Newsletter Updates for the Week December 12th

DATES TO REMEMBER:
-Tuesday, Dec. 20th—Christmas Party
-Wednesday, Dec. 21st—Pajama Day & Sing-a-long with Mr. Smith

BOX TOPS:
Our class has done such a great job of bringing in box tops this year! I just found out that our class is currently in 2nd place for the number of box tops brought in. The top class earns a pizza party + Mr. Smith with be doing individual drawings for prizes next week. We’d really like to take 1st place, so please clean out your cupboards and send in those box tops in the next couple of days! Go Kindergarten!!!!

SCIENCE/SOCIAL STUDIES:
This week we will continue our Science Unit on The Five Senses. We will be using our sense of touch to identify objects and textures. We will use our sense of hearing to distinguish sounds in our environment. On Friday, we will taste test several different foods and describe them. We will also be reading several books related to Christmas.

WRITING:
This week we will use the book and movie How the Grinch Stole Christmas to discuss Word Choice, Voice, and Ideas. We will complete several journal entries related to Christmas and we will complete a Type 3 Writing about 3 things we can smell at Christmas time.

READING:
This week we will be working on the letter Cc as well as the sightwords red & blue. We will be reading books about Christmas and Cookies to correlate with our letter. We will also be reading Cat’s Colors as we work on predicting, comprehension, and vocabulary. We will practice reading and writing color words during our literacy stations activities. At guided reading groups, we will be playing sightword Bingo and read through our 5 Senses of Christmas booklets. This week will be very exciting in that we will start reading from our book boxes. Students will have an opportunity to read independently each day and practice using their Accuracy and Comprehension strategies, while building their stamina for reading.

MATH:
This week we will continue to practice telling time to the hour and continue our work with identifying and counting pennies.

Christmas Party Information

CHRISTMAS GIFT EXCHANGE:
I know that many of you are beginning your Christmas shopping, For our class Christmas party we are planning to have a gift exchange. We are asking that girls bring a gift for a girl and boys bring a gift for a boy. Please select a gift between $3.00-$3.50 and send it in wrapped and labeled with who it is FROM. Our Christmas party will be in the afternoon on Tuesday, December 20th.

CHRISTMAS PARTY SIGN-UP
Tuesday, December 20th

Special thanks to those who volunteered to provide supplies and goodies, as well as those who are planning to come in and help out.

Here’s a copy of the sign-up sheet:

24 Plates—Taylor
24 Napkins—Claydon
24 Cups—Taylor
2 Containers of Raspberry Sherbet—Ryan
2—2 Liter Bottles of 7-Up—Camden
24 Candy Canes—Maisie
Finger Jello—Clara
Snack Mix—Baylie
Cookies—Aiden
Cheese & Crackers—Kaden


Parent Volunteers:
Gail Cook, Dianna Powell, Jessica Ouwinga, Cassie Shepardson, & Roxanne Eisenga

Newsletter Updates for the Week of December 5th

DATES TO REMEMBER:
-Friday, Dec. 9th—Next visit to the Library
-Friday, Dec. 9th—STAND Strength Assembly
-Monday, Dec. 12th—Delayed Start
-Tuesday, Dec. 20th—Christmas Party
-Wednesday, Dec. 21st—Pajama Day & Sing-a-long with Mr. Smith

STUDENT OF THE WEEK:
Our student of the week is Kaden Abrahamson. Kaden enjoys playing a variety of sports: basketball, football, baseball, and soccer and he can usually be seen wearing a jersey from one of his favorite teams. Kaden’s favorite place to go is the beach and he aspires to be a football player when he grows up.
Congratulations to Kaden on being student of the week!


RETURN REMINDERS:
Please remember to return these items:
*Completed November Book-it Calendars
*Library Books
*Completed Yellow Student Release Forms

STAND STRENGTH TEAM ASSEMBLY:
The STAND Strength Team will be visiting our school this Friday, December 9th. They will bring an important message to our students regarding self-esteem, teamwork, and bullying. The assembly begins at 9:00 in the Middle School Gym if you'd like to join us.

WRITING:
This week we will use our senses to identify
details that we can include in our writing. We will also work on sequencing the story Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? And use Eric Carle’s brilliant idea to create our own class book titled: Children, Children, What Do You See? On Thursday, we will be completing a Type 3 Writing: What do you see at Christmas time? I’m really encouraging students to try to sound out words while writing and to ‘write the sounds they hear.’

