I hope you all had a happy long weekend. We had a fun this week. We started our Fresh Fruit and Vegetable program this week. Students had a chance to try apples, oranges, and plums. The plums were big hits with many of us! We started the week by reading Chicka Chicka Boom Boom. We tasted shredded coconut and coconut milk. Unfortunately, I did not see actual coconuts when I was grocery shopping! We then made a graph about whether we liked the coconut or not. We made a class book about the letters in our names. Next week we will begin a study on apples!
In math, we continue to work on the numbers 0 to 5. We got a little tricky and started using the words before and after. For example, what number comes before 3? This was challenging, and any time you could use that vocabulary at home would help their learning at school! We have continued to practice writing the numerals 0 to 5. Dice games are a good way to help develop this number sense. Kindergarteners should start to recognize the dots without having to count them. I will be sending home a packet of all the papers we didn't use in this topic. Your child may choose to complete them, but it is not mandatory! The program we are piloting has too many pages for us to use and I don't want them to go to waste. If your child does work on them, feel free to send the completed pages to school so that I can make a big deal about their extra effort!
In Fundations, we have been learning about the letters t, b, and f. We have been practicing the letter names, letter sounds, and how to write the letters.
We also started talking about how letters make words and words make sentences. We have been noticing that sentences start with a capital letter and end with a period.
In Readers Workshop, we are learning that rereading books helps us to learn even more. We also learned how to visit a center during independent reading. We are learning to take turns and use a timer so that everyone can visit the center. This week we had a puppet theater center. There were puppets available to act out the story Mrs. Wishy-Washy. This is a story that the students know by heart. When a student has a book memorized, they are able to practice reading with fluency.
Some books we have read this week:
This week we started Literacy and Math Centers. Many of the centers are ones that will be repeated each week. It will take us time to learn how to do them all correctly and neatly. Right now it is a work in progress, but it is so valuable. The students are learning turn taking and communication skills, in addition to practicing math and literacy skills.
You should have seen the behavior calendar come home each day this week. We will be using a weekly chart to communicate about your child's day. Please leave it in their folder until Friday so that we can reuse the same calendar. In case you missed Open House, the clip chart is used throughout the school. Students move up the chart, one color at a time, when they are making great choices. When students have received reminders about classroom expectations, they will move down the chart, one color at a time. Students begin on green each day. When a student is on red, we spend time at Free Choice talking about what happened and how we can make tomorrow a better day. I will also send you an email to give you a little more detail about what happened specifically.
Thursday is an Early Release Day. Dismissal is at 1:00. There will be a note sent home on Monday as a reminder. Please sign it and return it as soon as possible.
Have a great weekend!
