The week of Dec. 10-14!

It is amazing how we are just about done with the semester!  It has just flown by and your kids academics have improved greatly since day one!  I'm so proud of how hard they have worked and you are working at home with them!

We continue each day to remember our class rules and are reminded of being respectful to all, taking ownership of our actions, and following directions.  These are all behaviors that we work on our first year of school, however I do notice that we fall backward when I'm gone or when we've had extra days off.  Please revisit appropriate behaviors before coming to school each day.  Thank you for your support at home!  It is much appreciated!

Job day is this Friday!  The kids will love hearing dads talk about their jobs, and whether you are a producer or consumer, buy/sell goods or do a service!  Thank you all for volunteering!

Social Studies!  We are finishing up our Economics Unit learning more about "Goods and Services", "Producers and Consumers", "Saving and Spending", and Job Day!  It's been a fun unit!

Reading/Social Studies:  Our reading unit is over Economics also.  Our big book is called, "Needs and Wants".  We have had many conversations about making choices on what should be bought first over wants. We have also talked about saving our money for what we really want, so we help mom and dad out on buying our wants.

Letter of the week:  short u (pointing up), long u (make a unicorn sign with pointer finger)
sight words:  but, with (these are the last two 2nd quarter sight words)

Math:  We are finishing up Topic 16 this week, Analyzing, Comparing, and Composing Shapes.  Today's math was a challenge.  Check it over and see what we had to do!  It looks easier than it is tracing shapes to make other shapes.

Handwriting this week:  We are now writing the lowercase letters.  They are much harder to write correctly!  This week we are writing the letters, "s, v, w".  

Coming up!

Dec. 14      Job Day--please fill out the form and turn in asap if you're interested!

Dec. 18      Winter Party--2:45-3:15

Dec. 19     Last day before Christmas Vacation--half day

Crazy Hair Day for those that chose to participate!

The week of Dec. 3-7.

This weather is definitely preparing us for the winter season beginning on Dec. 21!  Brrr! 

Thank you for making sure your child is dressed for the weather if we go outside!  I appreciate it!

  

I heard Winter Wonderland was fun for all that went!  I was sorry to miss it.  

I have a few reminders as we are getting close to the end of 2nd quarter.  

1.  Please make sure to have your child return little readers and the homework sheet the next day of school.  I would like for them to get in the habit of knowing that homework needs to come back when it's due to prepare them for first grade on up.  I totally understand when things come up. But, pretty much I stick with the same day I have your child's reading group, so you can plan on homework that night each week unless we have a snow day or I have to be gone.  Also, there are times that I'm using the same book for another group and may need it that week.  Thank you!

2.  Snack and waters.  I would love it if you would send five bags of snacks in your child's backpack on Monday each week, so they always have a snack.  Also, I am happy when they have water bottles, so please send them.  I think it's okay if they leave their water bottles a day or two and just refill them.  Then, they don't have to remember them each day.  I'll continue to offer that to the kids.

Fastbridge testing--This is a new test for reading and math that will be given three times a year to watch for progress in certain areas.  If needed, we will be doing progress monitoring in areas that your child may need extra help in.  Progress monitoring is when you retest in-between testing after working on a skill to see if there's improvement or if more reviewing needs to happen.   Your child will be taking the test one-on-one with myself or other teachers this week and next week.  You will not see any results I don't believe, but I just wanted you to be aware of it if your child tells you about it.  Grades 3-5 have always taken the MAP tests.  This test is replacing that one and all grades will be taking it.  If you have any questions, please ask and I'll do the best I can to answer them or find out for you.

Reading this week!

We are reading fiction and non-fiction stories about community helpers.  Today we reviewed our 4 basic needs.  1. food/water  2. shelter  3. clothing  and 4.  air.

Needs and wants will be our next topic in Economics.  This is farely easy for the kids to grasp, but it would be a good conversation at home especially with Christmas coming!  :)

Letter of the week!  Bb --The lower case "b" and "d" confuse the kids when writing them.  As a reminder at home, the "b" is written beginning in the sky or top, and the "d" starts like a magic c!

Does your child have a bear ready for bear day on Friday?  Some have mentioned that they do not have a teddy bear.  That's okay!  Just send a stuffed animal that fits in their backpack!

Sight words:  and, you----We learned today that "and" is a conjunction with the important job of connecting two words together like: in and out, black and white, cake and ice cream! Yum!

Job Day!  I have two signed up for Job Day on the 14th and would love a few more if you are able to take a little time from your busy day!!

