Week of Sept. 24th-28th

It’s been apple week in Kindergarten and it will continue next week!  Thanks for all who volunteered to donate items for our apple day next Friday.  Everyone will need to bring an apple on Monday of next week so that we can graph and taste them, and do a fun sink and float experiment.

This past week, we added the letters and sounds of f and b and added the words, bat, mask, fox and the.  We read lots of good books about apples and learned about Johnny Appleseed.  We also made a class book about Who Took the Apples? with a surprise ending!  Be sure to tell you child not to tell the surprise when they bring it back to school so others can have a surprise too.   We have also been writing in our journals.  Today we made an apple glyph.  A glyph is a way to show information through a picture.  We filled out our book about apples and then did a project based on the book information.

We have been testing the kids on their sight words in their reading envelopes.  Remember to keep working on those.  After conferences, you will start to see books in their envelopes for them to be reading as well.

In math, we’ve been working on the numbers 8-10 and working on some problem solving.  We’ve also been working on graphing and reading information from graphs.

We continue to work on being good listeners and having above the line behavior.  Our afternoons are still harder as some as still adjusting to being here all day.  Please continue reinforcing at home that the students job is to come to school to listen and learn.  I would ask that you also talk to them about keeping their hands to themselves.  We’ve had quite a few instances this week with kids having hands on other people.  We haven’t had any aggressive hitting, it’s just touching and annoying other people.  We talk about hands are for helping, not hurting (and we’ve added not annoying.)

We now have a Pete the Cat, “I can tie my shoes” wall.  When the kids can show me they can tie and keep their shoes tied, they will get to sign their name on Pete’s shoes.  This is just one of those things that kids need to learn to do in Kindergarten, but that has to be practiced at home.  Some may still not have the fine motor control and that’s okay.  I told them they had all year to work on it.  I’m just trying to encourage them to practice.

Our field trip is coming up soon!  Please return the permission slip if you haven’t already.  I will need some parent volunteers, so let me know if you can go.

Conference schedules and notes are coming home today.  Please cut and return the bottom portion of the slip.  Please do NOT write in your own time.  I had a lot of siblings to schedule around this year, so if you absolutely can’t make your time, I will try and find you another one.  I also sent home a conference survey.  Filling that out allows me to be more prepared to answer your questions that you may have at conferences.  It is your choice if your child attends the conference or not.

Thank you for remembering to send a healthy snack with your child’s name on it.

Don’t forget:  Bentwood Bookworms are due Monday.  Please remember to add up the minutes and sign the calendar.  Thanks!

Have a great weekend!

Week of Sept. 24-28

I hope you heard all about pirate day this weekend!  We learned lots of new ar words, made pirates, played some word and math pirate games and much more.  Thanks to all the parents who came to help.  It was a really fun day!  The kids were GREAT!  Sometimes a change in schedule can be distracting, but they all did an excellent job listening and following directions.

Last week we started working on taking data, making tally marks, graphing our data, and then analyzing it.  They like the word analyzing!  Sure sounds important!  We were able to take our information and that’s how we made our pirate glyphs.

We added the new words, star, my and jar this week and did the letters j, k, and ar.  You should also be seeing some easy read predecodable books coming home.  I encourage you to hang on to those and reread at home.  We continue to talk about rhyming words which went great when we sang Down by the Bay.  We have a class book patterned after it coming home too.

In math, we’ll continue to work on calendar and this week, we did the numbers 6 and 7. We don’t just practice writing them, we’re trying to get the kids to have a good number sense to understand what 6 and 7 means.  We try to do that in lots of different ways since all kids learn differently.

On Friday of this week, conference notes will come home.  Please check that the time will work and cut off and return the bottom part.  I have lots of siblings this year that I scheduled around, so please do not change the time.  I tried to go off the request sheets you did at parent night.  If your time absolutely won’t work, write that on the form, and I’ll let you know what else I have free.

This week and next we’ll be learning with apples.  We’ll read about apple trees and Johnny Appleseed and we’ll write apple books, do apple art, and apple math.  You’ll also see a note on Friday about everyone bringing in an apple next week.  We are going to have apple day activities with our buddies on Oct. 5th.  You’ll be a getting a note home about a few items needed for that day as well.

I hope you enjoyed the beautiful weather this weekend.

Week of Sept. 10th-14th

Your kindergartener has sure been busy learning!  This week, we added the letters, S, R, and H.  When we add letters, we are working on upper and lower case letter recognition and learning the sound and action that goes with each letter.  We also added the words stop, a, I, hat, and rat to the word wall.  Today we also worked on the –at word family and came up with lots of words that end with –at.  This week, we enjoyed lots of the Laura Numeroff books in the If you give a ….series.  We made our own class book today following the pattern of the book If you give a cat a cupcake.  Look for it to come home next week.  Each time we read these books, we’ve been working on sequencing and retelling the stories as well.  Homework this week has been to retell you the story we read that day.

For second step this week, we’ve been working on focusing our attention.  Some of us are better than others! 🙂  They really have come a LONG way in showing me they’re ready to listen and learn.  I always tell them that their job is to come to school to listen and learn.

