Newsletter Updates for the Week of September 28th

DATES TO REMEMBER:

-Wednesday, October 7th—Student Count Day

-Friday, October 9th—Progress Reports Home

STUDENT OF THE WEEK: 

Our student of the week is Mariana Mejia who also happens to be celebrating a birthday this week as well. Mariana enjoys coloring and riding her bike. She loves to eat fruit and her favorite movie and book are about dragons:)  Congratulations to Mariana on being Student of the Week!

COINS FOR KIDS: 

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.

 ASSESSMENTS: 

We are currently in the process of doing our beginning of the year benchmarking assessments. Last week the students were given Aimsweb for Math and this week they will be doing DIBELS for Reading.  This week and next week we will also be going to the computer lab to complete our NWEA testing in Reading and Math.  It seems like a lot for these little ones, I know, but we will ‘learn’ the process together, and the only way to measure growth is to have a starting point:) I will share all of this assessment data with you in

November @ parent teacher conferences:)

READING: 

This week our reading lessons will focus on the letters S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, & Z.  We will also be reviewing the sightwords  - I & can and practice identifying rhyming words in songs and 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 wrap up their September journals by writing about what happens to trees in the fall and will bring them home to share with you by the end of the week:) We will also work together to make a class book about living and non-living things.

SCIENCE/SOCIAL STUDIES: 

This week we will begin reading and talking about Fall, and all of the changes that 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.’

MATH: 

We will focus on identifying and writing the numbers 6-9 as we continue to work on oral counting and number identification.  We will practice describing and sorting shapes, as well as identifying & extending patterns.

ITEMS NEEDED—PLEASE SEND IN:

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

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!’:)

Good News and Bad News:)

It's been a busy week - our first full week of school!

The good news is that we had head checks today and NO cases of head lice in our class - Yay!

The bad new is that we've had some sickness already in our classroom.  A few students have been out sick the past couple of days - symptoms vary but I'm hearing reports of fever, headache, and stomachaches.  I wanted you to be aware so that you can keep an eye on your kids over the weekend and watch for these symptoms.

Reminder - Monday is delayed start, school begins @ 10:00.

Have a happy and healthy weekend!

Newsletter Updates for the Week of September 14th

DATES TO REMEMBER:
-Tuesday, September 15—Picture Day

-Monday, September 21—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.

PICTURES:

Our picture day is tomorrow—Tuesday, September 15th.  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:

Gym—Tuesday & Wednesday

Music—Tuesday—our new teacher is Mrs. Wheeler

Library—Thursday—every other week

BOOK BOXES: 

I still have a few students who need to bring in their 5-8 books from home. 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.  Our goal is that students will begin seeing themselves as ‘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 from left to right as we read and recite familiar Nursery Rhymes.

WRITING: 

This week we will complete a couple of journals about ourselves—a self-portrait and what we like to do at school. Students will be practicing writing their names, handwriting the letters A-H, & writing simple sentences using the sightword I. When practicing writing your child’s name with them at home, please be sure to begin with an uppercase letter and use lowercase for the rest of their name. Also, when forming our letters, we always stress starting our letters at the top:)

MATH: 

We will be learning how to identify and write the numbers 0, 1, & 2. We will also practice counting items using one-to-one correspondence and 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 continue to learn about the lifecycle of a butterfly.  We will also learn about the American Flag and learn the Pledge of Allegiance.

Gingerbread Day

Just a quick reminder that tomorrow is our Gingerbread Day.
Please dress your child in their gray Kindergarten shirt :)

Lunch - 1st Day of School

Lunch for the first day will be: Chicken Nuggets, Hash browns, & Broccoli

Kindergartners will be eating lunch with their parents on Tuesday. Here is a reminder of the lunch prices for this school year:

LUNCH PRICE INFORMATION
​BREAKFAST - ​ Elementary-Free, Middle School / High School Breakfast Price:  $1.25 / Reduced  .30¢
Adult Breakfast Price:  $1.65
Elementary Lunch Price (K-5):  $2.10 /  Reduced  .40¢
High School/Middle School Lunch Price (6-12):  $2.35 /  Reduced  .40¢
Adult Lunch Price:  $3.35
Extra Milk:  .50¢