Week of Sept. 23-27

I’ll get to the what we did this week, but I want to give you all the upcoming info. first.  There’s lots going on, so please read carefully and print if you need to.  (I don’t remember anything if it’s not on paper! 🙂

Friday October 4th is PIRATE DAY!  I put it in all caps, because it’s a fun exciting day in Kindergarten!  That day, we will be learning the “ar” sound and what better way than to be pirates that say “arrr!”  I need 7 parent volunteers to help run pirate rotations that afternoon.  If you could come at 1:15, I will explain the stations and the kids will come back at 1:30.  We’ll do rotations until a little before 3 and then we have an assembly that afternoon.  The stations are lots of fun and I will have everything set up, so all you have to do is help out the kids.  Please email me asap if you can help and I’ll take the first volunteers!  (I don’t say everyone can come only because then we end up with too many people in the room and we lose our focus.  Hope you understand!)  I will explain all this to the kids next week.  I encourage them to come dressed as a pirate (and you too if you’re volunteering!).  Mrs. Brock and I will be be dressed as pirates, never fear!   I do NOT want people to go out and buy a pirate costume though.  The fun days we dress up are just meant to be fun, not stressful or cost money.  We will talk all about how you can wear a bandana on your head, a pirate shirt if you have one, or if they do have a costume or can borrow one, they’re welcome to wear it as long as they can get in and out of it to use the bathroom.  I will also show them how to make a “hook hand” with a cup and foil.  I do ask that all swords be left at home.  I will give them eye patches and they will get jewels on their treasure hunt.  We’ll draw on mustaches with a Sharpie (just kidding!  washable marker comes right off!)  Guaranteed it will be one of their favorite days…it is mine!  Let me know if you have questions!

On Monday Oct. 14th, we’ll do apple day and apple rotations.  Our 5th grade buddies are coming down that day to help us out, but I will be sending a not home asking for apple items donations.  We’ll do apple tasting, graphing, glyphs, painting, reading, and make apple pancakes.  Please be looking for the note next week and let me know if you can send in an item.  I will ask ALL the kids to bring in an apple on Thurs. the 10th.  Please have them bring their favorite kind, red, yellow, or green.

Our field trip is Tues. Oct. 15th.  Permission slips will come home next Monday.  Please sign and return those asap.  I will be contacting the parent chaperones in a separate email.  Thanks to all who volunteered.  We will leave school right around 8:30 so please make sure you’re on time.  PLEASE be sure they are dressed for the weather as we will be outside the entire time!  We’ve been lucky the past few years, but you never know.  They will need a disposable sack lunch and drink (no pop please!).  All the info. will be on the permission slip, but please ask if you have questions.

Bookworms are due next Tues. Oct. 1st.  Please be sure to total the minutes at the bottom and sign it and send it in on Tues.  You can tear out the page or send the whole thing in.  We will put a sticker on it so you know we saw it and send it back.  Book it coupons won’t start until next month.  Please be sure you turn this in so they can earn their pin at the end of the year at the awards assembly.

Book orders are due Oct. 6th.  We will also have a book fair at school during conferences that supports the school library.

Conferences are coming up soon!  Conference times will go home on Oct. 4th.  Please be aware that I am having to schedule 23 kids and trying to get siblings back to back.  It is not easy for me to switch times around, so please try and make the time given.  I tried to get as close to your preference as I could.

Fall Festival is this evening.  I hope to see you there!  I will be there at some point, either the beginning or the end.  My son is going to his first dance at CT, and I get to go take pictures first 🙂  Please don’t tell him I told you, he thinks it’s ridiculous that I tell everyone that he’s going!  I’m his Mom and it’s his first dance, I’m allowed…right?!

