HeidiSongs Teaching Resource

 Recently, I was asked whether or not I have a word wall in my classroom, and how I use it. Yes, I do have a word wall in my classroom! I try to keep it uncluttered with not too many words, and all within view of my writing table as much as possible. I add the words to the wall as the children learn them and need them for their writing. So at the beginning of the year, there is no word wall at all in my kindergarten classroom. Then, I begin adding in each word as we learn the word and its spelling song . I also add in "seasonal" words as the need arises. For example, when we are studying zoo animals I put up pictures of zoo animals with the words next to each picture. I put up holiday words during the holidays as well. I take these words down when we are done with our unit of study due to lack of space on the wall. As our word wall gets fuller and we start to run out of space, I usually put these seasonal words on a pocket chart rather than up on the word wa...

Question: What types of notes does a Kindergarten teacher need to send home on the first day of school? What types of things do parents need to know? In response to the question above, I have decided to post the papers that I send home with parents on the first day of school. I actually send all of these documents home in English or Spanish, as the parents wish. At my school, we have a meeting for the parents on the very first day. The parents are asked to stay for the first 45 minutes or so while we meet the children and take roll. After we read the kids a story and salute the flag, etc., we then send our children outside with our aides while we spend about a half an hour with their parents. We like doing this on the first day of school, since most families do usually come with their child on the first day. This maximizes parent attendance as we go through some important information and routines that they will need to know about. The document called, “First Day Overhead ...