Newsletter Updates for the Week of September 29th

DATES TO REMEMBER:

-Wednesday, Oct. 1st—Student Count Day

-Friday, Oct. 10th—Progress Reports Home

BOOK-IT CALENDAR:   

Attached to the printed newsletter, you will find an October Book-It Calendar along with an informational letter.  Just keep track of the days that you read with your child, send back your signed calendar @ the end of the month, & I will return your calendar with a Pizza Hut certificate.  Pizza & Reading—what a great combination!!

Pizza Hut is also partnering with us for Coins for Hunger—another great incentive for sending in those coins!

LOOKING AHEAD TO OCTOBER:  

Attached to the printed newsletter, you will find the October Breakfast & Lunch Menus as well as our classroom Snack and Parent Volunteer Calendar.  The Lunch Menu is also available to view/print on the School’s website under the LUNCH INFORMATION tab AND if you click on the LOW BALANCE EMAIL ALERTS tab, you can sign up to receive an email when your child’s lunch balance is getting low—a nice feature!  Also, just a reminder that the snack calendar is ALWAYS available at the bottom of my blog—just scroll down to the bottom:)

READING: 

We’ve quickly made it through introducing ALL of the letters of the alphabet and now we will slow our pace a bit, and focus on 1 letter each week. This week our reading lessons will focus on the letter Mm and we will introduce a new sightword—the.  Our focus story for this week is What About Bear? which we will use to practice building our listening and comprehension skills.  This week we will introduce two new beanie baby strategies: Questioning Owl who reminds us to stop and ask ourselves questions about the story while we are reading, and Spinner Spider who helps us remember to ‘make connections’ as we read.  This week the students will receive new materials in their book boxes that they can read during Read-to-Self time, which means they will be bringing home their books that you provided at the beginning of the year. This is our first, of many, reading milestones that we will reach this year!

WRITING:  

This week we will read through our September Journals and talk about how good writers go back and ‘edit’ their work. Students will be bringing their journals home to share with you; please take a few minutes to read through them with your child.  This week we will also be writing about a fall tree & creating a class book about living and non-living things.

MATH:   

This week we will practice identifying, building, & writing numbers 1-10, as well as work on counting.  We will also sort and compare different coins and conduct some measuring and comparing activities using our bodies.

SCIENCE/SOCIAL STUDIES:  

This week we will wrap up our Science Unit on Living and Non-Living Things. Last week we learned that living things grow & change.  This week we will learn about what living things ‘need’ in order to live and grow!

 ITEMS NEEDED—PLEASE SEND IN:  

-Gallon Milk Jugs (empty and rinsed out) for us to use for an art project next week.

 I will be sending blankets home on Friday to be washed and then returned to school for rest time.  I will try to do this at the end of each month :)

Newsletter Updates for the Week of September 22nd

DATES TO REMEMBER:

-Friday, Sept.26th—9&10 Tailgater Party @ 6:00 pm (hot dogs, chips, & pop)

-Wednesday, Oct. 1st—Student Count Day

STUDENT OF THE WEEK: 

Our student of the week is Xander Houser.  Xander’s favorite place to be is home, where he enjoys building with his legos and watching TV.  When he grows up, Xander aspires to become a teacher like his daddy.  Congratulations to Xander on being our first Student of the Week!

COINS FOR WORLD HUNGER:  

During the month of October, we are partnering with Pizza Hut and collecting coins to help feed hungry children.  If you have spare change, please send it to school with your child to drop in our classroom’s bucket.  Thanks for sending in those pennies!

READING:  

This week our reading lessons will focus on the letters Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, & Z. We will also be reviewing the sightwords — I & can and practice identifying rhyming words in songs & rhymes.  Our focus story for this week is Kindergarteners Can which we will use to practice building our listening and comprehension skills.  This week we will introduce two new beanie baby strategies: Lips the Fish who reminds us to look at the first letter of the word and get our lips ready with that sound to help us figure out the words while we are reading, and Jabber the Reteller who reminds us that good readers can build comprehension skills by recalling and retelling key elements from the story.

