Kindergarten: Week 2

On Thursday, Hailey's school had their Back-to-School night. They had pizza for dinner, then we played outside until it was time to see the classroom.  The neat thing about Hailey's classroom is that there is a boy's bathroom and a girl's bathroom inside the room and it's all kindergarten size.  Hailey says that there is a special potty sign that they do to tell the teacher they have to go. (they shake the T in sign language)

I already met the teacher and was going in to volunteer the next day, so we didn't actually talk to her.  We picked up two of the crafts Hailey worked on and Robert and Hannah played with Lego's that were available.

 Hailey wrote her name 10 times on this sheet of paper (there's more on the back) and she either got tired or distracted but by the end she started leaving some letters out of her name.  I really need to work with her on making a lowercase A in her name instead of the uppercase.  It was actually her friend, Audrey, who told her to do the lowercase e (and Hailey listened).

 They also had this fun name plate that Hailey enjoyed doing.

I think it was great that Nathan had the chance to see Hailey's classroom and teacher at back-to-school night since he really won't have the opportunity to be involved like I do.

Then on Friday I was able to volunteer for an hour during their math center time.  Her schedule as far as I'm able to understand is that early morning they have about 2 hours in reading centers, then they have snack and show and tell time, recess, then an hour of math centers before the Kindergartners leave. (It's a K-1 program).  I got there a little early during their recess time which happened to be inside since it was raining.  They watched Elmo's World for a little bit. Unfortunately, Hailey was very excited when I got there and tripped coming to see me. When she went back to her seat to watch TV, the chair fell on her feet, which hurt a lot.  Poor Hailey!

There were 5 centers that the kids rotated through.  The 1st graders rotated between just two of the tables. At one table, they rolled a die and then graphed which number they got (this must have been the random number graph Hailey had last week). The first graders did this on their own.  The second table they went to was with Mrs. Thomas. 

For the kindergartners, there was a center at the computers, then a table with shape blocks that Hailey said they made a beehive at (it was unattended).  Then there was my table.  I had about 4-5 kids and everyone had little one unit blocks that could interlock.  I then rolled the dice and they show me the correct number of blocks.  It was fun but hard to find ways to change it and keep them engaged.  I had them race, and whoever was the fastest could roll the dice.  We tried making stacks of a certain color.  There was only one boy who said it was boring half way through and refused to play anymore.

Generally, Mrs Thomas has an assistant, Mrs. Liz, but she was gone that day. Also while we were working on the different centers, there was another lady taking each kid aside to do some kind of assessment.

I'm really glad I had the chance to volunteer and my goal is every other Friday. Hailey said me being at her school was the best part about that day.

Here are the worksheets that Hailey brought home for this week.

 I haven't had a change to ask Hailey about this picture yet but I bet it has an interesting story.

 On this piece of Hailey has each letter of her name written down the side.  Then she wrote a word that started with that letter.
Hannah hug
ant
ice
love
end
yellow

Since I was there on Friday when the teacher passed out some of the sheets (most were actually returned on Monday, since she was a little shorthanded), Mrs. Thomas told the class that they should finish their papers. I actually never thought about that because they really don't have homework. So, now I'm going to try to set time aside to have Hailey finish.  It usually takes another person to point out simple, no-brainers.