Math this week!  Topic 16  

We had fun reviewing 3D solid shapes by doing a shape sort with food today!  First they were given Trix for spheres, marshmallows for cylinders, cheese cubes for cubes, and Bugles for cones.  The class had to sort them on to their shape sheet, count them, and fill out the shape graph before they could eat them!  

Then we categorized different objects with the same shapes on the board.  We will review more tomorrow and take a test on Wednesday.  Review the names of the shapes at home and look for those shapes around the house!!

Coming up!
Dec. 4        Troll Day- crazy hair day!
Dec. 5         Wacky Sock Wednesday
Dec. 6         Traveling Thursday
Dec. 7         Forest Friday--wear green

Dec. 14      Job Day--please fill out the form and turn in asap if you're interested!

Dec. 18      Winter Party

Dec. 19     Last day before Christmas Vacation

The week of Nov. 27-30.

I hope you all had a fabulous Thanksgiving break with your family and friends!  After six days off, it will take a little time to get back in the swing of things at school.

Please visit with your child about being a responsible kindergartner by being a good listener when others have raised their hands to talk or when Mrs. Scott is teaching.  Thank you for your help at home!

Fall Picture Retakes--are this Thursday, Nov. 29. 

Winter Party!  I have one volunteer signed up for our Winter Party on Dec. 18.  Would one more person be able to help out Jessica Robinson?  It's much easier when two minds work together!  

Nov. Book it calendars!  Please send in book it calendars by Monday, Dec. 3rd signed by both parent and child.  

This week in reading we are reading a story called, Ungalala.  Ask me if it's a nonfiction or fiction book, who the characters are in it, and is there a problem and solution in the book.  Can your child tell you where the story takes place too?  (hint:  it's a continent where it's hot)

Context Clues:  This is a new skill that we will learn about this week!  We will figure out what a few words mean by reading the sentence they are in.

Letter of the week:  Hh
sight words:  mom, dad (again)

Social Studies: We began our Economics Unit that we will work on until Christmas Break.  
This week we are learning about Community Helpers.  We are reading books and making bubble map organizers about: nurses, veterinarians, fire fighters, and police officers.  Then the kids will choose which one they would like to be and we will make a class graph.

Job Day!  I will be sending home a note on Friday about Job Day.  It will explain what it is and hopefully entice you to share what you do at your job on Dec. 14!  Your kids may not know what you do and it's a great time for them to learn about your job and enjoy having you teach their friends too!

Math this week!
We are finishing up our math lessons on 2D Flat shapes and beginning to learn about 3D solid shapes.  Can your child describe how a circle, square, rectangle, triangle, and oval/ellipse look?
They will need to say: circle--is round, square--has 4 equal sides and 4 corners, rectangle--has 2 long and 2 short sides with 4 corners, triangle--has 3 sides and 3 corners, oval--is round and long.  Your child will be tested over describing the shapes so please review these with your child.  They need to also be able to tell what the shape is when described to them.  Thank you for working on this at home!

Handwriting this week:  We have finished writing the uppercase letters, so we will practice writing them all before moving on to lower case.

Coming up!
Nov. 29      Fall picture retakes

Dec. 1        Winter Wonderland

Dec. 14      Job Day--info. coming home soon

Dec. 18      Winter Party

Dec. 19     Last day before Christmas Vacation

The week of Nov. 12-16.

More snow today!  These days are a little rowdier than others.  The kids get so excited to see it.

Happy Bear will be on Friday, so your child may talk about seeing a person in a bear costume talking about wanted and unwanted touches.  This would be a great time to elaborate at home if you haven't visited with your child about this yet.

This week we are finishing up our map unit by sharing our bedroom maps each day.  The kids did a good job adding details so we could picture their room.

Reading this week!
We are reading two fiction stories about animals and will be discussing more about conversations in stories.  The kids are quick to see the quotation marks and know that a character is talking in the book.
Today we made turkeys and wrote what our turkey is saying on a speech bubble!  They had fun coming up with ideas!

We have talked about nouns and verbs, and will look for words with -ed on the end in the stories.
Ask your child if they remember what a noun and verb is!

Sight word:  in
Letter of the week:  Hard C, Soft C

We finished our colors!!  Did your child tell you we made rainbow cookies on Thursday and got to eat them on Friday?  See the pictures below!

Math this week!
We have finished our Topic 5 over numbers 11-20.  Most of the class can identify and write the numbers.   Please review the numbers with your child tonight!  Ask them what they are and have them write them.  We have a test tomorrow.  

We reviewed today with the worksheets in their folders.  It would be good if you went over them with your child and made sure they understand the concept of finding a ten-writing 1 down, then counting the leftovers (ones) and writing them.  The test is real similar to the review sheets.


