Thursday, September 15, 2016

Two Hoots and A Holler: Growing Gators

Hoot #1
We have been in school for 6 weeks now.  This year seems to be going by super fast!  We have seen so much growth from our kiddos in the past 6 weeks.  Thanks to ESGI, we have data to show that our class is growing and learning!  I know we have said it before, but if you do not have ESGI...What are you waiting for?!?!  It is the best thing that we have ever discovered, and we will never teach another year without it!  It gives you SO MUCH data to use to show parents, administrators, support staff, etc. to show how each individual child is progressing.  We did a letter screener in August.  With ESGI, it took us no time at all to get this done!  We want our students to know all letter names by Halloween, so we have been working really hard to meet our goal.  We reassess our students every other week with ESGI. We started off in August with our uppercase percentage at 63% and our lowercase percentage at 52%.  

Just look at the growth they showed and look at the awesome pie charts from ESGI!! We grew at least 20% in upper and lowercase areas in less than a month!  I am so proud of these kiddos!
Hoot #2
We have a new phonics program we are using this year in kindergarten.  We will begin using SIPPS this year.  We have been nervous to start a new program because we didn't know much about it.  Last week we were lucky enough to attend a training geared towards our grade level.  This training was very informative and helpful.  After sitting in this training, the nervousness has passed some, and the excitement is starting to set in!  This program has shown phenomenal growth in student's reading abilities.  Students must know at least 20 lowercase letters before beginning, so we have been working really hard to learn as many letters as we can.  
How many of you have used SIPPS in kindergarten?  Have any tips for us before we begin?  We would LOVE to hear from other teachers who have used this program.  Leave your comments below!!   
 
This Week's Holler...
This week's holler goes out to Karen Jones at Mrs. Jones's Kindergarten.  We are in LOVE with her new curriculum creations for kinders called "Little Thinkers".  It is a social studies curriculum designed just for kindergarten!  It is in her TPT store, and now that we have discovered her...a lot of her items are now on our TPT Wish List!  Go read and check out her blog to read more about all of the awesome ideas this lady has!  
Mrs. Jones’s Class

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