Welcome to Kindergarten!

Well, it has been a wonderful first seven days of kindergarten! We have spent a great deal of time establishing a classroom routine, getting to know each other, and developing classroom rules. I follow the Responsive Classroom approach, and much of the first six weeks of school is devoted to building a strong classroom community, in the hopes that this strong foundation will set the tone for a positive and successful school year, full of learning and fun! Your children have been through "guided discoveries" of the many toys and classroom materials available for their use, in the hopes that they will learn how to use each of these things respectfully and safely. We will continue to practice what we have learned over the next few weeks.

A major part of our curriculum early in the year is devoted to learning about appropriate behavior in our classroom and our school. Several years ago, H.C.S. started using the Positive Behavior Intervention System (PBIS). Through this system, we developed the "Be a STAR" program. This is a program that encourages students (and adults) to model the following core values:

Belonging

Sharing

Trust

Accepting Responsibility

and

Respect

Your child may have mentioned that they "earned a star" (or several!) Adults hand out paper "stars" as a way to recognize children who are demonstrating the above core values. If I see a child inviting a friend to sit next to them, sharing his or her toys, helping others, or being respectful while walking the hallway, I may hand them a star and verbalize what it was I saw them do. This, of course, is a great way to reinforce desired behaviors. I've never met a kindergartner who didn't want to earn a star! There are tokens that will be given out when a child reaches 25, 50, 75, and 100 stars, and the three kindergarten classes are working collectively to earn 250 stars in order to have extra recess time. I am so impressed with the number of stars that have already been earned in our classroom!

As a part of developing our classroom rules, we took some time to talk about our "Hopes and Dreams" for this school year. We read a book called Amazing Grace by Mary Hoffman, about a little girl who dreams of being Peter Pan in her class play, even though many tell her she can't do it. She goes on to deliver a wonderful performance, all because she believed in herself. Each child thought of something that he or she hopes to do this year in kindergarten and drew an illustration of this. Take a peek at what everyone is hoping to do this year:

A slideshow by Smilebox

After discussing our hopes and dreams, we talked about how important it will be for us to have classroom rules and how we will all need to agree to follow these rules so that everyone can achieve their hopes and dreams for the year. We came up with the following rules and each child decorated a star with his or her name on it to "sign" the classroom rules.

Mrs. Johnson's Kindergarten Class Rules

• Be kind.
• Be safe with your body.
• Listen to the speaker.
• Do what you are asked to do.
• Take care of our classroom and each other.
• Be a STAR!

We will revisit our hopes and dreams, as well as our classroom rules, regularly!

Please note that we have had a change to our specials schedule. We now have Music on Thursday and Art on Friday. The new schedule is as follows:

Monday: P.E.

Tuesday: Music

Wednesday: P.E. and Library

Thursday: Music

Friday: Art

I am looking forward to an exciting and fun-filled year together! Please do not hesitate to contact me anytime with questions, ideas, or concerns! Thank you for all that you do to support your children and our classroom!