Weekly Peep Report

Happy Thursday, Kindergarten Families! 

Remember that there is no school tomorrow. The teachers have Professional Development training. Next week, we have Picture Day on Wednesday, and Hat Day on Thursday. If your child would like to contribute 50 cents to benefit pancreatic cancer research, please send that on Thursday as well. 

Next week, the children who ride buses home will walk to their buses with a 5th grade bus buddy. This is a little different than what we've been doing up to this point, where teachers walk kindergartners to each bus. We're excited for our 5th grade bus leaders to help, and the children will enjoy it, too! (This will cut down on the time that the kindergartners spend waiting for buses to arrive. We will stay in the classroom until each bus is called, and big buddies come to pick up their kindergartner.)

Kindergarten Weekly Report

 September 24, 2015

ABC's and 123's

Reading: This week we've focused on letters Q, R, S, and T. We've read some terrific books together, including Chicka Chicka Boom Boom, Old Malolo Had a Farm, The King's Pudding, Rainbow Fish, and The Deep Blue Sea. When we find the letters that we know, we're listening carefully to hear the letter sound in the word. That helps us with our word stretching in writing, too! When you read an old favorite book with your child, take some time to talk about letters and words. Ask your child to find a one-letter word, a two-letter word, a three-letter word, and the longest word on the page. If there is only a line or two of text, count the words on the page together. Practice our sight words as often as you can: the, I, a, see, can, he, she, is

Math: There are lots of ways to show numbers! We can write the number symbol, write the word, show a number on a ten frame, write tally marks, count and color objects, and more! We've been practicing with manipulatives in our math stations this week, and working on number formation. We've also been working to make AB and ABC patterns. First we sort cubes by color, and then we make a pattern unit. This is very important with 3-color patterns, because it's easy to mess up! When the pattern unit repeats the same way, you know you've got it!

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Social Studies/Science: Our new habit for happy kids is Think Win-Win. We've read Rainbow Fish, and talked about how Rainbow Fish felt terrific when he shared his shiny scales with all of the other fish in the sea. We practiced our following-direction skills and cutting skills when we made rainbow fish of our own!

As we've read stories with a tropical island theme this week, we've talked about living and non-living things in science. We know how to sort things as living and non-living. Be sure to ask your child all about it! (One of my favorite class discussions this week was when we talked about how all of the boys and girls would keep growing and changing. They will get taller, and be grown up! The children were quick to point out that I wasn't going to get taller, and I'm just going to keep getting old. One friend said, "Yeah...my mom has this stuff she puts on her face so that you can't see all of her wrinkles!")

Writing Workshop: We're focusing on thinking of an idea first, and then writing about that idea. It can be very challenging, but we're like The Little Engine That Could. When it's tricky, we say, "I think I can!" We started writing stories that are several pages long. To get ready to write, we plan the story across the pages, and "read the invisible story" to our friends, so we get a good idea of what's going to go on each page.

Today as a guided writing activity, we wrote pattern books with words we know: "He can" and "she can." We had lots of fun thinking of things that our friends can do. Please see if your child can read his/her book to you, and maybe even add to the book with more pages! Writing pattern books is a good way to build confidence, and to practice sight words and handwriting skills.

Please be sure to let me know if you have any questions about your child's progress report that went home on Wednesday! I'm happy to talk with you anytime.

Enjoy your weekend!

Upcoming Events

A Peek at Next Week:

Monday: E Day (Library/Technology)
Tuesday; A Day (Art)
Wednesday: B Day (Music)/PICTURE DAY 
Thursday: C Day (P.E.)/HAT DAY
(Bring 50 cents to wear a hat; proceeds to benefit pancreatic cancer research.)
Friday: D Day/Cultural Dinner at 6:30 PM (P.E.)