WRITING: 

This week we will continue to practice writing our names on paper, dry erase boards, & using the Write My Name App on our ipads. The students will also be complete a couple journal entries related to their friends and what they like to do with their friends.

MATH:  

This week we will continue to practice recognizing, writing, & building the numbers 1-9 and counting using one-to-one correspondence.  We will also practice sorting objects by different attributes & work on identifying, extending, & creating patterns.  We will also be creating a class birthday graph and practice interpreting the data together. 

SCIENCE/SOCIAL STUDIES: 

Last week we successfully released all 6 of our Monarch Butterflies and bid them a warm send off to warmer weather—”Gotta go, gotta go, gotta go to Mexico.”  This week we will begin reading and talking about Fall, and all of the changes to occur in Fall.  On Friday, we will have a special visit from Scrappy the Squirrel who will tell us what he’s up to this time of year AND we will conduct a fun experiment with acorns. This week we will also begin our Science unit on ‘living and non-living things.

Releasing Our Butterflies:

  

Newsletter Updates for the Week of September 15th

DATES TO REMEMBER:

-Friday, Sept.26th—9&10 Tailgater Party @ 6:00 pm (hot dogs, chips, & pop)

-Wednesday, Oct. 1st—Student Count Day

We are off to a good start in Kindergarten! We have a busy group, but the students are adjusting to the routines and are doing a good job of learning the classroom procedures.  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’ to see if we really will 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. 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 apps on their ipads and are enjoying starfall.com on the computer each day.  They are also doing a great 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 pictures for clues to figure out the words while we are reading.

WRITING: 

This week we will complete several journals related to our 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 their names.  One of the things we reinforce in kindergarten is that when we write, we always start our letters at the top. :)

MATH:  

This week we will work on sorting various manipulatives by different attributes (color, size, shape, etc.).  We will continue to practice recognizing, writing, & building the numbers 1-9 and counting using one-to-one correspondence. 

SCIENCE/SOCIAL STUDIES: 

This week we will continue to discuss the difference between past, present, and future events.  We are patiently waiting for our butterflies to emerge from their chrysalis’ so that we can release them to migrate.  I’m anticipating that it will be sometime this week.  We will also begin our study of apples this week; we will be reading several books related to apples and incorporate them into our math and science lessons.

Thanks to everyone who brought in supplies for our classroom off ‘The Giving Tree’ and for all the great snacks that have come in :)

Newsletter Updates for the Week of September 8th

DATES TO REMEMBER:

-Tuesday, September 9th—Picture Day

-Monday, September 15th—Delayed Start (10:00)

We had a busy first week getting to know each other and beginning to establish our classroom routines.  It will take 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.  We   finally found our Gingerbread Man back in our 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.  Here are a few photos from our day:

PICTURES:

Our picture day is tomorrow—Tuesday, September 9th.  ALL students WILL be photographed for the yearbook 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 & Thursday—GYM

Friday—Music

BOOK BOXES: 

We will begin reading from our own book boxes by the end of this week.  We will learn 3 ways to read a book—reading by looking at the pictures, retelling a familiar story from memory, & reading the words.  Students will begin seeing themselves at ‘readers.’

READING:  

The next three weeks we will be focusing on learning our letters by studying the letters in our names.  We will introduce 1-2 letters each day and do several activities with the focus letter(s).  Once we’ve made it through the entire alphabet, we will then start an in-depth study of each letter, spending a week on each letter.  This week our reading lessons will focus on the letters A, B, C, D, E, F, G & H.  We will also introduce our first sightword—I.  We will spend time learning the parts of a book and practice tracking print reading from left to right.

WRITING: 

This week we will complete a couple of journals about ourselves—a self-portrait, our favorite snack, and what we like to do at school.  Students will be practicing writing their names on paper and their ipads, handwriting the letters A-H, & writing simple sentences using the sightword I.