Coming Up!

Nov. 16     Happy Bear presentation

Nov. 21-25   Thanksgiving Break

Dec. 1        Winter Wonderland
Dec. 14      Job Day--info. coming home soon
Dec. 10     Last day before Christmas Vacation

Rainbow Cookies

They were amazed how big their cookies grew when they were baked!

The week of Nov. 5-9.

Whew!  What a crazy week of fun!  I'm ready to get back to a "normal" school week!  See pics below from Halloween and our field trip.  There's lots of them!

We are learning about the globe and flat map of the world this week.  Today we learned about the 7 continents and 4 oceans.  Ask your child what continent we live on to review.  We are zoning in on where we live each day. Tomorrow, we will learn that we live in the U.S.A.  Wednesday we will learn about Kansas, Thursday we will learn about Johnson County, and Friday, we will learn about Shawnee and write our address.

The map of your child's bedroom is due next Monday.  Please make sure to help them but not do the whole map for them.  Don't forget to show them how to add N, E, S, W on the compass.

We are already 5 days in November.  Please make sure to fill out the Book-it calendar for Nov. The most important part of the calendar is making it a routine of reading each day with your child.  I know busy nights occur which is why we are looking for 20 out of 30 days.  Treasure these days that your child wants you to sit with them as they enjoy listening to you or you enjoy listening to them read!  I sure miss it!  Hopefully you have found a safe place that works for you for the calendar!

Istation--We tested on Istation last Thursday, so your child may have moved up a level or may be working on the same level depending on how they did on the test.  Please try to make this a priority over games.  Sit with your child at times and see how they are doing on Istation.  If they aren't understanding a concept, it might be good to work on it separate from Istation.

Reading this week!
This week we are reading two short stories and retelling them to practice our comprehension.  We are also making predictions about what we think the title tells us about what's going to happen in the story.  Transition words will be introduced--first, next, last

Our letter is short and long "o".
Our sight words are: on, he, love
Our color is:  rainbow  colors--Mrs. Scott has the rainbow snack!
The kids can wear as many bright colors as they can find on Thursday.

Social Studies:  Veteran's Day will be our topic this week as we read stories about it. 

Math this week!  
Our topic is over 11-20.  Today we learned how to count, read, and write 13, 14, 15.  On our assignment we are circling a ten, writing one down for a ten, then counting the ones or left overs and writing them down to make our number.

Help at home--I am sending home a note with 2 ten frames attached for you to practice filling in the ten frames and writing the number.  The sheet is not laminated so you will want to use and object from home like cheerios to fill in the ten frame.  They can write the number on something else.  This is just for practice at home.  Place value-tens and ones, is a difficult concept and several do not know the numbers 11-20.  Let me know if you have any questions please.

Coming up!

Nov. 8       Rainbow  snack--Mrs. Scott

Nov. 16     Happy Bear presentation

Nov. 21-25   Thanksgiving Break
Dec. 1        Winter Wonderlans
Dec. 14      Job Day--info. coming home soon
Dec. 10     Last day before Christmas Vacation

Orange Day

Halloween Pictures

Field Trip

The week of Oct.28-Nov. 2.

We have another busy week!  Never a dull moment in kindergarten!

Our Halloween parade and party are Wed.  Please send your child's costume in their backpack or in a bag with their name on it.  Mrs. McCall sent out a Smore through Skyward.  She addressed school rules on costumes.  I know some of the kids have masks that go with their costume.  I'm going to say as long as they can see through the mask easily, they can wear it.  Mrs. McCall did say no wands, weapons, or make-up.  No scary masks either please.
Also, she is going to let KDG parents only come help dress at 2:20 since they need more help.  Coordinators can come at 2:20 to set up too.  Thank you everyone for volunteering to bring things for the party!  I love how KDG parents get involved in our class events!  We will begin the parade in our hall, walk down 1st/2nd hall, outside and back down 3rd/4th hall, and finish in our room.We're looking forward to a great party!

Our field trip is this Friday.  We will leave promptly at 9:00.  Please make sure your child is here at 8:40 at the latest so we can get name tags on, disposable sack lunches in place, and ready to head at 9:00.  We are asking everyone-kids and adults-to wear RED to be spotted easily.  It is supposed to be 51 degrees on Friday for a high, so your child better wear a jacket or sweatshirt on the bus.  The bus driver will stay with the bus, so we will probably leave the jackets on the bus so we don't have to carry them.  But, good to have them just in case...
Make sure your child goes to the bathroom right before leaving home.  We won't have much time before getting on the bus.