MATH:
This week we will review ordinal numbers (1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, etc.) We will also begin working on Concepts of Time; we will learn about the parts of a clock, talk about different lengths of time (hour, day, week, month, year) and practice telling time to the hour. This can be quite an abstract concept for Kindergarteners, but we will be working on this throughout the year.

SCIENCE/SOCIAL STUDIES:
This week we will continue our Social Studies Unit on Families and begin our Science Unit on The Five Senses. We will be using our sense of smell to identify different scents as well as our sense of sight to search out details in our environments.


READING:
This week we will be working on the letter Ff as well as the sightwords like & is. We will be reading Follow the Leader as we work on predicting, comprehension, and vocabulary. We will be introducing 2 new Beanie Baby Accuracy Strategies this week: Eagle Eyes & Lips the Fish. When we come to a word that we don’t know, we can use our Eagle Eyes to check the pictures for clues. Since pictures match the words, looking at the pictures can help us figure out a word we don’t know. We can also look at the first letter of the word and get our lips ready to say the sound using Lips the Fish. We are trying to get a few strategies in our ‘tool kit’ before we begin reading from our Book Boxes next week. We will have another full week of literacy stations; students will be busy sequencing and retelling stories, working on the letter F, rhyming, and sightwords, as well as handwriting Christmas lists. During strategy groups, students will practice using Eagle Eye & Lips the Fish while reading leveled readers, and work on blending individual sounds into words.

Newsletter Updates for the Week of November 28th

DATES TO REMEMBER:
-Friday, Dec. 9th—Next visit to the Library
-Monday, Dec. 12th—Delayed Start
-Tuesday, Dec. 20th—Christmas Party

THANKSGIVING/STONE SOUP:
Thanks for sending in food and supplies last week to make our Stone Soup Feast a success! Special thanks to all of the parent and grandparent volunteers who also came in to lend a hand! I hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving Break with your families!

BOOK IT:
Please remember to return you child’s November Book-It Calendar so that I can award pizza certificates. I’m attaching a December calendar if you’d like to participate in Book-It for December.

STUDENT RELEASE FORM:
Attached you will find a yellow student release form. Please read it over carefully, complete it, and return it to school as soon as possible.

READING:
This week we will be working on the letter Tt as well as the sightwords am & like. We will be reading a few books about Trains to correlate with the letter T and we will also be reading Dinner at the Panda Palace as we work on predicting, comprehension, and vocabulary. We will be introducing a new Beanie Baby Comprehension Strategy this week: Questioning Owl. Questioning Owl reminds us to stop and ask questions while we read to help us understand what we are reading. We also have a full week of literacy stations; students will be busy sequencing and retelling stories, working on recognizing color words, rhyming, and sightwords, as well as handwriting grocery lists. During strategy groups, students will be working on sightwords, reading leveled readers, and segmenting words into individual sounds.

WRITING:
This week we will use the text The Relatives Came for a couple of mini-lessons on Word Choice and Organization. We will complete a couple of journal entries related to families: relatives we like to visit and how we help our families. On Thursday, we will complete a Type 3 Writing as we draw and write about the people who live in our house. On Friday, we will introduce Voice as we read Sometimes I Feel Like a Mouse and students will complete a ‘free choice’ journal entry expressing Voice through their writing and drawings.

SCIENCE/SOCIAL STUDIES:
This week we will begin our Social Studies Unit on Families. We will be reading several books about Families and practice using our Comprehension Strategies: Spinner Spider, Picturing Penguin, & Questioning Owl. Our focus text will be My Dog is as Smelly as Dirty Socks: And Other Funny Family Portraits by Hanoch Piven.

MATH:
This week we will begin learning about money as we introduce the penny and practice identifying and counting pennies. We will also continue to work on identifying and writing the numbers 1-20 and counting orally 1-50. The students will be finishing up their ‘Countdown to Christmas’ chain so that they can bring it home on Wednesday.

Newsletter Updates for the Week of November 21

DATES TO REMEMBER:
-November 24th & 25th—Thanksgiving Break
-Monday, Dec. 12th—Delayed Start

STUDENT OF THE WEEK: Our student of the week is Camden Powell. Camden enjoys playing football and basketball and his favorite color is blue. Camden also enjoys hunting with his dad and he would like to be a Forest Ranger when he grows up. Congratulations to Camden on being student of the week!

