Week of Aug. 26th-30th

Happy Labor Day Weekend!

We had a busy week finishing up our color words and color posters.  Thanks for sending items in with the kids.  All of the sight word bags that have come home need to be kept in their star reading bags and they should be working on reading those books!

Reading folders came home this week as well.  Please keep them in their backpacks, but please make sure you’re taking them out each night and working on the letter identification and the letter sounds.  If they are ready, they can start working on the sight words.  Please refer to the list I sent home of the words we’re working on this quarter.

This week, we added the words, green, blue, ox, purple, ax, pink, brown, black and white.  We also learned the letters and sounds for Aa and Xx.

In math, we learned to count, write the numbers, and arrange them in different ways for the numbers 0-5.  I know this was easy for a lot of the kids, but the writing of the numbers was not.  Have them sing you the song we sing as we practice.

Book orders are due on September 6th.  Remember that this is optional, but you really won’t find books that are cheaper.  If they are a gift for your child, please let me know and I won’t hand them to them when they come in.

Bella the Bear and Daisy the dog went home again this week.  Each week two children will take them home.  This is a fun time to take pictures and journal about their time together.  I’m okay with the parents doing the journaling at this point.  Please add photos if you can.  1-2 is fine. They will then share this in class on Monday.  The about me posters are in there as well.

We have LIBRARY on Tuesday when we return.  Please be sure they have their books with them.

Thank you for sending healthy snacks with your child.  I’m trying to help them remember to put it in the snack bucket when they come in.  I’ve had a few forget and then pull out a cheese stick at the end of the day.  I haven’t let them eat them since they’re warm (ick!).  If they have a refrigerated item, you might remind them as you drop them off.

Thanks for remembering to send the class books right back the next day.  I hope you’re enjoying seeing their work.  There will be lots more coming home!

The dismissal bell rings at 3:40.  It’s really important that you be here then to pick up your child.  I appreciate your making the effort to be here on time.

Don’t forget to start adding your reading minutes to the Bentwood Bookworm Logs.  They start in Sept. and went home after parent night.   The T-Bones also offer a program that if you read 2, 000 minutes before next March, they will give you two free tickets to a game.  If you hang on to your Bentwood calendars, then you’ll be able to fill out the form in the Spring if they get to that many minutes.  We also do the Pizza Hut Book it program which will start in Oct.  If their calendar is turned in on the due date (dates are in the back), they will earn a mini pizza coupon.

We start Royal Readers next Friday.  I’m sure you’ll hear about it.  Please do not tell your child when you are coming.  They really like it to be a surprise!

That’s it from here.  I hope you enjoy your extra day this weekend.  I’ll be headed downtown to reStart to help my daughter with her Girl Scout Gold award project.  Have a great weekend!

Week of August 19-23rd

Welcome to the Kindergarten Blog!  This will be the place to find out all that’s happening in our class.  I see that several of you have signed up to automatically get the emails.  Feel free to do so.

If you hear that we do nothing in Kindergarten, I can assure you that it’s not true! 🙂  We manage to pack a lot in during the day!  Here’s a look at what we did this week:

Reading: We learned the letters P, U, O, and M and the actions to go with them that correspond with the sound that they make.  We put those letters together and learned the words pup, pop, and Mom.  We also learned the color sight words red, orange, and yellow.  We learned to read with our magic star wands and read the room.  I hope you were able to label some things at home and read around your house.  The color books that came home, the letter books, and the Brown Bear books are all books that should find a home in their star wand bags, so that they have books they can pull out and read themselves.

Math:  We are working on recognizing, counting, and writing the numbers 0-5.  We are also starting to count to 20.  Please remember that counting to twenty and being able to recognize those numbers are two completely different things.  When we count, I am asking the kids to cross out the items so that they learn the 1:1 correspondence.  2 and 3 are really hard to write, so this would be good to practice at home.

If you want to practice with the songs we do in class, you can go to you tube and type in Harry Kindergarten count to 20.  We have also done the Numbers Help Me Count to 20 as well.  The color songs are there as well.  Just type in red kindergarten color song.

I am working on getting all kids tested on recognizing their upper and lower case letters, letter sounds, counting to 20, recognizing numbers 0-20, and shapes.  We are going to need to work on hexagon 🙂  As soon, as I finish, I will start reading testing.

Please make sure you clean out folders nightly and discuss the work with your kids.  Lots of kids are returning homework which is great!  Homework is a great reinforcement of what we do in class.  It is not required, but they do earn gotchas if it’s returned and completely correctly.  Remember that they should be reading each night (which can include being read to and reading their star books) and record it on the reading log.

I sent home a letter about Highlights magazine today.  It is strictly optional, but I would appreciate your signing and returning the form, even if it’s a no and we can earn some things to use in class just for returning the forms.

Scholastic book orders went home as well.  Scholastic offers great books at great prices.  For every book you order, we earn free books to have in our classroom.  Again, this is optional.

I’m really proud of the kids.  They’ve really settled in this week and are learning the routines and how kindergarten works.  We’re still really working on what quiet work times sounds like and lining up quietly.  I know they’ll get it, we just have to keep working on our “above the line” behavior!

Thanks to all who have been sending in donations from parent night.  I really appreciate it!  I could still use more glue sticks and some more Elmer’s glue bottles.

It’s supposed to be really hot next week.  I do not care if the kids want to bring a water bottle and keep it in their backpacks.  The ones that have have already figured out when is an ok time to get drinks.  Please just make sure it has a secure lid and has their name on it.

Please don’t hesitate to contact me if you have questions/concerns or celebrations.

Have a great weekend!