Welcome to kindergarten! Remember, besides using the link that I sent, you can always find the newsletter by going to the SC website–>class pages–>kindergarten–>news
What’s Due:
- Child survey: If you haven’t turn in the “what’s the buzz on your child” page, please turn that in by Monday.
- St. Cletus fall fest is just around the corner! This is the LAST weekend to purchase a megapass!
- Mum orders: help support our 8th graders and their special events by ordering mums (they’re beautiful, from Hinsdale Nursery): please refer to the school news email:
- Milk orders: place your orders now!
- Hot lunch orders*: Order now!
Remember to be sure your child will eat the hot lunch you order. For most vendors, you can order up until the day before and you can also cancel it up until then. Please note, Ledo’s requires 2 days notification prior to school delivery. The kids are always excited to get hot lunch. A lot of them like it on Fridays as a fun treat to end the school week!
- House pages: we will be making a class traveling book. Your child’s “house page” went home on Friday. Please fill the house page with pictures, words and stickers that help us see why your family ROCKS! Please only cover the one side and make sure it’s the side with your child’s name. Here is an example:
Upcoming Events/Mark your calendars:
CHANGE IN DROP OFF PICK-PROCEDURES BEGIN NEXT WEEK! Please refer to the note sent home or my email!
- Thursday, September 4: Fall fest BEGINS!
- Friday, September 5: Early dismissal, 2pm.
This Week:
We made it through our first full week, woo hoo! The kids are ROCKING all their classroom routines. Here are some of the routines they’ve learned to follow:
1. ) Walk in independently to the classroom.
2.) Backpacks in the chairs, open up the folders, turn in any important papers.
3.) Water bottles should be left on tables, lunch boxes on top hook, backpacks on bottom.
4.) Sign in and begin morning work.
5.) How to sit on the rug and raise your hand. Ask your child what this looks like in kindergarten!
6.) Lunchtime rules–using the bathroom BEFORE lunch, keeping tummies tucked to the table, staying in seats.
7.) Rest time rules–quiet time, must be on mat, work being done quietly. We’re always looking for a “best rester” who then gets to rest in the reading corner with a book buddy and smelly spot on the hand the next day.
8.) Free choice time: remembering how many can play at each area and remembering to clean up before moving on to something new.
Next Week:
Language Arts:
- Fundations: This past week, we started FUNDATIONS. Fundations is our phonics program. It very systematically and explicitly teaches letters, sounds and rules. Each letter is introduced as “letter, keyword sound.” Here is what that looks like:
t, top, /t/
b, bat, /b/
And here is what that sounds like: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AYhKyXCs7Ug
In Fundations, we start by learning lowercase letters only. It can be very hard to get kids out of the habit of writing in all uppercase letters, so we work hard to encourage writing in lowercase. In Fundations, students are taught to write letters on the following lines: Sky line (top), plane line (dashed), “grass line” (under the plane line) and “worm line” (bottom).
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- Name writing: We will practice writing first names. Students will learn their first names start with ONE capital letter, the rest lowercase. Students will learn to start each letter at the appropriate Fundations line. Next week, I’ll send some name writing practice pages home! Watch for those to come home in your child’s folder.
- Phonemic awareness: Phonemic awareness is the oral manipulation of sounds. We spend about 10 minutes doing phonemic awareness exercises each day. Right now we are focused on beginning sounds, rhyming and breaking up compound words. We will continue this next week. At home, please practice isolating beginning sounds: “Pass the c-c-c arrots. What does ‘carrots’ begin with?” Do this at home or my other favorite place to do these kinds of things is in the car where they can’t escape! 🙂
Math:
- Number writing: We practiced number writing 1-4 this past week. Next week, we will focus on 5-9. It is SO important to get the formation of numbers down before we start getting into comparing, adding, subtracting. Please refer to our Number Poems for how to help your child at home.
- Number recognition 1-10. Recognizing numbers 1-10. Counting a group of objects and answering “how many,” within 10.
- Ten frame practice: we will practice representing numbers 1-10 on a ten frame with counters and also recognizing amounts on a ten frame. When students are automatically able to recognize an amount without having to count, we call this “subitizing”. Below are numbers 1-10 representing on a “ten frame.” At home, you can practice using a ten frame. Click TenFrameWorkmatsFREEBIE-1 to print a ten frame at home and use any small manipulatives at home. Soon, we will start working with a DOUBLE ten frame to practice teen numbers, also included in this link.
- Tally Mark practice: We are working on representing numbers 1-10 with tally marks. Here is the language we use at school: “1, 2, 3, 4, 5 makes a bundle! Finger space. 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, circle it up! We always circle our groups of ten in kindergarten.
- Counting to 30. We will practice counting daily. At home, please practice counting to 30 (or beyond)! The goal by the end of kindergarten is to count to 100 (or beyond)! A great place to practice is in the car. You can try, “I’ll say 1, you say 2” and go back and forth as high as you can.
Religion:
- We have so many SUPERSTARS in our classroom! The children are working so hard to be “God’s superstars” by doing kind things for their friends and teachers. Each time we do or say something kind, we are being one of God’s superstars! If your child comes home with a sticker, please ask him/her about it.
- We will begin attending the school-wide 8am Mass on Tuesday September 16th. We will go to 8am Mass every Tuesday starting then.
- Next week, we will start our first unit, “I am special.” God made each and every one of us special. There is no one in the world just like ME!