THANKSGIVING/STONE SOUP: This week will be a busy week for us in Kindergarten. Here’s what we have planned for each day:
Tuesday, November 22nd: Cutting Up Vegetables
Parent Volunteers: J. Bell & Nana Alice
Wednesday, November 23rd: The Feast
Supplies Needed:
-24 Paper Plates—Maisie
-24 Bowls—Kaden
-24 Spoons—Baylie
-24 Napkins—Claydon
-24 Cups—Taylor
-2 2 Liters of 7-up—Ryan
Parent Volunteer: G. Cook
Thank you for donating supplies to make our Thanksgiving Celebration a success!!!

WINTER CLOTHING: Looks like we can’t hold Old Man Winter off any longer. With Winter upon us, please be sure to label all of your child’s items with their name, as we have several duplicates in the class and it becomes very difficult to sort out who’s is who’s. Students will still be going outside for recess 3 times each day, unless the office deems it too cold. I always dry their mittens on the heater between recesses so that they have dry mittens, but this can also lead to confusion when determining which mittens belong to whom. Also, please consider sending your child with slip-on or Velcro shoes for the winter as laces make the transition before and after recess more time consuming for the students. Mrs. Kelley asked me to remind parents to please be sure to send tennis shoes on gym days and also that Speed Stack orders are due by Wednesday, Nov. 30th.

READING: Due to our short week, this week we will review the letters B, M, & S and introduce the letter T as we will be reading several books about Turkeys. We will be working on the sightwords: see & am. At strategy groups, students will practice identifying beginning sounds and reading their Thanksgiving Colors booklets so that they can bring them home over the long weekend to read to their families.

WRITING: This week we will be writing about Thanksgiving. We will be reading the book Twas the Night Before Thanksgiving and writing about where a good place for a turkey to hide might be. We will also be composing a class letter to Farmer MacNugget regarding his missing turkeys. On Wednesday, we will be completing a Type 3 writing about what we’d like to eat for Thanksgiving.

SCIENCE/SOCIAL STUDIES: This week we will learn the difference between wants and needs and make a list of our ‘needs’ for making Stone Soup. The students will determine what a ‘fair trade’ is and practice making ‘fair trades’ with the other kindergarten classes in order to acquire all of the needed ingredients for our Stone Soup. We will work together as a ‘classroom community’ to prepare our Stone Soup and in the spirit of the very first Thanksgiving, on Thursday, the students will dress up like Pilgrim children and feast together on Stone Soup and corn bread.

MATH: This week we will be acting out some story problems involving ‘adding’ and ‘taking away’ objects. We will also practice sequencing the days of the week and on Wednesday, we will graph our favorite food from our feast.

Have a Wonderful Thanksgiving Break!!!

Newsletter Updates for the Week of November 14

DATES TO REMEMBER:
-Tuesday, Nov 15th—No School—Deer Day
-November 24th & 25th—Thanksgiving Break

THANKSGIVING/STONE SOUP: Next week will be a busy week for us in Kindergarten. One of the concepts that we need to teach in Kindergarten is the idea of a ‘fair trade’ in a market economy. To address this standard, we will be making stone soup. All of the Kindergarten classes will bring in 1 or 2 of the ingredients needed for the soup. Then each class will have to ‘trade’ some of their surplus ingredients with the other classes, in order to obtain all of the ingredients needed to make stone soup. Here’s what we have planned for each day
Monday, November 21st: Thanksgiving Activities
We will rotate through all of the Kindergarten classrooms to do several Thanksgiving-related activities. This is the day that students will be trading our surplus of celery & cabbage, for other ingredients that we will need.
Supplies Needed:
-1 Bag of Red Apples—Taylor
-1 Bag of Red Apples—Ali
-1 Bag of colored mini marshmallows—Clara
-1 Pkg of 100 small paper plates—Ryan
-1 Bunch of Celery—Mattalyn, Lauran, Tyler,
Blayn, Logan, Xavier, Brenden, Kasey,
Aiden, Baylie, Claydon
-1 Head of Cabbage—Kaden, Emerson,
Mariah, Camden, Abby, & Maisie
Parent Volunteers: D. Pluger, R. Eisenga, & J. Ouwinga
Tuesday, November 22nd: Cutting Up Vegetables
Parent Volunteer: J. Bell
Wednesday, November 23rd: The Feast
Supplies Needed:
-24 Paper Plates—Maisie
-24 Bowls—Kaden
-24 Spoons—Baylie
-24 Napkins—Claydon
-24 Cups—Taylor
-2 2 Liters of 7-up—Ryan
Parent Volunteer: G. Cook
Thank you for donating supplies to make our Thanksgiving Celebration a success!!!