Ok, a quick look at our week…hopefully you’re still reading!  We read lots of versions of Red Riding Hood, discussed real vs. make believe, beginning, middle, end, characters, setting, author, illustrator, sequencing, etc.  We read and we wrote!  We also did comprehension follow up as well!  We added the words mask, the, fox, of, and bat.  We did the letters f and b.  Don’t forget to keep the books sent home and put in their star bags!  In math, we worked on the numbers 8-10 and problem solving.  Oh…and the ANTS arrived!  The only time I’ll get excited about having ants is when they’re in the ant farm.  We’ve had lots of fun watching them tunnel and we’ll learn more about them and make our own ant facts book soon.  Feel free to come in and see them!

That was really long and I’m sure I forgot something.  I’ll let you know if I did.  Sadly, I’m off to a friend’s Dad’s funeral, but joyfully celebrating a life well lived and a wonderful man.  Have a wonderful weekend!

Week of Sept. 16-20

Sorry for the late update…the weekend got away from me.

This week, we enjoyed and learned about Goldilocks and the Three Bears.  They learned to retell, sequence, do beginning, middle, end, and graphing.  We also read the Old Lady Who Swallowed some Books and completed an emergent reader that should’ve come home and gone in the star bag.  I do hope you’re using the star bags as a good place to keep those books and continue to read them.

We added the letters J and K and the words star, as, and my.  Don’t forget to be practice the first quarter sight word lists as well.  Sometimes we add new words that go with animated alphabet that aren’t on the list you have.  For example:  star  These will be on our word wall though and they will be expected to spell them correctly if they’re on the wall.  They’re encouraged to use the word wall as a resource.

I math, we worked on the numbers 6 and 7, ordering by size, and ordinal numbers.  Continue to work on recognizing those numbers out of sequence and work on counting to 20.  We learned a new math game, “Where’s the Worm” that was sent home on Friday.  I hope you’ll take the time to play these games with your kids when they come home.  They’re great practice.

We also learned how to partner read this week and got out the green reading fingers.  I showed them how to do it correctly and how NOT to do it.  They always get a big kick out of that.

Coming up this week:

Friday:  Picture day, Bluejay families activities, and Fall Festival.  If you haven’t turned in an item for the Fall Festival, please do so as soon as possible if you are able.  Boys are Star Wars items and girls are Barbie items.   The Fall Festival is a fun evening for all.  I will be here probably at the beginning as my son is going to the 8th grade dance at CT and I’ll have to go and take pictures!  Also, I will not be here on Friday.  There was lots of confusion last week and the funeral is this Friday.

Ms. Ramirez’s last day will be Wed. Oct. 2nd.  We’ll be sad to see her go on to her next school  She’s done a great job with our class.

Book orders went home last week.  They are due Oct. 6th so if you order Halloween books, then they’ll be back in time to enjoy them.

We have new friends (well, maybe that’s not the right word)…the ants are here!  I imagine you’ll hear a lot about our ant farm.  They’re really neat to watch and we will be making our own book about ants too!

Have a great week!

Week of Sept. 9-13

Hard to believe we’ve been in school for a month now!  The kids are really getting the routine down well.  Please remember to keep checking and returning folders daily.

This week, we’ve added the letters S, R, and H and the sounds that they make.  We also added the sight words stop, a, I, rat and hat.  We learned about word families this week and learned the families __op and __at.

Fairy tales continued this week and we read lots of fun versions of The Three Little Pigs.  We made a new class book that you’ll see coming home.  We’ve done lots of writing, games, and today we’re playing a new comprehension game.  We are also learning about rhyming words.  This is a great skill to work on at home as well.  Next week we’ll be learning about Goldilocks.

In math, we learned about the number 0, as many, more or fewer, ordinal numbers, and problem solving using objects.

I am still testing kids on reading levels, so they won’t have leveled books in their backpack yet.  Keep working on the letters, sounds, and sight words for now.

Midterms are coming home today.  I also attached a sheet on the back that they wrote their name on and were asked to write the numbers 0-5.  Some got confused and only wrote 0 and 5.    Some of you will look at the names and wonder why I didn’t mark that they’re doing it independently.  Every single day, they sign in when they come in.  We are watching closely to see how they’re forming the letters.  We correct them everyday if they are making the letters wrong.  Some of them have the final product that looks okay, but they aren’t making them right.  Please refer to the parent night packet if you need to know how to help them write them correctly.  Midterms do not need to be returned.  Also, reversals are ok at this point with numbers although we’re working hard to fix this.  Another good thing to practice at home.

