Week of Oct. 23rd-29th

It’s been another busy week in kindergarten!

This week, we are learning to write the capital letters of all the lower case letters we’ve learned so far. So far, we have done: Tt Pp Nn Aa Mm Dd Ss Ik Gg Hh Bb. We have been working on syllables in words, onset-rime (first sound and the rest of the word), rhyming words, beginning sounds, and stretching out words. We’ve also learned a poem about long and short vowels. Ask your child to tell you! Whew! That’s lots of work! Everyone has a book bag now. Remember to have them read it for several nights and then return it for a new book. Please remember to mark the log.

We read some cool factual books about pumpkins this week. Did you know some pumpkins are big enough that they can be carved out and made into a boat? Pretty cool! I’ve never seen a pumpkin THAT big! We’re going to do some exploring with pumpkins tomorrow! We also learned about the lifecycle of a pumpkin.

We made bats that came home and wrote rhyming words that rhyme with bat!

The Room on the Broom retelling came home yesterday. What a fun story! Have your child use the characters to retell the story.

If your child hasn’t worked on tying their shoes yet, please be working on that at home. That’s a skill they need to learn that we don’t have time to practice at school. There are several good youtube videos to show some different ways to do it.

The book order is due by 4:00 on November 2nd. I called them and they said they should be caught up by mid Nov. and that if I place it that early, it should be here before winter break. Books make great gifts and you won’t find them cheaper than Scholastic! You have the option to ship them to home, but they told me the ones shipped to the class will come faster fyi. The BOB book collections are great for beginning readers!

There will also be a book fair at school, November 8th-12th. Teachers were asked to set up an ewallet. If you want to donate for classroom books, here is my personal link:

https://shop.scholastic.com/ewallet/fund?lang=en_US&walletId=3472697

If your child wants to shop the book fair, they will have to have their own ewallet. Information will be coming from Ms. Foster on how to set that up. Cash will not be accepted.

Student Council is hosting a food drive November 8th-12th. We will be collecting canned and boxed food that week.

Pirate day will be Friday November 12th. Kids will come dressed as a pirate that day and that week, we will be learning the r, and ar sounds. More info. to come but wanted to give you a heads up.

A reminder from Mrs. Burk: Please put a message in the beattendance@olatheschools.org line if your child is gone for any reason. If they are sick, please leave a detailed a message so that she can keep track of it. I’d appreciate knowing when they’re gone or leaving for appointments so I can have them ready.

I’m sure I don’t need to remind you that the Halloween activities are tomorrow. Please be sure your child can get in and out of their costume on their own to use the bathroom. Thank you to all who sent items for the day! I couldn’t do it without your generosity and support! I’m sure tomorrow will be a FUN day! I will take class pics and send them to you all!

Happy Halloween!

Week of October 18th-22nd

This week was all about bats! We made a schema chart (our schema is what we already know!) about bats and then added all of our new learning as we listened to several non-fiction books about bats. We are learning to listen for facts and details. We also made a fact book about bats that came home yesterday. We also got to look at my real dead bat! 🙂 Today we did an experiment to learn how a mother bat finds her pup in a colony of bats! Be sure to ask your child what they found out! We ended the week watching The Magic Schoolbus Goes Batty!

In math, we are working on learning the names of the 3D shapes: cylinder, cone, sphere, and cube. Have your child look for these in real life objects around your house! They should know the names of the 5 2D shapes that we’ve done and will need to identify the names of the 4 3D shapes as well. We also learned the new app Frantic Find and played it today. It is set up on all the Ipads, so you can play it at home. I also added the pattern shapes and geoboards which we will learn next week. I also added a 3D shape game on Seesaw that you can play together.

There are several new things added to Seesaw as well. Anytime something is on Seesaw, they can do it at home. If I want to do it in class, I have it set to show up during class time. Make sure they don’t send back the listening activities on Seesaw or they won’t be able to listen to the other books. They need to X out and start over.

We have been working on kindness all week and yesterday they got kindness dots to help remind them. Several asked me to put them on again today, but I’m not going to draw dots on daily. 🙂 We’ll just work on being kind daily!

We’ve been working on stretching out words to write the sounds we hear, practicing writing our new letters, and working on breaking words into syllables. We are also working on words that rhyme. We say they have to sound the same at “the end”. It doesn’t need to be a real word, it just has to rhyme. This is a great skill to practice at home or while in the car! We also added the letters Hh and Bb this week. We added the words: be, he, she, me, we. We are also learning about long and short vowels.

Next week, on Friday, we will have our Fall/Halloween activities. Students will come dressed in costume. Please make sure they can get in and out of it independently to use the restroom!! They cannot be wearing a mask or gloves to interfere with work. They can bring them for the parade. They cannot have anything bloody or gory or weapons! We will have a short assembly at 8:35 and then an outside parade at 9:00. We will head out the north gym doors and walk around the building to door J. Parents are invited to attend outside and watch the parade. We will do our Halloween activities throughout the day and won’t be having a “party” time. A sign up genius was sent out for donations. Please have those to me by Wed. next week. Thanks to all who volunteered to send items! (If it rains, I will let you know what plan B is for the parade.) PTA will be hosting a trunk or treat on the Bond side of the school from 5-7 that evening!