CONFERENCES: Thank you for taking the time to come in and meet for parent teacher conferences. I firmly believe that parents and teachers working together is what brings about success in students! Please continue to reinforce letter names and sounds, sightwords, and counting while working with your child at home.

READING: We will finish up with the letter Ss this week and work on the sightwords can, at, & see. We will be reading Growing Vegetable Soup as we work on vocabulary, comprehension, and predicting. We will also be reading several books about vegetables as we practice using our first 2 Comprehension Strategies for Reading: 1) Spinner Spider—reminds us to make connections as we are reading & 2) Picturing Penguin—reminds us to make a picture in our mind as we are reading.

WRITING: This week we will be drawing and writing about turkeys. We will also write in our journals about what we are thankful for and what we’ve learned about the Pilgrims.

SCIENCE/SOCIAL STUDIES: This week we will continue to reinforce safety as we read Officer Buckle and Gloria; afterwards, students will choose a safety tip to illustrate and write about in their journals. We will also revisit Eddie Eagle and reinforce what to do if we ever find a gun: Stop! Don’t Touch! Leave the Area! Tell an Adult! We will also be reading several stories about Pilgrims and The First Thanksgiving; we will track the Pilgrims Voyage on the Mayflower as they traveled across the sea.

MATH: This week we will continue to work on number recognition 0-10 and counting 1-30. We will be playing Number Bingo and practice ordering numbers 1-30 on the calendar.

Newsletter Updates for the Week of November 7th

DATES TO REMEMBER:
-Thursday, Nov 10th—No School—Conferences
-Monday, Nov 14th—Delayed Start
-Tuesday, Nov 15th—No School—Deer Day
-November 24th & 25th—Thanksgiving Break

STUDENT OF THE WEEK: Our student of the week is Taylor Agar. Taylor loves to color and draw and she enjoys watching movies and playing with her Barbies. Her favorite place to eat is Duane’s Restaurant and when she grows up she wants to get married and be a mom. Congratulations to Taylor on being Student of the Week!!

REPORT CARDS & CONFERENCES:
I’m planning to send report cards home on Tuesday of this week so that you will have time to look them over before our conference. We will have an opportunity to discuss your child’s strengths and challenges and talk about things we can do both at home and at school to strengthen their skills. I will also have sign up sheets for our Thanksgiving Celebration, Christmas Party, and Valentine’s Party. In addition, you’ll have an opportunity to read a few of our class books that we’ve authored and illustrated and see some pictures of our year so far. I’m looking forward to meeting with you on Thursday!

READING: We will finish up with the letter Bb this week and begin our new letter: Ss. Our sightwords for the next couple of weeks are: can, at, am, & see. Later this week, we will be reading Growing Vegetable Soup as we work on vocabulary, comprehension, and predicting. We will also be reading several books about Scarecrows to correspond with the letter S. Over the next couple of weeks we will be introducing the CAFÉ menu board for Reading and learn about our first 2 Comprehension Strategies for Reading: 1) Spinner Spider—reminds us to make connections as we are reading & 2) Picturing Penguin—reminds us to make a picture in our mind as we are reading. We will be practicing both of these strategies so that students are confident with using them independently when we start book boxes in a couple of weeks.

WRITING: This week we will introduce ‘Writing Folders’ as students will be using them to write about their families. We will reinforce that names always begin with an uppercase letter. We will also introduce the FCA that reminds us that our pictures and words should always match. In their journals, students will write about bats and how to be a good friend to others. We will also practice using Picturing Penguin while reading the book My Many Colored Days and then write about what color our day is on Friday.

