Behavior Calendars

The calendar on the front of the red folder will tell you each day about your child's behavior. Green is what you want to see. Everyone starts out on green. Each child has a clothespin with their name on it hanging on the big green smiley face. The clothespin will stay there as long as the child follows the rules and does his/her work for the day.

If there is a problem, the child receives a warning and the pin is moved to the smaller green face. That face is still smiling because this is just a warning and everyone needs to be reminded at times.

If the child is still having problems, the pin will be moved to yellow and he/she will have to sit out for a little while either at recess or in the classroom.

The next step is to go to red. This is only for serious behavior problems. I will only do this if I don't see any change in behavior. I will contact you, the parent, with either a phone call or a note in the red folder explaining what has happened that day and the child will have restrictions on what they are allowed to do for the rest of the day.

At the end of the month, the children who have all greens on the behavior calendar will be rewarded with a special recess time.

"Staying on green" serves as a motivation for the children to follow the rules and work hard during the day.

First Week Success

The first week is always the hardest. There are so many things to learn like how to sit on the carpet, how to get from one place to another, class rules, how to use all the supplies, etc. The kids have done a great job adjusting to this huge change in their lives. It can be very overwhelming.

As you know, we had a pirate theme going. One day we talked about treasures and what makes something a treasure. I told the kids that you can't put some of your most valuable things in a box and hide it like pirate treasure. You can't put your family in a box. You wouldn't want to bury your favorite toys because then you couldn't use them. So then the kids drew pictures of their treasures and I kept reminding them to think of things they wouldn't put in a box. They came up with the beat ideas! The picture at the top is Kase and I just had to share his idea. He drew a picture of him and his dad playing catch and he told me that was a memory that was special to him and you can't put a memory in a box. That's thinking out of the box.

We've worked really hard this week on names. Writing names and recognizing not only your own name but classmates names as well. We will continue working on this daily for awhile. I want everyone to be able to write their first and last name.

The last thing we did Friday was go on a Treasure Hunt. We had a map of the school that led us to the computer room, library, office, etc. all the while looking for a treasure, and wouldn't you know it, after all that looking the treasure was in our classroom. It was a special pirate snack.

Cutting, Gluing, and Painting

Well, the room is still crawling with pirates, but we are managing to get some work done in spite of them. Today, we used scissors for the first time and I was so glad to discover that everyone is good at cutting. I'm always a little nervous the first time we get the scissors out. I never know what to expect. 22 five year olds with scissors can be a little scary.

We also used watercolors and something even scarier than scissors - glue. They made a Chicka, Chicka, Boom, Boom Tree that took a lot of glue to put together and I'm very happy to report that there wasn't even one big gluey mess.

Tomorrow, we will be writing about treasures. I'm going to ask them to think of people and things that are important to them and talk about why those things could be considered treasures.

Thanks for returning the red folders every day. That is a big help to me.

First Day of Kindergarten!

Wow! What a great day we had. I've got a terrific group of kids and I can tell this will be a great year.We didn't waste any time and got straight to work. The first thing they had to learn was how to sit on the carpet correctly and how to be a good listener.

They did some work at their tables. In the above picture, they are drawing things that begin with the letter "L". Then they practiced writing "L l".

This afternoon, we became pirates for a little while and talked about treasures.

Center time was a big hit. Thomas and Kaitlyn played with bears.

Cooper and Luke built about 20 different towers. Every time they finished one, they asked me to take a picture of it.

I'm looking forward to all the things we will do this year!

I'm Ready! Are You?

I'm really excited about seeing everyone tomorrow for our first day of Kindergarten. We are going to have lots of fun and I can't wait to watch you all learn this year.

Here is what our schedule will look like the first week of school.

Parents, you are welcome to walk your child to class tomorrow. I will come to the library at 7:55 to pick everyone up. If you are able to walk to class with us, I have something I need you to do before you leave.

I'm looking forward to a great year with some really awesome students.

Meet the Teacher

Welcome to Mrs. Kyle's class! I look forward to meeting everyone tonight.

This is going to be a great school year and I can't wait to get started!