Michael was our star student this past week. He is a star because he is special and he is a winner.
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| Snowflake Ball is on Saturday, February 23rd. Look for a blue flier that went home with your son/daughter. |
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| VALENTINE'S DAY NEWS!!! Thank you to Mrs. Cinco, Mrs. Major, Mrs. Bende and Mrs. Wawro for a great Valentine's Day Party. We all had a great time! |
POPCORN WORDS: We sorted our popcorn words. The words that are in the plastic Ziploc bag are words we know: a, and, at, am, big, but, can, did, do, for, it, into, I, in, is, like, little, my, me, not, on, run, ran, see, too, to, up, we, and yes. These words are now posted on a word wall in the classroom titled "WORDS WE KNOW". Please keep both bags in your child's folder (after you've practiced with him/her daily, hopefully!). We will continue to use all the words in the classroom.
POETRY: Using poetry, we will note rhyming words, highlight popcorn words and we will read the poem everyday in order to work on one-to-one correspondence, left to right progression as well as eventually noting punctuation. The children will each have a poetry folder that they will use to collect all the poems. This way they will be able to pull their poetry folder out anytime to read with a friend or read to self. Poetry can be a fun way to teach reading. It helps eventually build fluency in readers as well as a fun way to spot popcorn words and rhyming words.
POEMS: "The New Year" and Let's See"
Just a note about poetry: I decided to focus on one poem a month. With our limited time in kindergarten, I wanted to be sure that we spent enough time on each poem. Thank you!
A lot of the kindergartners are starting to notice popcorn words in books that we read, in writing or in posters/signs around the room/school. They are great word detectives and using their eagle eyes to find those words. Please encourage this everyday when at home or when you are out together. They love spotting those words!
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| We will need to know 94 popcorn words by the end of kindergarten |
Next week we will be introducing: one, two and three
We will be adding two/three words a week from now on; therefore, your support at home will only benefit your child.
Some ideas to do with popcorn words: write them in shaving cream, rainbow write (the kids know this one), write them in rice, use magnet letters to spell the words, stamp out the word using letter stamps, play memory using the words (you will need to make two sets of each word in order to play), write using chalk, find the words in books or magazines, use letter stencils to make the words, use play dough to make the words. These are all ways to help reinforce these popcorn words.
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| FOCUS and LISTEN...use your attent-o-scope!!! We need to use our eyes, ears and brain when we focus attention on something. We say "Eyes are watching. Ears are listening. Bodies still. Voices off. Or Mrs. Riadi rings the bell. Or we say attent-o-scope. These are all ways we remember that it's time to FOCUS and LISTEN. |
Building our social skills is also important in kindergarten!
Mrs. Will did not visit this week. She wasn't feeling well. We will see her in two weeks due to the shortened week next week.
POSITIVE BEHAVIOR!!!
Our Good Job PAWS BIN!
Every Wednesday I will be picking three names out of the Paw Jar. These three students will be able to choose a prize from our GOOD JOB PAWS BIN! The more paws they earn the more of a chance they have of getting picked! Ask your son/daughter how he/she can earn paws!
In order to maintain a positive atmosphere at this age, we need to constantly reinforce expected behavior; therefore, I'm asking for your help to build a classroom treasure chest. I am looking for small items such as stickers, pencils, erasers, small toys (McDonald's Happy Meal toys), items that five/six years would be excited to get!
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| Box Tops!!! |
BOX TOPS: Don't forget to send in Box Tops!!!
We started a new theme this week. It's all about things that have wheels. We read the book The Wheels on the Bus and we brainstormed things that have wheels. We also read a book called It Must Have Wheels. The students circled the popcorn words have and will. We will circle must next week. After reading the book and circling the popcorn words, we will illustrate the book next week. We also read two Weekly Readers; one about groundhogs and the other about red riddles. The children were introduced to the word families -at and -an. We brainstormed words for each family and wrote the -at family on a bat and the -an family on a can.
We are done with all of the Jolly Phonics sounds. We will continue to reinforce the sounds as we chop up words. The children will be bringing home the final three groups of letter sounds cards. Please look for them in your child's folder next week.
***Please practice building fluency with your child. Make flashcards with the letters on them (mix uppercase and lowercase together). Time your child to see how many letters he/she can produce sounds for in one minute. Fluency with letters will eventually help with fluency in reading. We do this in the classroom so the children are familiar with this. ***
The goals in math for this quarter are adding/subtracting numbers 1-10 using objects or pictures to help solve a number sentence. The children will also be expected to count to 75. They will also be expected to recognize, write and compare numbers 11-20. The children will also be expected to know that numbers 11-19 have one ten and one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, or nine ones.
We are continuing to count by 1's and 10's. Keep counting at home!
We will also continue to compare numbers (greater than/less than). Have a great weekend!