MATH:  

We will be learning how to identify and write the numbers 0-9 and practice counting items by sight, sound, and touch.  We will also work on building numbers using different manipulatives.  When practicing at home, please refer to the Number Rhymes handout that you received in your ‘First Day of School’ folder.

SCIENCE/SOCIAL STUDIES: 

This week we will continue to read many books about starting school and what it means to be a ‘good friend.’  We will also continue to learn about the lifecycle of a butterfly, as all of our caterpillars have spun their chrysalis’s.  We will honor Patriot’s Day, as we learn about the American Flag and learn the Pledge of Allegiance.

Gingerbread Day

Tomorrow is Gingerbread Day!  Please send your child to school in their yellow Kindergarten shirt from Round Up or any yellow shirt will be great!!

Here is an email from the Cadillac Evening News if you'd like to participate:

Happy 1st week of school to you!

I've attached a flyer to let all schools know that we are going to publish a piece in the Cadillac News with pictures of kids from the 1st day of school!

It is our first year doing this and I'm hoping to get a good response.  The cost is $5 and that goes toward the cost of sending the free newspapers to every school each day. 

Fox Motors is the sponsor and there is a $50 gift card to a local restaurant up for grabs to one winner drawn at random! 

If you could pass this on to parents or post it somewhere in the school, I would greatly appreciate it! 

Thank you in advance for your help with this! 

---

Lindsay Elsholz

Audience Development &

Brand Management Leader
Cadillac News Trusted. Local. Connected.(231)779-4123
lindsay@cadillacnews.com 

Welcome to Kindergarten

Hi, my name is Mrs. Brinks and I am so excited to be your kindergarten teacher this year!  I hope you have been enjoying your summer!  My family and I have enjoyed biking and rollerblading this summer and we are hoping for a couple more warm days to do a little more boating.

These last few weeks, I have found myself spending more and more time at school getting our classroom ready.   I am looking forward to meeting you and your parents and introducing you to our classroom.  We have an open house planned for Wednesday, August 27th from 4:00-6:00.  Also, our first day of school will be on Tuesday, September 2^nd beginning at 10:00 for Kindergarten Orientation.  You are welcome to bring in your school supplies during the open house or on our first day of school.  

Here are a few things you might consider bringing to school to share with our class:

·         2 glue sticks

·         2 boxes of 24 crayons

·         1 box of Kleenex

·         1 container of wet wipes (or similar)

Here are a few personal items you will also need:

·         3 two-pocket folders (labeled with your name)

·         1 back-pack (no wheels please – they don’t fit in the lockers)

·         1 towel or small blanket for rest time (labeled with your name)

·         5-8 of your favorite picture books from your home collection.  We will begin the year with book boxes, starting with 5-8 of your own books.  Please use the enclosed labels to label your books.  You will use these during read-to-self time for the first few weeks of school and then you will get to take them back home. J

We have so much to learn and discover together in Kindergarten.  It is going to be a fun year of learning, growing, and making friends.  I hope you are as excited as I am!

Enjoy the rest of your summer! 

I will see you soon!

~Mrs. Brinks

Dear Kindergarten Parents,

As you do your school shopping, I’d like to ask that you please select clothing and shoes that maximizes your child’s ability to be independent with dressing for recess and using the bathroom at school.  Your child will need tennis shoes for gym; I am requesting that these shoes be Velcro or Z-straps (No tie laces please!).  With having 20 students in our classroom, I want to be able to nurture, teach, and meet all of their needs; however, the more independent they can be with ‘the little things,’ the more quality time we will be able to spend engaged in academic activities. J Also, you might want to consider keeping a change of clothes your child’s backpack.  I have some extra clothing on hand, but students always feel better when they have their ‘own’ clothes to change into.   Kindergarten is a busy place, children often wait until the last minute to use the bathroom, which can lead to accidents; plus, you never know when a spill will take place in the lunchroom.

If you have any questions, please feel free to e-mail me @ sbrinks@mcbain.org.  I will also be posting updates on our classroom blog.

I am looking forward to partnering with you this year!

Thanks so much,

Sherry Brinks