i survived

the first week of school! And, it wasn't even an act of survival. My kinders are awesome this year. I ended the week with 16 on my roster, and roughly 90% of them have been through a minimum of one year of pre-school. Some of them have two to three years of pre-school experience. It is so evident in how they behave in the classroom.

My little learners can follow directions (at least as well as I expect four and five year olds to follow directions - and yes, I do have four year olds in my class). They enjoy drawing and coloring and most can even color inside of the lines. A majority of them can write their names and know a bulk of their letters. Most can count (beyond ten) and write their numbers. These kiddos are sharp. I know that I have mentioned this before, but they are just blowing me away.

Here's a glance at this week in review:

Monday

We got to know each other, practiced some procedures, read stories, jumped into reading by ourselves, reviewed letters, numbers, the calendar, and went to PE class.

Tuesday

We met a friend new to our class, did our baseline assessment for language arts, worked on writing Aa and Bb, practiced our numbers, read number stories, and went to music class.

Wednesday

We reviewed our classroom rules and procedures, practiced reading to ourselves again, listened to stories, learned about characters, drew pictures of what we think school is all about, did our baseline assessment for math,  reviewed the calendar, and went to library.

Thursday

We met another friend new to our class, reviewed characters, authors, illustrators, titles, title pages, reading to ourselves, the letters A - E, writing our names, learned the words I, am, practiced writing our numbers 1 - 5, and went to PE class.

Friday

We reviewed everything from this week. We wrote our names, reviewed the elements of stories and our sight words, drew pictures of characters, reviewed our letters, had a fire drill, prepared for next weeks math lesson by cutting out flash cards, went to music class,  practiced our silent reading, and drew pictures of our goals for the year.

I feel like I have taught more this week than I did all of last year. These kiddos are incredible. Next week we will jump into our standard schedule of 30 minutes reading intervention, 25 minutes of morning meeting, 100 minutes of core reading, 15 minutes of recess, 50 minutes of language development and sustained silent reading, 40 minutes for lunch and recess, 60 minutes of math, 30 minutes of Navajo Language & Culture (or academic enrichment for those that do not go), 40 minutes of specials, and 30 minutes of math intervention. It's going to be jam packed full of learning, but I think we'll fall into the routine pretty quickly. 

Happy Friday! The weekend is here (does that mean I need to lesson plan?)!