SCIENCE/SOCIAL STUDIES: This week we will read a few more books about bats and complete our KWL chart. We will also be comparing bats and birds to see how they are alike and how they are different. With the opening of deer season right around the corner, we will be talking about Gun Safety this week. We will meet Eddie Eagle who teaches children what to do if they ever find a gun lying around: Stop, Don’t Touch, Leave the Area, Tell An Adult! We will also discuss what it means to ‘vote’ and practice exercising our democratic ‘right to vote’ by voting for a special snack and then graphing the results.

MATH: This week we will sort buttons a variety of ways and practice ordering the numbers 1-10. We will also be working on identifying ordinal positions (first, second, third . . . ). Please continue to practice counting at home, those teens are tricky and it’s easy to skip over some of the numbers, also transitioning from 29-30, 39-40, etc. is difficult for many kindergartners.

Newsletter Updates for the Week of October 24th

DATES TO REMEMBER:
-Monday, Oct 31st—Halloween Party
-Tuesday, Nov 1st—No School—Professional Dev.
-Thursday, Nov 10th—No School—Conferences
-Monday, Nov 14th—Delayed Start
-Tuesday, Nov 15th—No School—Deer Day

STUDENT OF THE WEEK:
Our student of the week is Claydon Ingleright. Claydon enjoys riding his bike, skateboarding, playing baseball, and jumping on his trampoline. Claydon’s favorite place to go on vacation is Kalahari and he would like to be a firefighter when he grows up. Congratulations to Claydon on being Student of the Week!!

READING:
We have briefly introduced ALL of the letters of the alphabet, and now we will begin a more in-depth approach as we focus on a letter each week. This week we will be focusing on the Letter M and the sightword the. Our focus book for comprehension and vocabulary this week is Mouse Mess. We will also be reading several books about Monsters to help us learn about the letter M and get into the Halloween spirit! This week I will be launching Literacy Stations with the students. Students will be divided up into small groups of 3’s and they will travel throughout the classroom working at various stations with their team. I will be supporting and guiding the students as they work cooperatively within their teams. This is a hands-on approach to literacy and teaches the students independence and accountability. In a few weeks, after the students become familiar with the routine and expectations, then I will be pulling small groups of students to work on specific skills and strategies. We are beginning to ‘set the stage’ for incorporating the CAFÉ Reading Strategies, Read-to-Self, and Partner Reading, which we will gradually be introducing in the coming months.

ASSESSMENTS:
The next few weeks I will be assessing the students’ learning in preparation for Report Cards and Parent Teacher Conferences. In Kindergarten, the majority of our assessments are completed one-on-one. Please remind your child to always to their best at school. I look forward to sharing with you at conferences!

WRITING:
This week we will be reading The Little Old Lady Who Wasn’t Afraid of Anything. We will be reenacting the story together as we talk about Organization. We will also be writing and illustrating 2 more class books, There’s An ____ Under My Bed & There’s A ____ In My Closet, which you will be able to check out at conferences. We will also complete an interactive writing together (Drawing a Monster) as the students work on identifying rhymes and practice adding details. We will finish up our October Journals this week, which I will save to share with you at conferences.

SCIENCE/SOCIAL STUDIES:
This week we will read several stories related to Halloween and Pumpkins. On Thursday, we will be carving a jack-o-lantern together and counting the seeds. We will begin learning about ‘our democratic right to vote’ and what that means as we ‘vote’ on what kind of mouth to give our jack-o-lantern.

MATH:
This week we will work on ordinal numbers (first, second, third . . . ) and continue to practice writing numbers, counting objects, and matching the total to the corresponding number. Students will also be using a balance to weigh pumpkins and gourds and we will use ‘inchworms’ to measure different lengths of monster feet.

MOBILE DENTIST:
Just a reminder that the Mobile Dentist will be at our school on November 7th & 8th. Please return your forms ASAP if you are interested in having your child seen by the Mobile Dentist.

