What a great start to the Kindergarten school year! We are making new friends, learning new things, and practicing school rules and procedures. We are quickly learning each other’s names and are playing many games to help us remember and get to know each other!
As we are learning more and more about each other, we have been talking about our families, our favorite things to do, our summer vacations, etc. This has provided us with a framework to connect home to school, use language skills, generate vocabulary, and practice good listening skills. At the same time, we are learning about our likenesses and differences. Encourage your child to tell you about one new friend in our class that they have met and learned about.
We read LOTS of books together this week! We read the book How Do Dinosaurs Go to School? and completed a sorting activity. We looked at good choices and poor good choices from the book and sorted them accordingly. We also read David Goes to School and wrote about good choices we can make at school.
We read Be Kind and brainstormed ways that we can be kind at school. We completed a Kindergarten coloring page. Our purpose was to work on snapping the caps on our markers, putting our materials away, and working neatly like big Kindergarteners do!
Finally, we read the book The Pigeon HAS to Go to School and made a fun pigeon craft! These will come home soon and are hanging proudly in our hallway. :)
We made a "How We Go Home" graph and talked about which had the most, the least, and compared the numbers of kids on each.
We had our first handwriting lesson! This week, we focused on using a correct tripod pencil grip. You will see a "use your imagination" drawing page where we practiced our grip. Please refer to the note in your child’s folder to help reinforce how to hold a pencil/marker/crayon properly. Your help is greatly appreciated.
We read Stick and Stone and talked about being good friends. We completed a fun scavenger hunt that helped us get to know each other!
We learned about the Zones of Regulation, where we learned about self-regulation and emotional control. We talked about strategies and tools to help us move between the zones and get back to a happy, learning zone. Ask your child to tell you about the colors on each cup (zones) and what they mean and how they decide which zone they are in. We will talk more about this at Curriculum Night.
We had our first Second Steps lesson as well! Children benefit from social-emotional learning at any time, but today it’s especially important to help them develop the skills they need to connect and thrive. Our first lesson taught us how to be good listeners (eyes watching, ears listening, voices quiet, bodies still).
We explored manipulatives during Math Workshop including pattern blocks, connecting cubes, geo-boards, bears, and squares. We will begin our Math Curriculum (Math in Focus) next week! More info to come!
We had a great time getting to know each other on the Kindergarten playground and during Choice Time. Ask your child to tell you who his/her new friends are!
You might have noticed that your child hasn’t brought home much “work” (besides their worksheets that we are completing busy work while learning routines). This is because our main focus this week has been rules and routines, but we are excited to jump into the curriculum and are doing so little by little! More to come next week!
Ask your child to tell you what they learned in Art, Spanish, Library, and Music this week!
Please look for Scholastic flyers in your child’s folder monthly or go online to shop for books! Visit www.scholastic.com/readingclub and enter our class code FMRFL to purchase books. Thank you!
Reminders:
Please check and empty your child’s folder each night and return your child’s folder daily.
Please send a snack with your child everyday.
Don’t forget to send in a framed 4x6 or 5x7 picture of your family.
Looking ahead...
No school on September 2nd
Have a great weekend!
Jena