Just a reminder per my previous email. Mid November we will be having a pirate day and the kids will come dressed as pirates. You can easily do this with a pirate t-shirt, striped shirt and some ripped up old pants. Savers is always a good place to look. Or if you see a costume on sale, that’s fine too. We’ve done this for years, so if you know a former kindergartener, you could probably borrow one too.

Student Council will be hosting a food drive for Harvesters Nov. 8-19th. Just a heads up.

I think that’s it for this week. Hope you have a great weekend!

Week of October 4-7th

This week we made our silly pumpkins to go with the story Pumpkin Town. We are going to hear lots of great pumpkin stories this month. We added the letter Ss and the words: come, said, and saw.

We started our Project Lead the Way STEM unit on pushes and pulls this week and will finish up next week. We are learning what objects push to move things away from us and what objects pull to move things towards us. We are also learning the terms force and collision. We will be working with a group to build a pigpen with a gate that pushes open and pulls closed, a tool that pushes or pulls hay and a sled to pull the pigs from the pigpen to the barn. We learn a lot about engineering and architecture. It’s a great activity for teamwork and problem solving!

In math, we’ve been focused on comparing numbers with one more and one less. We also spent some math time working puzzles, again more problem solving and cooperative play.

Next week in math, we will begin simple 2D and 3D shapes. We are going to start with 2D and I ask that you have the kids use the I-pad to take a picture of something at home that is each shape so that they can share at school that day. Here’s the days: 11th-circle, 12th-triangle, 18th-square, 19th-rectangle, 20th-hexagon. Please have their picture (just one) on their i-pad on that day so they can share.

I-pads need to come to school, charged daily! I will put some activities on there for them to do on Seesaw over the break. Remind them to only hit the green checkmark if DONE. Otherwise, hit the orange and they can go back and finish. I put some listening center books on there too and told them to always X it out and delete and start over. That way they stay on there and they can listen to them again.

Music and PE are going back to 30 min. two times a week, so they’ll need tennis shoes on A and C days.

Please send in a pair of pants to keep in their change of clothes.

Fall pictures will be taken on Oct. 12th. We will take ours early that morning. If you’d like to send clothes for them to change into afterwards, that’s fine as long as they can completely dress themselves.

There is a website called halfpintkids.com that has some online decodable readers if you’d like to check that out!

Reminder that dismissal will be at 11:15 on Wed. Oct. 13th, not noon as originally scheduled.

I am slowly sending bookbags home with kids as they are ready with decodable readers. They should stretch out the words, while pointing to and looking at the words. There will be a book log in there as well. If they read every word correctly and fluently the first time, it’s probably to TE-too easy. If there’s a few words they have to stretch-JR-just right, and if it’s just way too hard, then mark TD-too difficult. I am going through them first so they should be just right, but sometimes not. After they’ve read through them several days, they can return them for a new one. I can’t promise a new one will come home that day, but I’m trying for a quick turn around. That’s why the halfpintkids site will be good to check as well.

I hope you enjoy the long weekend. I look forward to talking to everyone next week for conferences. I will send the conference packet home tomorrow, please hang on to them. I will send the zoom links next week! Please make sure you leave the zoom meeting when your time is over so I can let the next group in. Conferences are scheduled back to back so please try to be on time and I will do my best as well!

Week of Sept. 27th-Oct. 1st

This week was all about scarecrows and Fall. We talked about things we can do in the Fall and drew pictures and some writing about our choices. We heard some fun scarecrow books, talked about the characters, problem and solutions in the book, The Scarecrow’s Hat. We also worked on sequencing the story. We even did a directed drawing of a scarecrow and used the watercolor paints for the first time.

We added the letters/sounds/actions for the letters “Dd, Gg, and Ii.” We also added the high frequency words, “so, look, and want. ”

In math, we have done lots of practice with comparing numbers and one more and one less. We played several new games and even practiced on ziplock baggies with the numbers at the top.

We’ve worked a lot this week on above the line behavior on the playground. We have a lot of kids together at recess. We’ve talked a LOT about what to do and what not to do so we can all have fun and be safe together at recess. I have also had to add “no kissing” into our discussions. We talked about that being something that stays at home with parents.

On Monday, we will start Bluejay Families. We will meet once a month in multi-age groups to do activities based on the seven habits. Monday will be an introduction and a chance for the kids to go to their new groups for a short time. A 5th grade buddy will come pick up the kindergarteners and escort them to and from their new group each time. The first time is always a little “scary” just because they don’t know what it is and after that, they can’t wait for their buddy to come and get them!

I sent a new book order home today. It is due Oct. 8th by noon. I hope that will give them enough time to get Halloween books back if you choose to order. They still haven’t sent the last order. They are behind due to staffing (like everyone else it seems!). I’m hoping the Sept. order will be here soon. I will do the orders early each month, so that we’ll get them back for holidays/gifts.

I will be sending home a yellow piece of paper with conference info. folded inside. These will come home next week. Please hang on to it for zoom conferences. If you’re coming in person, I will keep it. I will attach the conference schedule and zoom links to the email with this blog post.

In their folders is the Oct. READO. Those can be returned early Nov. for a Pizza Hut book it coupon and a sticker on their chart if completed. The Kindness chart has suggestions for home. We are talking about kindness as a school in the month of October. Those do not need to be returned.

I look forward to talking with you all soon at conferences. Have a good weekend!