The all school picture will be taken next Wednesday at 3:00.  Kindergarten is being asked to wear white.

Upcoming events to mark on your calendar:

Sept. 18 All School Pic (wear white)

Sept. 25 7:30am Pray at the Pole

Sept. 27 Picture Day

October 2 Miss Ramirez’s last day 😦

Oct. 4 pirate day (more info. to come) will need some parent volunteers

Oct. 10 possibly apple day

Oct. 15th Alldredge apple farm field trip (letter will come home soon)

Oct. 16 and 17th conferences

Have a great weekend and enjoy the cool weather.  We’ll be headed to the OE homecoming game tonight.

Week of Sept. 3-6th

It was a short week, but a busy one in K.  Here’s what we were up to this week:

We learned the letters, sounds, and actions for Dd and Tt.  We added the new words, do, map, dad, at, and top to the word wall.  We also read the books Silly Sally (you’ll see a fun class book soon), A my Name is Alice, and Jack and the Beanstalk.  We are starting Fairy Tales and will dive into The Three Little Pigs next week.  We started with an anchor chart and learned the characteristics of Fairy Tales.  We are also talking about author, illustrator, characters, and settings.

In math, we have a favorite song on you tube, called count to 20, the chicken dance.  It’s lots of fun!  We learned the word, more, fewer, and same, and 1 and 2 fewer, and 1 and 2 more.

Today we talked about how we can “read” a book by reading the pictures and retelling the story.  You’ll see the predecodable book coming home today.  So anytime you hear, “I can’t read”, you can remind them that they CAN by reading the pictures!

We also learned to stretch out words for writing today.  We pretend we have a rubber band in our hands and if we say the word slowly and stretch it out, then we can hear more sounds.  I told them I won’t tell them how to spell things, I just want them to write all the sounds they hear.  This can be really hard for some kids as they just want to have it correct.  If they ask, your reply should be, I see you wrote all the sounds you can hear and help them slowly stretch out their words.

We worked on environmental print this week as well and you should have seen the book come home.  I would like them to all bring a piece of environmental print with them on Monday.  It can be a cereal box name that they can read (Just cut out the name, I don’t need the whole box), it can be a menu from a restaurant, a candy wrapper etc.  It just needs to be one that they can read on their own.  Surprisingly when we read the environmental print book this week, no one knew mac and cheese!  I told them they need to start helping cook dinner! 🙂

Whew!  That was a lot for a 4 day week!  Please continue to be in contact with me with concerns and celebrations.  I’ve had several emails this week about things going on at home or morning struggles.  Always good to know if someone needs a little extra tlc if they’ve had a difficult morning.  I’ve also heard the, “Mrs. Bettis said…”  Don’t worry, my kids don’t listen to me as well as yours do, that’s just the way it is!  If you have something they need to work on, let me know and I’ll try and tell them about it!

Don’t forget to be putting the kids books in their star bags, read every day, and write your minutes on the bookworm calendar!

I will be gone next Tuesday to run a Science training for other K teachers.  I don’t know my sub this time, but Ms. Ramirez and Mrs. Brock will be here, so I’m not worried.  Please just remind them about extra good behavior for guest teachers.

One more thing (sorry it’s so long)!  I would love to come and see the kids play sports.  If your child plays a sport on the weekend and would like a visitor, please send me their schedules.  I don’t ever tell them I’m coming just in case something comes up.  I do love to see what’s going on outside of school, so let me know.  That goes for all year too as sports/activities change.

Hope you have a great weekend.  Mine happens to be VERY full this weekend.  If you’re headed to Old Settler’s this weekend, my daughter Hannah plays trumpet in the OE band  and Jack plays the quad drums in the CT band.  I’m sure you’ll see them (HA!).  I’m lucky if I can find them! Have a good one!