Week of September 11-15, 2017

DATES:

Sept 12:  Picture day—for all.  Everyone has their picture taken for library cards

Sept 13:  Gym—children now have gym Monday and Wednesday. 

PLEASE send in gym shoes if they do not wear them to school!!!!!

Sept 18:  DELAYED START—children are to be at school by 10:00

Sept 29: Progress reports go home

THANK YOU for helping out with our classroom supplies. 

READING:

Letters:  Ii-Rr

Sight word: can

This week we introduce the Beanie Baby—Eagle Eye---Eagle eye reminds the children to look at the pictures to figure out the words they are reading.

We also read a few nursery rhymes each day.  Rhyming is important to learning to read.

WRITING:  I have the children write in a journal every day.  I keep September until the end of the year—the rest will come home at the end of the month.  You can see September at fall conferences.

Our writing units are on speaking and listening.  We are learning what a now and verb are. 

SCIENCE:

We are continuing to release butterflies—we read GOTTA GO!  GOTTA GO!  It’s about the migration of Monarch’s to Mexico.

We are continuing our study of living and non living. 

SOCIAL STUDIES:

We are continuing our look into classroom rules, making friends and helping each other.

TESTING

We will begin our first assessments this week into next week.  I will share the results as we get them back.  This will help us adjust our activities in the classroom to best meet the needs of the children,

Kindergarten

Ms. Thompson

Week of September 5-8

Welcome to Kindergarten!  We had a busy first week of school last week!  We learned classroom routines, rules and each other’s names.  We ended the week by mixing, baking and then looking around the school for our Gingerbread man.  We read a few versions of gingerbread stories and compared them.  On our journey through the school the children were able to meet various people that help at our school—gym and music teachers, librarian, superintendent, custodians, secretaries, principal and kitchen workers.  At the end of our journey we found him in our room and we got to sample after he was frosted and decorated!

!

            This week we begin our 3-week quick look at the ABC’s!

READING: 

We looked at letters in our names. We read Chrysanthemum.  She had a long name and was named after a flower.  I brought in a real Chrysanthemum for the children to look at.  It is actually in the butterfly tent for the butterflies to feed on!

We are investigating the letters Aa-Hh.  Our first sight word is I.  We will be learning I, can, the, we and see this first report card.  Please practice these words at home.  Look for them in books you read.  The children will be bringing home small books with their sight words in it every week.  Try to save them and re-read every day!  It helps to get a container—either plastic tote or small box for your child to store their books from school in.  Reading daily is important!

BOOK BOXES:  Part of our station work in a few weeks will be reading out of our book boxes.  They will be making class books to put in their boxes, but to start we would like each child to have 3-4 small books of their own to read from.  If you haven’t sent in 3-4 books, please do so this week.

SCIENCE:

We are reading books about butterflies as we watch the metamorphosis of our Monarchs.  We have tagged and released a number of butterflies.  I believe I had 15-17 caterpillars/chrysalis’—we have released about half.  We are discussing living and non-living things.

SOCIAL STUDIES:  We have been reading stories about starting school, being friends and learning the Pledge of Allegiance.

TECHNOLOGY:  The children have all been on www.starfall.com --we are learning how to hold and use a mouse before we take our NWEA test in a few weeks.

MATH:

We are counting and learning about numbers 0 and 1.  We have been learning the number poems I sent home the first day of school.

August 31, 2017

Dear Families:

What an amazing first day!!  The children followed directions very well today!

We were able to get our first page in our journal written/drawn on today and they colored their cover!

Just before lunch we were able to identify and tag 2 of our butterflies.  They were both female.  Ask your child how to tell if it’s a boy or girl!  (Males have 2 black spots on their back wings!)  They also learned that the migration tag goes on the mitten shape!  We also talked about the word ‘migration’!  I went around with one of the butterflies and let each child be ‘tickled’ by the butterfly’s feet—some said no!  We will try again with the next butterfly!  One butterfly even flew around in the room!  Brought MANY giggles!!!

Thank you for getting the paper work and supplies in so quickly!  There are a few with papers out!  I will get reminders out! 

THURSDAY we are all wearing our Kindergarten shirts (the gray ones you got at Kindergarten round up last spring!  If you were NOT here for that, will you drop me a message or note so I can get your child a shirt for Thursday?!

I forgot to ask yesterday if there are families where Mom and Dad aren’t in the same house and I need to copy a newsletter for each house!  Please let me know!

Thank you also for getting notes if there are bus changes!  It’s the scariest part of my day until the routine is down!