Are we really through our second week of school?

This week has been another busy and successful week in Kindergarten! The children are doing wonderful learning the rules, routines and procedures of our classroom. They are coming into the room quickly, getting all their things out of their backpack and putting things away like rock stars! We have also started to settle into our typical daily schedule and the children are responding well to the routines. In Literacy, we have been working on the theme Welcome to Kindergarten. We read the Meanies, The Meanies Came to School, The Bridge and Splishy-Sploshy all by Joy Cowley. We also had Mrs. Volkers class come to read Do Not Open this Book, also by Joy Cowley. All these books are about the characters called the meanies. We spent a good amount of time laughing at how silly the meanies were and then talked about how to be a friendly on Friday. We have been working on rhyming skills for phonemic awareness (please see curriculum corner below) and we have introduced the letters Aa-Hh. For letters, we are quickly going through how to make the letter, what sound it makes and generating a list of words with the same sound. I have been telling the children that letters do not grow from the ground like flowers and that when we make letters we need to start at the top. Please see the homework for this week on letter writing practice (you will also want to practice rhyming). I have also included a sheet on what is an appropriate way for a child to hold their pencil. This may seem unnatural for some children at first, but we want to start good behaviors now so that our muscles in our hands develop properly! Another fun thing we have been doing this week is singing!! Not only do we sing with Ms. Nielsen, but Mrs. Sermak also attempts to sing. We have learned 2 fun rap songs called The Three Bears Boogie and The Three Little Pigs Rock Out, so ask your child about these songs! In Math, we have started our unit called Exploring Attributes. We have learned about pattern blocks, geoblocks and counting cubes. We went on an observation walk and then played a game about noticing whats missing. We had our first Library on Wednesday and Library books will be due every Wednesday morning! Please also remember to send gym shoes on Fridays for PE. Last but not least, we had our first fire drill on Tuesday. I take all drills very seriously and expect the children to do a nice job of being safe and quiet during a drill. Please continue to talk to your child about the importance of practicing school fire drills: staying calm, exiting the building, staying with our class, and staying quiet outside.

As stated last week, we have started doing assessments on each child. The district assessment (Dibels) results will be sent home within the next few weeks. We have also been assessing and will continue to assess the following for each child: Letter identification what letters and sounds they know Phonemic awareness rhyming, blending and segmenting sounds Text level what level is your child reading at and what strategies as a reader are they using Handwriting abilities what shapes can your child make, what hand is dominant, and how do they hold their pencil Number recognition 0-20 Rote counting how high can your child count Number writing how high can your child write numbers

This information will give me a good sense of what your child knows and what steps I can take in the future. Next week, I will begin sending home homework games. I want to finish assessments before I start sending these home!

Notes from the office: If you are volunteering in our classroom or in our school, please remember to sign in and sign out in the office. There is a special volunteer binder to look for as you enter. The school is also looking for some assistance with our recess times. More info will follow, but we are looking for volunteers between 9:45 10:45 and 1:45 2:45. We will be creating a sign up online, so stay tuned

Some other things to keep in mind: Please continue to work with your child on being independent. Kindergarten is all about gaining independence. Allow your child to zip their own backpack and coat. Allow your child to get themselves ready in the morning (as much as possible). Try having your child help make lunch, pour their own drinks, open their own snacks, etc. Start to teach your child how to tie their own shoes!! Each day I see how proud the children are of themselves when they accomplish something they did not think they could do and I hope their pride starts to carry over to things they do at home! We will be starting our Very Important Person on September 23rd. In this weeks travel folder is the about me page and the me sack for your child to bring in during their week. There is also a list of what week every child has. When it is your childs week, they will bring home our stuffed dog named Andy and our class binder. In the binder will be the sheet to write about the adventures your child had with Andy. Photos are not necessary (of child doing things with Andy), but if you would like to send some in, please feel free. Please let me know if you cannot attend lunch on your childs VIP week! We are getting a new student on Monday, so our class total will be at 25. Encourage your child to be a friendly to our new student!

Important Dates: September 16 (MONDAY): FECC Book Fair (information was sent home in Travel Folder last week) September 18: Scholastic orders are due. If you are ordering online, our classroom code is L9GHL September 25: School Pictures (information was sent in Travel Folder last week)

Curriculum Corner Sensitivity to rhyme comes quite easily to most children. For that reason, rhyme is an excellent introduction to phonological awareness. (Phonological awareness is the ability to hear and manipulate the sounds in spoken words, and the understanding that spoken words and syllables are made up of sequences of speech sounds. In other words, it is the ability to notice, think about, and work with the individual sounds in spoken words. Basic levels of phonological awareness activities include listening to, recognizing, and completing rhymes; segmenting spoken words in sentences and syllables in words; and recognizing onset and rime in word families (such as rat, pat, chat). Research has shown that children who have mastered phonological awareness activities will have an easier time learning to read.) Because rhyme play directs childrens attention to similarities and differences in the sounds of words, it is a useful means of alerting them to the insight that language has not only meaning and message but also physical form. In the classroom we have been playing a variety of rhyme games, including matching rhyme pictures, singing Willoughby, Wallaby, Woo and Banana, Nanna, Bo-Bana, as well as reading many Dr. Seuss books and taking notice of the rhymes we hear. At home (or in the car, at the grocery store, etc) you can help your child develop a strong sense of rhyme with the following activities. *Sing Willoughby, Wallaby, Woo with your child using the names of people in your family. Ask your child to provide the tune for you. The lyrics are as follows: Willoughby wallaby wee, an elephant sat on me Willoughby wallaby woo, an elephant sat on you Willoughby wallaby Wustin, an elephant sat on Justin (example) Willoughby wallaby Wania, an elephant sat on Tania (example) * Read stories with rhyme and help your child notice the rhyme. (For example, after reading a page in the book, you could say Oh, I heard a rhyme on that pagecat, bat. They rhyme.) *Ask your child to identify if two words that you provide rhyme or not. (For example, say I am going to say two words, tell me if they rhyme. Dog, frog (wait for your childs response). Good, they do rhyme. Bat, rake (wait for response) You are right, they do not rhyme. * Create fun rhymes with your child. For example, here is a rhyme we have used at school: To market, to market To buy a fat pig Home again, home again Jiggety jig To market, to market To buy a fat hog Home again, home again Jiggety jog Then keep the lyrics going by adding in your own words. For example, fish, jish; lemon, jemon; cucumber, jucumber...