Newsletter Updates for the Week of September 21st

DATES TO REMEMBER:

-Friday, September 25th—Book Orders Due

We are off to a great start in Kindergarten! We have a busy group, but the students are adjusting to the routines and are doing a great job of learning the classroom procedures.  Last week we welcomed Benito to our class and the students have all been helpful and made him feel welcome.  That brings our classroom total to 23—14 boys and 9 girls:)  Last week we spent some time reinforcing the importance of following the classroom and playground rules, as well as learning how to walk in line and be a good listener @ large group. Students are aware of our colored

behavior chart and are working hard to ‘stay on green.’ Don’t be surprised, or alarmed, if your child does move their clip, as we know children often ‘test the waters’ once they feel comfortable to see if we will really hold them accountable:) I will notify you if behavior is a reoccurring issue, so that we can come up with some solutions together. Thanks so much for your support!

READING: 

This week our reading lessons will focus on the letters I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, & R.  We will also introduce the sightword  - can.  We will continue to work on recognizing, naming, & writing our letters during literacy stations. The students have learned a couple of fun learning apps on their ipads and are enjoying starfall.com on the computer each day. They are also doing a wonderful job of reading from their book boxes during ‘read to self’ time after lunch. This week we will introduce our very first beanie baby strategy: Eagle Eye who reminds us to look at the picture for clues to figure out the words while we are reading.

WRITING: 

This week we will complete a couple of journals related to our friends, families, and what we like to do at home. Students will be writing sentences with our sightwords I & can and we will continue to work on writing our names.  One of the things we reinforce in Kindergarten is that when we write, we always start our letters at the top:)

MATH: 

We will be learning how to identify and write the numbers 3, 4, 5, & 6. We will also practice counting items using one-to-one correspondence and work on building numbers using different manipulatives. We will create and interpret data on some graphs this week; we will graph of our birthdays, our ages, and our favorite color of apple after we taste them of course!

SCIENCE/SOCIAL STUDIES: 

This week we will continue to discuss the difference between past, present, and future events.  We’ve had 1 butterfly emerge and were able to release it last week to migrate to Mexico. We are patiently waiting for the others to emerge from their chrysalis’ and we have one hungry caterpillar left who should soon be going into chrysalis:)  The students have been so excited to watch this process!  This week we will also begin our study of apples; we will be reading several books related to apples and incorporate apples into our Math and Science lessons throughout the week.

 Thanks to everyone who brought in supplies for our classroom from ‘The Giving Tree!’:)