Ellison's 1st Chick-Fil-a Night!!!

WOW....what an amazing turnout!  Ellison's first school spirit night at Chick-Fil-A was a HUGE success! The owner even mentioned he hadn't seen a spirit night so well attended! But...you wouldn't have noticed in their service that they felt short staffed!  WOO HOO!   Thank you to all our families that came out and supported Bessie Ellison and Kindergarten classrooms!  We enjoyed getting to visit with you!  As we were trained to say tonight...it was "our pleasure"!  Truly, it is so nice to see parents that we may not usually see and have a minute to connect!  Thanks again...and see you in October!!!!  As the cow says...eat more chicken!!!!

Mrs. Zahnd says THANK YOU  to Ellison Families and Chick-Fil-A!

Independent Readers

During independent reading, we are setting expectations and procedures into place!  We have learned a variety of skills that we call Reader Respect.  They include:

     *sitting on the carpet for a mini lesson so all can learn
     *keeping eyes and minds on the learning
     *choosing what to read when there are lots of choices
     *staying in our mapped out spots
     *being respectful with our reading tools
     *getting started right away
     *respecting others' need for quiet

We are using shared Book Baskets as we read independently and practice all of these smart, important skills.  We will soon have our own book basket and will "shop" on our own for the books we would like to read!

Check out this video and see if you can spot Reader Respect in action!!

School Picture time!

Our school picture day will be Friday, September 20!  Picture packet info and costs will be coming home soon in the parent/teacher folder!  If you are ordering pictures this year, please send your order and money that day!

A SEA of new friends!!!

Room 121 friends know that my family and I LOVE the beach and love shelling equally as much!  This summer we traveled to Gasparilla Island in Florida for vacation and we hit the gold mine of sea shells!!  I quickly decided that I would find a shell for each of my new Kindergarten friends!  It amazes me that as you find many of one kind of shell, no two are ever alike. Much like my friends in the classroom!  So...I packed up over 30 conch shells for this year and headed home!  Fast forward to last week when I emptied the bag of shells I had collected onto our friends rug with all 25 of my friends closely watching!  We simply looked at them first and began to discuss what we noticed....some are big, some are little, some are dark in color, some have pointy parts, etc.  I told them about shelling and what kind of shell they were.  I explained that sea animals live in shells and we talked about why these might be empty.  Then...I asked them how our friends and the shells might be the same.  WOW....they had lots of good ideas....some of us are girls, some are boys, some are tall, some have long hair, etc.   When I told them that we were like the shells in the sea...each one different and unique, each having a special purpose in Room 121 this year and that I had brought them each one of these shells, boy- did their eyes lit up!  Each friend was able to select their shell, write their name on it and place it in our special vase in the science area!  We are a community of friends, all very important in Room 121 this year and our shells can remind us of this each day!  I must admit that my heart was already a little bit sad at the thought of them "outgrowing" their Kindergarten shells and moving on much like sea creatures do...but I won't think about that for 9 more months!!!