Oh no.

Ok. Soooo....the blog is telling me I'm out of space for pictures. AHHH!!!! So I'm soooo sorry that I haven't put any up. I have a bunch just waiting. Hopefully I can figure this out during the free time that I never have ( ;) ) and then you can enjoy them.

Have a great day!
Miss D

Thankful....

You know, there are so many things to be thankful for. I know it sounds simple....but I just have to list them....call me cheesy....but the children told me what they are thankful for....so I suppose it's my turn.

*My mom, dad and sister
*My nieces, Evelyn and Vivian
*My dog Sammy!!!!
*My boyfriend Tom and his family
*My health and the health of friends/family around me (very important/underline/bold)
*My house
*My job and all of the special children that come with it each year
*My past students (whom I miss every time I see them)
*My car
*My friends
*Chocolate chip cookies
*X Factor (lol)

I know I could write a lot more. I hope you have many things that you're thankful for too. I'll see you all after the break. Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Miss Dunker

Happy Birthday Bridger!

Bridger's mom and dad came to celebrate with us today! We had a lot of fun!!  Bridger's mom teaches as Pettigrew and she is a very fluent reader. Wow!

Okay everybody. Get ready. Are you ready? Bridger got us the book.......(drumroll please)......

LET'S GO FOR A DRIVE!!!!! (a Piggy and Elephant book...that I don't have yet!) YAY!
I'm not sure who is more excited. Ha.

Guided Reading Books....

I was so excited to pull out these leveled books for students this week. They fit perfectly in their hands and are filled with snap words! We are just trying them out right now and they did great! We have had some talks about books that are too easy, just right or too hard for us. The students are really becoming more aware of their strengths/weaknesses every day. It's amazing to see.

I will do testing to find each child's reading level before Christmas and we will notify you of our take home book program when it begins.

Monday, November 19th

We play Roll a Color. I take blank dice and put different colored dot stickers on each side. Then I put a star sticker on one side of each dice. The children roll a color and then write anything (snap words, numbers, their name, etc...) in that color. If you roll a star, you can pick the color you use.

Try it at home! Super easy and super fun!

A Feast!

Pictures will come later :) Thank you so much for donating food....and donate you did! Wow! You cut up the salami and put your food with ice packs....what a crew of helpful families :)

I AM THANKFUL FOR YOU.

Have a wonderful Thanksgiving.
Miss D

Mindset Training....

We've been learning a little bit about a fixed mindset vs. a growth mindset in our trainings lately. I find it absolutely fascinating.

Here are some tips for anyone that is around a child (as a parent, teacher, etc)

The following comments create fixed mindsets (we don't want):
You are so smart!
You are gifted.
Great job!
Yes. That is the answer.
These comments create growth mindsets (what we want):
Wow! You kept trying, even though that was hard!
Great try!
I am so impressed by all of the strategies you tried.
You learned so many things today. Your brain must be growing!
Learning takes time. With practice, you will do better and better.

Thursday, November 15th

Today the funniest thing happened in writing! Cale and Cason were both writing up a storm....like we love to do each day :) Then, as Cason was reading his story to me, Cale said, "Hey! I wrote a story about Cason!" So we read them both to the class and they all thought it would be a good idea to staple the stories together and.........

 

just like that we have our first co-authored story! Cool!

Our lovely venn diagram about tame and wild turkeys.

Just makes me laugh. A pile of fat turkeys ready for the hallway!

Wednesday, November 14th

Here we are playing the Turkey Trot game. We've been learning about turkeys--both wild and tame. They are very different you know! Ask your child about them!
Today Cale was the cook. He had to go and catch our turkeys and send them to the pot for Thanksgiving dinner. Our turkeys had to scratch at the ground the way turkeys do in the wild!

We have a very talented scratcher that we've noticed---Jaxon has got it down! He's wild about turkey trotting :)

One thing that readers do well is visualize. You might not even think about it, but you probably do it too! Readers create mental images while they read and that takes practice.