HALLOWEEN PARTY:
Snack Sign-Up
1 dozen plain doughnuts- Xavier Ramon
1 dozen plain doughnuts- Xavier Ramon
1 dozen plain doughnuts- Xavier Ramon
1 can of white frosting- Camden Powell
1 can of white frosting- Camden Powell
1 bottle of Halloween sprinkles- Maisie Eling
1 bottle of Halloween sprinkles- Baylie Eisenga
1 bag of candy corn- Ali Wright
1 bag of candy corn- Kaden Abrahamson
1 large bottle of apple juice - Aiden Shepardson
1 large bottle of apple juice - Blayn Hughston
1 large bag of cheese popcorn- Ali Wright
1 large bag of cheese popcorn- Tyler Hubbard
2 dozen plastic knives- Mattalyn Canfield
Halloween plates (24)- Kasey Shank
Halloween cups (24)- Taylor Agar

Parent Volunteers for the morning of October 31st
Amanda Ramon, Karen Abrahamson, Cassie Shepardson,
Jessica Ouwinga, Kristen Hughston, Roxanne Eisenga, Kristin Shank

Please send your child’s costume to school in a bag; we will be dressing at school and then changing back into our regular clothes for the afternoon. We ask that children NOT bring any items to school that would appear to be a weapon such as knives, guns, or swords.
Parent volunteers should plan to arrive right away in the morning around 8:00. I will need parents to help set up activities in the lunchroom as well as help students change into their costumes.
We will start our Kindergarten parade around 8:45 and our activities in the lunchroom will be from 9:00-10:30.

Newletter Updates - Week of October 10th

DATES TO REMEMBER:
-Friday, Oct 14th—Fire Dept Presentation
-Friday, Oct 14th—Book Orders Due
-Monday, Oct 31st—Halloween Party
-Tuesday, Nov 1st—No School-Professional Dev.

STUDENT OF THE WEEK:
Our student of the week is Aiden Shepardson. Aiden enjoys playing football and baseball, watching movies, and playing video games. He would like to be a football player for the Detroit Lions when he grows up. Congratulations to Aiden on being Student of the Week!

ELEMENTARY TITLE 1 NIGHT:
Thanks to all who were able to come out for our Title 1 Night—it was great to see so many families engaged in the activities!

FIRE SAFETY PRESENTATION:
This Friday, October 14th, we will have volunteer firefighters from the McBain Community Fire Dept. coming in to talk with the Kindergarten classes about fire safety. Our classroom will be going outside at 9:30 for a tour of the fire truck and then be going to the elementary lunchroom for a short presentation. You are welcome to join us!!

NEEDED:
Please send in:
**a medium-large sized empty cereal box for your child to use as a book box
for their ‘good fit’ books AND
**a gallon milk jug (empty & rinsed) for us to use for an upcoming art
project. We’ll be needing these items in a couple of weeks, but you can
start sending them in any time.
Thanks so much!

CD PLAYERS/HEADPHONES:
I’m looking for a couple more walk-man’s/personal CD players for the students to use in the listening center, as well as extra headphones. I’ve exhausted my supply from my closets at home, and with all of the new technology out there, I was thinking that some of you might have these items in a garage sale pile that you’d be willing to donate?? If you do, please send them in; we could put them to good use in the classroom!

READING:
This week we will be reading the book Big and Little as we practice identifying and naming opposites. Our focus letters this week are L, U, Q, & F.

WRITING:
This week we will complete several journal pages; we will be drawing a rainbow and practice using our offices to write color words; we will also draw and write about a fire truck, and practice drawing pictures using shapes. We have been working on including at least 3 details in our drawings and trying to write the ‘first sounds’ we hear in words.

SCIENCE/SOCIAL STUDIES:
October is Fire Prevention Month. We will be learning about fire safety and prevention the next couple of weeks. This week we will wrap up our Science Unit on Living and Non-living Things and on Tuesday we will take our unit assessment.

MATH:
This week we will work on identifying, ordering, and writing numbers 1-6. We will also continue to work on patterning, sorting, and graphing using pattern blocks. I’m getting ready to begin assessing the students for report cards. For this first quarter, the goal is for students to be able to count 1-25 orally, count 10 objects, recognize the four basic shapes, sort objects by color, and create an AB pattern.

HALLOWEEN PARTY:
Our Halloween Party is scheduled for Monday, October 31st. We will spend the morning doing activities in the elementary lunchroom with all of the Kindergarten classes. I’ve included the sign-up list for volunteers and supplies.

