Newsletter Updates for the Week of September 6th

DATES TO REMEMBER:

-Tuesday, September 13th—K-2 Picture Day

-Monday, September 19th—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. Thursday 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 about it.

SPECIALS:  

This week we will begin our normal schedule for specials:

Gym—Wednesday & Thursday with Mrs. Sluiter

Music—Tuesday with Mrs. Wheeler

Library—Friday—Every other week

THE FLU BUG: 

Just a heads-up that last Thursday we had several elementary students out with the stomach flu (the meanest, dirtiest, down-right disgustingest, most invisibliest germ of all) and the majority of those were Kindergartners:( Please watch your child for signs/symptoms and be sure to make sure they get plenty of rest.  I will keep sanitizing the classroom as best I can and encouraging good hand-washing.  Also, please be sure to keep your child home if they have thrown up within the last 24 hours.

READING:

The next 3 weeks we will be focusing on learning our letters by studying the letters in our names. We will introduce 2 letters each day and do several activities with the focus letters. 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.

BOOK BOXES: 

I still have a couple of 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.’

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, and 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:  

This week we will go on a Number Hunt, looking for numbers in our environment. We will be learning how to write and represent the numbers 0 & 1. We will also practice counting items using one-to-one correspondence.

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 as our caterpillar is now safe inside his chrysalis.  We will also learn about the American Flag and learn the Pledge of Allegiance.