This week in reading.
Last week we read about "What Plants Need to Survive".  This week we are reading, "What Animals Need to Survive".  We will compare the two informative texts, and learn more about glossary and index. We will also read a fiction animal book that animals are talking in to look for the quotation marks to notice the difference between nonfiction and fiction.

Spiders!  We made a spider flip book of the Garden Spider, Black Widow, and Tarantula.  Look for that  on our spider web in our room!  Also look at our KWL poster beside the web to find out what we learned about spiders!

If you come to the Halloween party, look for our class quilt in the hall that we made on our opinion about "Spookley the Square Pumpkin", and our Rainbow fish that we made sharing our pieces with our friends.  

Sight words:  is, was
Letter of the week:  Pp--we pretend we are painting as we say the /p/ sound.
Our last color of the week:  orange

Math this week:  We are finishing up Topic 4.  Thank you for making sure your child completed the homework packet so they are more prepared for the test tomorrow!  
Topic 5 is over Numbers to 20.  Please start working on 11 to 20 at home!  Naming the number and writing them.

Wednesday we are going to do some fun Pumpkin Measuring for math!

Coming up!

Oct. 31      Halloween Party!  Parade at 2:30 and party following until 3:15. 

Nov. 1        Wear orange today!  Peyton has the orange snack.

Nov. 2       Field trip--bring a disposable sack lunch and disposable water bottle.  

Nov. 8       Rainbow  snack--Mrs. Scott

Nov. 16     Happy Bear presentation

Nov. 21-25   Thanksgiving Break

Pink Day

The week of Oct. 22-26.

This week is a busy one!  The firemen come with their firetruck to talk to us about what the kids need to do in case of a fire, and then we will get to go outside and learn about the firetruck!  Please make sure your child wears their jacket as it's usually chilly outside in the morning.

We talked a lot about a meeting place outside your house, how to know if it's safe for them to open a door, and what to do if they have fire on them.  Most knew what to do--Stop, Drop, and Roll.

I am sending home a fire safety booklet tomorrow that your child can work on at home.  It's a good manual to talk about fire safety.

Book-It calendars--I reminded the kids to keep filling out their book-it calendar for this month to receive their free pizza coupon.  Several said they hadn't been filling it out.  Please help your child be responsible by coloring in an acorn when they read to you or you to them for 10 min. a day.  It helps them be aware of their learning!  I let them know that I put the calendar in their Parent-Teacher conference packet if it's not found.  If it's gotten lost, I can either copy one for you or you can write down on paper when you read.  Thank you!!!!!

Reading groups!  Our reading groups are off!  I want to apologize for the confusion of skill groups and books.  The groups did great with skills only last week, so I decided to begin sending home the little readers.  We will read them together one time in our group, so reading at least 2 more times at home will help them really know the words and comprehend what the story was about.  Using the 5 finger retell will let you know how your child is understanding what they read.  
Please send back the little reader, skill sheet, parent note in the baggie the next day.  Thank you!  Enjoy listening to your child read!!

Istation:  Many of the kids are getting on at home and working on reading skills on Istation.  If you are having difficulty getting your child on at home, please let me know and hopefully I can help out.  I suggest 10 min. a day at least 3 days a week.  The more min. the better, help those reading skills!  If you make it a priority first before playing, it will become a routine.
Thank you for all you do at home!

Reading this week!
We read our Benchmark Series book called What Do Plants Need?  Ask your child the 4 things plants need!  We have been talking about it a lot!
Letter of the week:  Ff, we pretend we are fishing when we say the /Ff/ sound.
Sight words:  at, look (bonus word) pink
Color of the week:  pink  

Science:  We will incorporate learning about spiders in to our reading and science this week and some of next week.  Tomorrow we will graph how we feel about spiders, do a KWL-Find out what we already Know,  tell what we Want to learn, then write what we Learned, after we read a book about them.  Then, we will read The Very Busy Spider for a fun fiction book.  If you come to our Halloween party, you will find spiders hanging around!!

Math this week!
This week we will be learning about 2 more, 2 fewer, and numbers on a number line.
You can help out at home by giving a number between 1 and 10 or more if your child gets it, and ask for one more, two more, one fewer or two fewer.

Coming Up!

Oct.  25     Wear pink today!  Chloe has the pink snack.

Oct. 31      Halloween Party!  Parade at 2:30 and party following until 3:15. 
Nov. 1        Wear orange today!  Peyton has the orange snack.
Nov. 2       Field trip--bring a disposable sack lunch and disposable water bottle.  More info. to come.
Nov. 8       Rainbow  snack--Mrs. Scott
Nov. 16     Happy Bear presentation
Nov. 21-25   Thanksgiving Break

White Day!