One GREAT reading material to use is poetry. If you have some at home, encourage your child to close his or her eyes while you read the poem and then have him or her tell you about what he or she visualized. It's really fun to hear the details they come up!

We always say readers think while they read. You can use that too!

So we're making stuffed turkeys for the hallway and they are HUGE---very much ready for the dinner table. Here are the steps for how to make a turkey.
We'll be writing our own stories this week.

Happy birthday Gabi!

Today Gabi's Oma came to visit. That's the way you say Grandma in German. Very cool! I can't wait to read Knuffle Bunny Free now!!! :)

Wednesday, November 7th

Huddled up and ready to do clipboard writing.

We are working hard on hearing the beginning and ending sounds in words. Having a good knowledge of letter sounds in place by this time is essential :)

Election Day!

We had a little play. There was a limo, secret service agents and a fancy ball :)

Older Pics....Sorry

Here is an activity we do called Hidden Words. We write a story together and then circle all of the hidden words we can find :)

Can you believe a kindergartener took these beautiful pics? I just LOOVEEE Pete the Cat. Thanks Cason and Devan for donating!

Also, thanks to Ava for donating the book Chalk.

Monday, November 5th

Funny kindergarten moment.... From our friend Emilee: "I learned from my dad that when you yawn, you're tired." Cute.

FALL BACK is this weekend! Yay! I just remembered that. This is PERFECT for myself and the little K02 squirts who are so exhausted :) Thank goodness for fall back. Hahaha.

Am I a Scrooge?

Hi everyone! When I looked at your little ones early this morning....I saw dark circles and thought, "Oh no!" It's so funny because I always feel like a scrooge during holiday weeks, but now I know why! It's always a rude awakening the 2nd day after a party/holiday. I asked the kids, "Can you work really hard this morning?" I told them I knew it was a long week and I could tell they were tired.... Well, 8 math stations/a 1/2 an hour of writing/one special and one recess later, we have several kiddos making apologies to each other and some other behavioral consequences going on. What a day.....please, please, please put them to bed early tonight (for your sake tomorrow.) Enjoy the weekend and sleeping in! I know I will :) One tired Miss D

Make a video - it's fun, easy and free!
www.onetruemedia.com

Party Pictures.....

will be on our shutterfly site for you to enjoy! Thanks to Jaxon's mom (Amber) for taking all of these. They are GREAT :)

Thursday, November 1st

Oops. I almost put October for the month. I'm so happy to see a new month! I can't wait for more snow :)

Thank you SOOOO MUCH to everyone who volunteered and/or visited our Halloween party yesterday. It was a beautifully planned party. Thanks to Lisa for putting it all together.

 

Here is an example of our story problem from today. I wanted to point out something very important.

See how he tried to write the equation (2+4 4) at the top? When I had a sub, she taught them the equation. UGH. Do not teach your child this yet.

They were trying to figure out why in the world I didn't want them to do that...so I asked, "What does plus mean?" Then they totally got it. They knew that because they couldn't explain it, they weren't ready. So hopefully I won't be seeing anymore of that. Kids can easily memorize things like symbols/equations....this does NOT mean they understand what we're really doing with the numbers....and they might not even have simple things like conservation of a number. It takes awhile for them to truly understand that a numeral represents a number of objects.

Sorry to babble on and on....but I was one of those kiddos growing up who memorized everything. I got A's....but I hated math and thought I was no good at it well into my late 20's. Only in the past few years with some great training through South Dakota Counts (along with other programs like AVMR) have I finally figured out where my math holes were. I am finally comfortable solving math problems in front of other teachers. I know I can do it and I want your children to realize that everybody's best looks different! They all can learn and improve upon where they're currently at.

Do not let your child think that a failure defines them in any way. I'll post an article I recently read. It's REALLY good and re-defines a lot of things that should be going on in classrooms. I hope you have time to read it too.