Snack Sign-Up
1 dozen plain doughnuts Xavier Ramon
1 dozen plain doughnuts Xavier Ramon
1 dozen plain doughnuts Xavier Ramon
1 can of white frosting Camden Powell
1 can of white frosting Camden Powell
1 bottle of Halloween sprinkles Maisie Eling
1 bottle of Halloween sprinkles Baylie Eisenga
1 bag of candy corn Ali Wright
1 bag of candy corn Kaden Abrahamson
1 large bottle of apple juice Aiden Shepardson
1 large bottle of apple juice Blayn Hughston
1 large bag of cheese popcorn Ali Wright
1 large bag of cheese popcorn Tyler Hubbard
2 dozen plastic knives Mattalyn Canfield
Halloween plates (24) Kasey Shank
Halloween cups (24) Taylor Agar

Parent Volunteers for the morning of October 31st
Amanda Ramon, Karen Abrahamson, Cassie Shepardson, Jessica Ouwinga, Kristen Hughston, Roxanne Eisenga, Kristin Shank

*Please send your child’s costume to school in a bag; we will be dressing at school and then changing back into our regular clothes for the afternoon.
*Parent volunteers should plan to arrive right away in the morning around 8:00. I will need parents to help set up activities in the lunchroom as well as help students get into their costumes.
*We will start our Kindergarten parade around 8:45 and our activities in the lunchroom will be from 9:00-10:30.

Newsletter Updates - Week of October 3rd

DATES TO REMEMBER:
-Thursday, Oct. 6th—Elementary Title 1 Night
-Friday, Oct. 7th—Progress Reports Home
-Monday, Oct 10th—Delayed Start

STUDENT OF THE WEEK:
Our student of the week is Ali Wright. Ali enjoys going to the beach and spending time with her family. Her favorite color is purple and when she grows up, she’d like to be a mom. Congratulations to Ali on being Student of the Week!
**Please remember to send in your child’s student of the week poster ASAP or pick up another copy Thursday evening.

ELEMENTARY TITLE 1 NIGHT:
This year we are combining all of our grade level Title 1 Nights into one Elementary-wide Title 1 Night. This event is scheduled for this Thursday, October 6th. We are asking families to RSVP, so that we can plan for food—Pizza! I encourage you to attend! In addition to dinner being served, each teacher will have specific learning activities set up in their classrooms, as well as handouts and materials for you to take with you to practice important skills at home. There will also be opportunities to enter into a drawing for some great prizes! Please get your RSVPs in ASAP. Hope to see you there!!

PROGRESS REPORTS/DIBELS:
Progress reports will be sent home this Friday with students. We are really beginning to fall into a nice routine here at school and gel together as a class. The progress report will give you an idea of how your child is doing socially and with following the rules and routines at school. You will also receive your child’s DIBELS results for ‘first sound fluency’ and ‘letter naming.’ A couple of things to keep in mind with DIBELS: their score indicates how many correct responses they had in a minute, also it takes time and practice for Kindergartners to learn what the assessor is asking them to do. However, it does give us a starting point as we begin targeting skills and needs. If you have any questions regarding your child’s progress at school, please don’t hesitate to give me a call or stop in.

READING:
This week we will be reading Mice Squeak, We Speak as we work on rhyming, identifying parts of a book, and comprehension skills. Our focus letters this week are I, K, O, & Z. This week we will also begin talking about opposites.

WRITING:
Today we read through our September Journals and talked about how good writers go back and ‘edit’ their work. Students are bringing their journals home today to share with you. Please take some time and look through them with your child. Some things we’ve worked on this month are: drawing a big picture and using at least 3 colors. This week we will begin our October Journals and use the book The Wind Blew to talk about ideas, organization, word choice, and voice.

SCIENCE/SOCIAL STUDIES:
This week we will be focusing on Fall and the changes that are happening outside. On Friday, we will conduct a sink and float experiment with acorns and graph our results. We will also have a visit from Scrappy the Squirrel (puppet) who will have plenty to share about Fall. We will continue our Unit on Living and Nonliving Things. Last week we learned that all living things grow, change, and move on their own. This week we will learn about what living things ‘need’ to live and grow.

MATH:
This week we will be working on matching and counting objects 1-10, patterning, and sorting. We will also continue to practice naming and identifying shapes and writing our numbers.

