Reconnecting with family...

I know, I know.. I said I would blog every Sunday to give you a review of the week past and a preview of the week to come.  However, this weekend I found myself in the Poconos, reconnecting with my extended family.  We started our journey on Saturday morning.  Hoping to leave by 8:00am at the latest.  Well, at about 10:00am,  we had finally gotten everything together.   Five hours later, we pull into a beautiful Inn and Golf Resort, The Shawnee Inn and Gold Resort on the Delaware Gap.  I am originally from Pennsylvania.  I was born and grew up in Scranton PA and Clarks Summit PA. I moved to Massachusetts in 1990, when I was going into 4th grade.  However,  my aunt and uncle still reside in Pennsylvania.  So when my cousins and Aunt decided to throw my Uncle a surprise 70th birthday party, it only made sense to reunite in the wonderful state of Pennsylvania.  It had been 5 years since I had seen my cousins and their children.  I was super excited to see them, but more excited to see my nieces, Lucy and Emmy.  Lucy is about to turn 5, and Emmy is 1 1/2, and they are the loves of my life.  They live in Maryland and I do not see them as often as I would like to.  This weekend was perfect!

EMMY- 1 1/2

 LUCY- 5, Aunt Sara (Miss Zakar) and my dad

LUCY and EMMY

So, I do apologize for not blogging last night, but I was reconnecting with my family!  Here is a peek at the whole family!

My immediate family

My extended family

My sisters and I 

Jessie (left), me, and Rachel (right)

After reconnecting with my family, I thought it would be appropriate to reconnect with all of you, my BEAL family!  I am so proud of the kids thus far.  We already have made so much progress establishing our routines and following our classroom rules.  Here is a summary of the learning that has happened in our room.

We learned another Daily 5- Word Work

We learned a new math game- Unifex Roll

We made letters with our bodies

We practiced our number formation with multi-sensory materials

We got classroom jobs!

Our reading stamina is up to 11 minutes- WOW!!!!

Stay tuned for more pictures from this week.  We will be learning our 3rd Daily 5, work on writing.  We will continue to work with our names.  We will learn about math technology.  We will make a feelings gauge and talk about our feelings.  We will continue to build our reading, writing, and math stamina.  We will be introduced to our poetry folders.  What a great start to our school year.  I am so excited for what is to come!  

Launching The Daily 5- Read to Self

I have been successfully using The Daily 5 for over 5 years.  For those of you who are not familiar with  the Daily 5, please visit The Sisters website to learn more (www.thedailycafe.com).  In short, the Daily 5 is how I structure my literacy block in my classroom.  According to The Sisters, "The Daily 5™ is more than a management system or a curriculum framework - it is a structure that helps students develop the daily habits of reading, writing, and working independently that will lead to a lifetime of literacy independence.  Since I started using the Daily 5 I have seen an increase in my students reading and writing abilities, but more importantly, they are learning the importance of working independently at their very own level of skill.  

It is important to get started with the Daily 5 as early as possible.  It is super important to build the children's stamina to do "work", independently, for a longer period of time.  The very first thing that I teach my kids is that everyone in the classroom are readers.  We talk about 3 ways to read a book. When the children find out that looking at the pictures is actually one way to read, a huge weight is lifted off their shoulders.  They have learned that they can read a book 3 different ways.  1. Read the words   2. Read the pictures  3. Retell the story.  

Then I introduce the very first Daily 5;  Read to Self.  After talking about behavior expectations for Read to Self,  we all went book shopping.  For the first couple of weeks, the children will be picking Interest Books.  This means that they are picking books solely based on their interest.  As we become better readers, we will be choosing "Just Right " books.  After each child went book shopping, we read a story called The Best Place to Read.

This is a great story about a boy and how he is looking for his best reading spot.  Next, I have each child choose their most perfect reading spot in the classroom.  We practice sitting in our spots and looking at our books.  The children know that during Read to Self they must have a silent voice, read the whole time, and stay in the same spot.  The next thing we talk about is STAMINA.  Although this is a hard word to understand, we talk about stamina as being able to do something for a longer time without getting tired or giving up.  

In order to build our reading stamina, we have to practice read to self everyday.  I show the children a stamina graph and I tell them that in a couple weeks, we will be able to Read to Self for 20 minutes.  They all thought that was a really long time, and it is.  We talked about how we have to start small and build up to 20 min.  On day 1, I challenged them to do Read to Self for 2 minutes.  They all found their perfect reading spot and I started the timer.  THEY DID IT!!!  I was so proud.  The next day we tried for 4 min.  They blew me away and we were able to color our graph all the way to 4 min.  Today, we tried again.  I challenged them to read for 6 min.  They gladly took the challenge.  They found their special spots and I started the timer.  THEY DID IT AGAIN!  6 whole minutes.  The kids were proud of themselves this time.  They are able to see their growth on our chart and they are excited to keep going.  

Here is a sneak peek at the boys and girls working hard in Read to Self.  There will be more pictures shared during my Curriculum Night presentation, so stay tuned.

And so our journey begins...

Welcome to Miss Zakar's kindergarten blog, Tales From a K Classroom!  We are off and running in Room 8 and we are so excited to share our journey with all of you.  We have begun to explore our classroom, learn classroom routines, and we have begun to build a respectful classroom community.

Here are some highlights from the first couple of days of school

*morning meeting
     -greeting
     -sharing (a sharing schedule will be posted and sent home this week)
     -message
     -activity

*we read The Kissing Hand by Audrey Penn
     -We made our own kissing hand for our families

*took a tour of Beal School


*we read Mrs. Bindergarten Gets Ready For Kindergarten
     - We read this book and then made a class book by drawing a picture of how we get ready for Kindergarten

*learned how to use markers, scissors, and glue

*explored with many math manipulatives

*listened to One More Story on the big screen

*Music and Media

I am still waiting on a few permission slips and then I will gladly post some pictures from the first few days.  I can't wait for a fabulous year!

Our Learning Celebration

Here is a sneak peek at our Celebration of Learning Video.  Join us in the classroom on June 12, 2013 at 2:30 in our classroom.  Here you will get to see all the great things your children have accomplished.  I will also be showing a year end video to culminate our year together.  You should be so proud of your shining stars.  I know I am! I look forward to seeing you on Wednesday!

2013 Trailer from Sara Zakar on Vimeo.