Shruthi was our star student this past week. She is a stars because she is friendly and nice to others.
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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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| 100 Days 100 Cans...look for the purple flier for more information. |
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| VALENTINE'S DAY NEWS!!! Valentine's Day/100th Day Family Project due Friday, February 1. Have fun and be creative! Valentine's Day Party News: We have 20 students in our class. On the Valentine's, please only write who the Valentine is from. Please NO treats. You can do pencils, erasers, non-edible items. Thank you!!! |
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: look, good and jump
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 visited our classroom this week. We talked about managing frustration and how to calm down strong feeling. A purple home link went home with your child today along with a coloring page and practice questions. These are for your information and do NOT need to be sent back; however, if you are working on these areas with your child and would like to send them back for extra reinforcement, I'll be glad to put a "smelly" star on it and send it back.
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!
THANK YOU!!!
A big thank you to Alexa for donating items to our Good Job PAWS Bin. Every little bit helps!
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| Box Tops!!! |
BOX TOPS: Don't forget to send in Box Tops!!!
We started the week off by reviewing the book What Will the Weather Be Like Today? We then wrote what our favorite weather is. We chose from sunny, windy, snowy, rainy, cloudy or foggy days. We also choral read a Weekly Reader about polar bears called Caring for Cubs. We highlighted popcorn words. We read the book All To Build A Snowman and discussed the steps to making a snowman using words like First, Next, Then and Last. We also used the popcorn words get, help, now and made a sentence Get help now! We talked about that during an emergency someone may shout "Get help now! " We dial 911 to get help now. Along with making a class book for Shruthi, we made a book for Mrs. Balla to celebrate her birthday. We sent her birthday wishes! She loved the book and thanks all of our caring kindergartners. We really brightened up her day!
The kindergartners also worked on the sounds "oi" and "ue". The action for "oi" is like calling out "ahoy". The action for "ue" is pointing to someone and saying "you".
***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!