For math this week, we worked on that zero is a number and not a letter O.  We work on calendar and counting daily and have learned the song, “I can count by tens up to 100”  Have them sing it for you.  We worked on the math vocabulary as many, fewer, and more.  We finished the week with ordering numbers 0-5 and talking about ordinal numbers, first, second etc.  Today we are sequencing the If you give a cat story with our ordinal numbers.

Next week will be an exciting one!!  We will reading some fun pirate books and doing some great reading/math games with a pirate theme culminating in pirate day on Friday.  Why pirate day you ask?  Because pirates say, “aargh!” and we are learning the ar sound!  On Friday, I encourage the kids to come dressed as a pirate.  I will not tell them about this though until Thursday.  Otherwise, it could be a LONG week! 🙂  We will talk about what they could wear ie: bandanas on their heads, (I will give them eye patches and we’ll make hats), a striped shirt, scarf, beads etc.  If they happen to have a pirate costume, great!  If not, please do not purchase one unless they’ll be that again for Halloween!  Anytime we do a “costume” day, please just use what you have or can borrow.  I don’t ever want anyone buying stuff for that day.  That would never be my intent.  I had a few kids last year make hand hooks out of a cup and foil!  I will tell them that swords must stay at home.

Thanks to all the parents who volunteered to come.  If you want to come about 1:10, then I can explain all the stations to everyone.  And YES, you can come dressed as a pirate too!  Last year after pirate day, I had to run in Price Chopper for a quick item and I was still wearing my pirate mustache!  All I had to say was, “I teach Kindergarten!”  Don’t worry, we’ll look as silly as you might!  Makes it all the more fun!

Reading folders will come home on Monday.  There will be lots of papers in them with explanations.  Please keep all papers and folders in their backpacks after you work on them at night.  Once we start reading groups, I will be sending books home as well.  Right now, it will have ABC’s and K sight words.  If your child recognizes all their letters, have them work on the sounds.  We will try and pull them once a week to check and see where they are.

Hope you have a great weekend and enjoy the cooler weather.  We will be at a basketball tournament with Jack this weekend.  Take care!  Lori

Sept. 3-7th

We had another great week in Kindergarten with lots of learning going on!  I have a couple of housekeeping kinds of things:

I need 5-6 volunteers to help with Pirate Day Rotations.  Pirate day is a TON of fun where we learn about the “ar” sound.  I have different activities that the kids will rotate through, but I need some help manning the stations.  If I can’t get enough parents, I may try and get some 5th grade buddies to help.  I am planning it for Friday Sept. 21st from 1:30-3:00.  If you would be able to come and help that day, please let me know as soon as you can.

Book Orders for Sept. are due the 19th.  The code to order from our class online is HWML6.  You can go to www.scholastic.com and order with a credit card or send in the paper order with a check made out to Scholastic.  They have a couple of the Pete the Cat books which we read this week and they LOVE them!  If you google it on youtube, you can hear the author singing it.  We’ve had a lot of fun with it!

We are starting to do some writing and are stretching out our words like we would stretch out a rubber band.  Right now we are just trying to put down any sounds that they hear.  If you see a paper come home and it only has the first letter, that’s okay.  I will not tell them how to spell things as they are learning to spell phonetically which is age appropriate.  If they write at home, please encourage them to stretch out their words.  My comment when they ask, “is it right?” is to say, “I can see you put down the sounds you hear! Great job!”

In reading, we’ve worked on beginning, middle, end, sequencing stories, rhyming words, clapping words in a sentence, and adding words to our word wall.  We now have the words ax, mom, map, ox, pup, pop, top, and the color words.  I would encourage you to write them out and let your child show you how to use their reading finger to sound out those words.

In math, we’ve worked on comparing numbers and used the terms more than and fewer than, and today we talked about zero.  We’ve been doing lots of practice writing our numbers in order and writing them correctly as well.  We’re also working on a daily calender, learning how to write the date, do patterns, and tally marks as well.

I hope you’re enjoying the class books!  We now have 8 going home!  If you haven’t seen one yet, you will soon!  Thanks for remembering to return them the next day!

Bella and Daisy are travelling as well and the kids are loving sharing their weekend adventures with the rest of the class.  The about me posters will hang up in class for a week and then come home.

We started our Second Step lessons this week.  This is a program to help teach good classroom behaviors and great social skills.  This week we talked about good learners and how they have eyes watching, ears listening, voices quiet, and bodies still.  This goes great with our monster above and below the line behavior.

Please continue to check the lunch menu with your child each day to make sure they’re making a good choice for their lunch.  It’s really important that they eat a good lunch at school.

Thanks for all the help you’re giving your child at home with homework and reviewing skills taught in class.  Reading folders will be coming home soon with alphabet cards to practice letters and sounds and sight words too.

I hope you have a great weekend.  I plan to be at the Fall Festival tonight and then head to the Olathe East game to watch Hannah perform with the band.  Then tomorrow, both kids are marching with their bands in the Old Settler’s parade!  It will be busy as usual! 🙂