A great start to a new year~

Hello everyone,

    Welcome to my blog for the school year 2012-2013.  Although my web address is still talesfromak-1classroom.blogspot.com.  I am no longer a k-1 looping teacher.  I am now a Full Day Kindergarten teacher.  This year has started with a bang.  Thank you to all parents who attended Curriculum Night.  I hope that you enjoyed my presentation, and I hope to find a way to put my presentation on this blog.  We have been very busy in room 8 this past week.  We are getting to know each other, learning each others name, and learning the rules and expectations of my classroom.  This is something we will work on for the next couple of weeks.  The children are all very excited to earn "Dazzles"  This is a while group positive reinforcement system that I use to shape our classroom behavior.  The children earn dazzles when I catch the entire class doing the right thing,  The other day, one of my students asked me how they could loose a "Dazzle"?  I told him, "I will NEVER take a dazzle away!"  "We all make mistakes and we are learning to make good choices, so when we are doing the right thing, I will recognize our class by giving us a Dazzle."  This made them very excited.  As of right now, we have earned 7 dazzles.  We only need 3 more dazzles to earn our "Dazzle Vote"  This is where the kids vote to get a special surprise.  Some of the past choices were; pajama day, crazy hair day, movie day, stuffed animal day, board game day, etc.  The kids are very excited to earn their last three Dazzles.  I am sure we will be able to achieve this during the week.

     I have many pictures of the children during the first week.  However, I need each parent's permission to show their child on my site.  I am planning on sending an email out asking permission.  I will ask you to email me back saying Yes! or No!.  I do have some pictures of the classroom that I would love to post.  Those parents who were not able to attend curriculum night, this is a sneak peak of the classroom.  I also want to let you know that those who didn't attend,  have to sign up for conference.  I will be sending home the open times this week!

     So, I hope you enjoy these pictures of our classroom and I can't wait to see all of you at conferences.  Oh, and one last thing;  During the classroom visits, I had a Play Dough sign up!  This meant that the parent would make home made play dough.  I still have NOT received September dough.  I am positive that a parent has signed up for this.  So, if you signed up, please send in this play dough as soon as possible.  The kids would be so appreciative.  I hope everyone had a nice weekend, and stay tuned for more pictures of your children learning!  Happy New Year!  L'Shana Tova!