Newsletter Updates

DATES TO REMEMBER:
-Thursday, Oct. 6th—Elementary Title 1 Night
-Monday, Oct 10th—Delayed Start

STUDENT OF THE WEEK:
Our student of the week is Xavier Ramon. Xavier enjoys riding his bike, writing, drawing, watching movies, and playing his D.S. Xavier’s favorite place is his bedroom and when he grows up he’d like to drive a race car!Congratulations to Xavier, on being our first Student of the Week!
**Please remember to send in your child’s student of the week poster; I have extra copies!!

ELEMENTARY TITLE 1 NIGHT:
This year we are combining all of our grade level Title 1 Nights into one Elementary-wide Title 1 Night. This event is scheduled for Thursday, October 6th. Last Friday, invitations were sent home (1 invitation per family, sent home with the oldest elementary child). We are asking families to RSVP, so that we can plan for food—Pizza! I encourage you to attend! In addition to dinner being served, each teacher will have specific learning activities set up in their classrooms, as well as handouts and materials for you to take with you to practice important skills at home. There will also be opportunities to enter into a drawing for some great prizes! Please get your RSVPs in ASAP. Hope to see you there!!

READING:
This week we will be reading From Head to Toe as we work on comprehension skills, rhyming, comparing and contrasting. Our focus letters this week are E, P, V, & C. We will also spend one day (Thursday) reviewing the letters that we’ve already introduced, and we will be introducing the listening center this week.

WRITING:
This week we will learn about the importance of ‘details’ in our writing/drawing as we practice writing & drawing a detailed picture of Mrs. Brinks. In our journals, we will be writing about our friends at school, things we like to do at home, as well as things we can do now that we are kindergartners. We will also complete a Type 3 about what happens to the trees in the Fall. The students are getting anxious to bring their September journals home to share with you next week!

MATH:
This week we will practice recognizing and writing the numbers 0-10. We will also practice matching numbers to their corresponding number of objects. We will build and interpret a Teddy Bear Graph and work on identifying and creating AB patterns. We will also be working on listening skills and following directions as we practice using positional words (over, under, on top, between, beside, etc.)

SCIENCE/SOCIAL STUDIES:
This week we will begin our Science Unit on living and non-living things. This week we will be learning the characteristics of living things; living things change and grow. In Social Studies, we will begin learning about relative time: past, present, & future as we reference our classroom timeline and talk about things that we’ve done in the past, things we can do now in the present, and things we are looking forward to in the future.

Newsletter Updates

We had a busy first week, getting to know each other and beginning to establish our classroom routines.  It will take us a few weeks to get the routines down.  Friday was an especially busy day, as we chased the Gingerbread Man all around the school.  We visited many places and met several important people who work at our school, including the cooks, Mrs. Kelley (gym), Mrs. Eisenga (librarian), the custodians, Mr. Smith (principal), Mrs. Hill (secretary), & Mrs. Huttenga (school success worker).  We finally found the Gingerbread Man back in our own classroom and we quickly gobbled him up  before he could run away again.  The students were very excited; I hope you had a chance to hear all about it!

PICTURES:
Our picture day is tomorrow—Tuesday, September 13th.  All students will be photographed for the year book and library cards.  If you’d like to       purchase pictures, please be sure to send in your payment and completed envelope by tomorrow morning.  Don’t forget your SMILE!

SPECIALS: 
This week we will begin our normal schedule for specials.
Tuesday—Music
Wednesday—Gym
Thursday—Gym
Every other Friday—Library

I’m working on putting together a parent volunteer calendar.  If you indicated that you were interested in volunteering in the classroom, I will be contacting you soon!  Thanks for your willingness to help out!

Upcoming Events

I was so excited to meet many of you during our Open House, and I look forward to seeing all of you on our first day of school.

Upcoming Events:

• Tuesday, September 6th - Kindergarten Orientation from 10:00-1:30 for students and parents.
• Friday, September 9th - Gingerbread Day - Please wear your Kindergarten t-shirt from Kindergarten Round-up (or green and gold), as we search for the Gingerbread Man . . .  Rambler-style!
• Monday, September 12th - Delayed Start - school begins @ 10:00.
• Thursday, October 6th - Elementary Title 1 Family Night - look for more information to come.

Welcome to Kindergarten

Welcome to Kindergarten!  I am looking forward to meeting you tonight at our Open House from 4:00-6:00.  You'll find our classroom at the end of the short elementary hallway (Mrs. Holmquist's previous room).