  One time she sat on the door of the opened dishwasher.  Silly cat!

I have a brother, too.  He lives far away, so I don't get to see him that often.  When I was in kindergarten, my brother was in preschool.  Do you have a younger brother, or do you have a sister? Maybe you have both! You will have to tell me!

At my house I live with my husband and my two sons (and Alice, of course). My sons are in fifth and third grade, and they go to Carmel Elementary, too! We like to be together! Our favorite thing to do is go to the beach, but we don't get to do that often.  We love to go on vacation, and one of our goals is to visit all 50 states. So far I have been to 28 states! I've visited 15 counties as well. Other favorite things to do are to go hiking, watch movies, play games, and read books.  Guess what?  My favorite movie in when I was in kindergarten was Star Wars. When I was in kindergarten, I had a Star Wars themed bedroom. Have you seen that movie? This fall we are looking forward to watching the Colts play football. What kinds of things do you like to do with your family?

Sometimes I do things by myself.  I like to read and I like to decorate my house.  During the warm weather, I like to be in my yard, too. I garden and take care of my plants when I'm outside.  Also, I like to take long walks. What do you like to do outside?  Please let me know!

I've been in a school for a long time!  When I was finished with high school, I went to Indiana University in Bloomington.  So, I am an IU fan!  Go Hoosiers!  Do you have a favorite team?  After I went to IU, I went to graduate school at Ball State University.  I have worked at this school fourteen years.  Before I was a kindergarten teacher, I taught third grade for nine years.  You can say that I really like school.  I hope you do, too!

Now that you know a little bit about me, I can't wait for you to tell me all about you!  See you Thursday!