Virtual Tour of KT!
Our friends in KT are KIND, POLITE and RESPECTFUL kids! We are learning about more than just our ABCs and 123s, we are learning about self-control, respect and how to be a good friend. We always try our best to follow the Golden Rule (Treat others how you want to be treated). This is our room where we learn and play. We are proud of our room and show respect by helping to keep it tidy so that it will always be a fun place to be. Enjoy your virtual tour of our room!
Right by our classroom door is our class Lost and Found (a.k.a. the Shoe Monster!) If something gets dropped or forgotten in our classroom, the Shoe Monster takes care of it until it is returned to its owner. Families should check the Shoe Monster bin regularly for any missing items. If an item is not in the Shoe Monster bin, please check the school's Lost and Found in the hallway by school library/office.
These are our mailboxes. Every day, important papers such as newsletters, hot lunch forms, as well as any work or crafts that we may have made go from our mailbox to our agenda. Please check agendas daily and remove any papers that have been sent home. Send any important notes (ex/ hot lunch forms/money, field trip forms, book orders, home time transportation changes, etc.) in the Smiley Face Duotang, which is located in the front pocket of the agenda. These are checked every morning for any home-school communication.
This is the main part of our classroom where we learn, work and play! We have big tables to sit at and a rug where we gather together every day for calendar and circle times.
On the wall beside the whiteboard is our SMARTBoard. Every classroom in our school has a SMARTBoard. It projects the image on the main computer and allows us to interact with it like a giant touch screen. Every student gets a daily opportunity to interact with the SMARTBoard, which helps them to become more familiar with using technology as a learning tool.
We have an aquarium in our classroom with 7 fish. We help to take care of our class pets.
On the wall by our aquarium you will see our House Centers. Every day, we spend about 20 minutes at a House Center in the morning and another 20 minutes at a House Center in the afternoon with our home group of four or five friends. Each day, we go to a new set of House Centers so that we have rotated through all 8 centers by the time the week is done. We practice working on different literacy, math and arts and crafts activities during this time. We might practice matching our PWIM word cards in our agendas to our big class picture, make PWIM categories, graph the letters in some of our words, make words and letters out of playdoh, stamp words, write words around the room, match objects to numerals, put "Humpty Dumpty" sentences back together, practice sorting math manipulatives, make a page for our math portfolio, paint a picture, make a craft etc. We learn a lot at House Centers, and we have fun while we're doing them!
Every morning, we have calendar time. We read a morning message on the SMARTBoard. (The morning message tells us about something that will happen each day. Sometimes, there are mystery words in our morning message that we have to help fill in. When we come to a mystery word, we clap our hands and finish reading the sentence. Then we go back and look at the word clues and use the question "does that sound like our language?" to figure out what the mystery words are. We practice many of our popcorn and PWIM words this way!) We also look at our big class calendar and talk about the days of the week, the weather, and how many days we've been in school (every 10 days, Zero the Hero brings us a 0 shaped treat!) We finish calendar by reviewing the alphabet letters and the sounds they make, graphing the weather and singing and dancing to "Days of the Week" and the "Month Macarena".
This is where we look on the whiteboard every day to see who the Power Name is. (The Power Name is our class helper for the day. We also use the Power Name to help us learn about our language, such as graphing how many syllables are in our names, graphing letters in our names, looking for special sounds or "chunks" in our names, etc.) Underneath the Power Name, there is a green pocket chart with 3 sticks. The sticks are used to encourage good listening and respectful behavior. If we keep all 3 sticks in the chart, we earn up to 2 stickers for our sticker chart in our locker every day. When the chart is full, we get to pick a prize from the Treasure Chest! Every student has filled up at least one full sticker chart in the first few months of school, because we are all kind, polite and respectful!
This is the play center chart where we choose from our play centers every afternoon. We have a magnet with our name on it. We put our magnet at the center where we want to play. We tidy up our mess before we may move our magnet to a new center. We have play center time after lunch recess every day.