Welcome to Kindergarten! : Rocking in our School Shoes!

What a busy week we've had! Here are some of the important things we've learned this week.

We were rocking in our school shoes this week! We have started exploring centers this week and are doing an amazing job! In the coming weeks, we will begin using our work board and finding various centers around our room including ABC center, Art center, Science center, Reading Group, iPad center, Writing center, and many more! Our literacy centers have been exciting, as we have been learning with Pete the Cat! Pete has helped us discuss the importance of being flexible, that we all have different strengths, and that it’s okay to be ourselves. Here are a few examples of some of the work we did at centers this week:

ABC center- This involved matching uppercase and lowercase letters. This has proven to be a tricky skill for us! Please continue to reinforce this at home with your child by finding lowercase letters in environmental print, writing letters, etc. We also played beginning sound games. We built letters and shapes using sticks and curves, played the ABC app on Starfall and practiced letter sounds, worked together to build a Pete the Cat puzzle, practiced writing uppercase and lowercase letters, colored Pete's shoes and worked on color words, talked about cause and effect and answered the question "What happened next?" while reading some of Pete's stories and completed a cause and effect activity.

In Writing, we continued to work on stretching words and writing beginning sounds as we hear them. We have learned that we are ALL problem solvers and have worked hard to solve things that seem really hard. This is something we will focus on all year in many different contexts. Many children will come to me over the following weeks and want me to solve their “problem” of spelling different words. To practice this skill at home, give your child vowel consonant vowel words (CVC words) to write. Words like, dog, cat, rad, etc. work well. We are also focusing on spelling words phonetically (as they sound ) which doesn’t always include the “correct” spelling. This practice gets the children on the correct path. The more they practice breaking the words apart and listening for the sounds, the more comfortable they will become in their writing. We start with beginning sounds!

During Reading, we continued to explore non-fiction and fiction books and share what we learned. Reading time includes time for me to demonstrate a reading skill and time for the children to practice the skill(s) with me, with a partner and independently. We also explored some new word work activities.

Our Phonics lessons this week we worked on identifying vowels and consonants and uppercase and lowercase letters, using tools to help us like our alphabet chart, alphabet bridge, and alphabet cards, identifying letters/words/spaces in a sentence, tracking print from left to right, and beginning sounds.

In this week’s WeThinkers lesson, we talked about the group plan. The Group Plan teaches us that when we are part of a group, we need to work together, listen to others, and follow a shared plan. We learned that a group plan helps everyone know what to do and makes it easier for the group to accomplish a goal.

In Math, we continued building our number sense and counting skills. We practiced counting objects carefully, recognizing and writing numbers, comparing groups, and understanding that numbers tell us “how many.” Through hands-on activities, math conversations, and games, we are continuing to strengthen our ability to count, represent, and compare quantities.

We had our first counseling lesson and enrichment lesson this week! Ask your child to tell you all about our time with Mrs. Wallace, Ms. Peterson, and Mrs. Knoot.

In the Play Lab this week, we made library cards to check out books at the library and we practiced checking out and returning books. We took turns being the librarian and scanning books on the computer. We also spent some time making our mailboxes in the Post Office.

Looking ahead...

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- candid photos work!

Hearing screenings 9/11

Picture Day 9/17

Reed Spirit Night 9/22

MADE for Kids Field Trip 9/29

Don't forget to get your volunteer paperwork completed if you would like to help us in our classroom or attend our field trip!