Kindergarten Newsletter, February 21

Upcoming Events/Mark your calendars:

• Tuesday, February 25: 8AM Mass
• Thursday, February 27: We will attend the FROZEN dress rehearsal performance in the afternoon. The kids are SUPER excited!

Looking Ahead:

Saturday, April 5th: 2025 SPRING AUCTION: VEGAS NIGHT: 6pm in the Parish Center. Get those tickets purchased! https://e.givesmart.com/events/AP6/?isOrderFormActive=true

Friday, May 9: MOMS, please mark your calendars:  Friday, May 9th from 10:30-11:30ish is the kindergarten Mother’s Day Tea! This kindergarten event has been a St. Cletus kindergarten tradition for over 30 years!  Your child is going to work really hard to make it a special hour for you by learning new songs, making special art projects, yummy treats and more. You won’t want to miss this special event!

What’s Due:

• Purchase tickets for SPRING AUCTION: https://e.givesmart.com/events/AP6/?isOrderFormActive=true
• Spring auction shirts (order form was in Wednesday envelope) due February 25.
• Mom and son event: RSVP with the form that was in your Wednesday envelope!
• Spring auction donations: Reach out if you need a form or email auction@stcletusparish.com!
• Fish Fry:
• RSVP for the Mother’s Day Tea! Reach out if you need another form! Please turn this in by February 28.
• Set up your family page for the auction!  Information was in your Wednesday envelope.  There are lots of incentive prizes if we get everyone to sign up! Thank you for supporting our wonderful school!  🙂 More than half of our class has registered!  Way to go room 99!  Keep it up!! https://e.givesmart.com/events/AP6/signUpC/ 
• If you would like to be a mystery reader and didn’t have a chance to sign-up (the sign-up is full), please just reach out and give me a day that works for you at 2:30! We’d love to have you.  Remember, one mystery reader slot per child! Wish we had time for more! 🙂
• If your last name begins with N-Z, it’s your turn to bring in supplemental supplies! Please scroll down to kindergarten to see what we need:  https://stcletusschool.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/School-Supplies-List-2024-2025.pdf
• Summer camps at St. Cletus are coming out now! I wanted to highlight the camp being taught by Mrs. Zontos and Ms. Sonia Sanchez.  It runs from June 9th-27th. You can choose 1, 2 or 3 weeks.  Camp runs from 9-3pm.  It’s for early childhood students only.  Mrs. Zontos LOVED running the half day camp last year and received permission to extend the camp to 3pm this year!  The flyer went home in the Wednesday envelope a few weeks ago.  If you need another copy, reach out!  It would be fun to get a kindergarten (going into 1st!) crew together to attend!

This Week:

• Last name, N-Z families: Thanks for sending in supplemental supplies! Much appreciated! 🙂
• Be sure to check out my book recommendations list in your child’s folder or click here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/13-V3vS6AJp32hP4ri4aQFKBgKZcP9tD7/edit?usp=sharing&ouid=102750389033909029220&rtpof=true&sd=true

Next Week:

I started trimester 2 assessments this week and will continue them next week! I won’t be doing any recordings for SEESAW for at least 2 weeks since I’ll be busy assessing each child individually. I look forward to sharing their progress with you at P/T conferences on March 13.  That sign-up for conferences will be out in a couple of weeks!

Language Arts:

• We will FINISH our Fundations Unit 2 on MONDAY with Y, Z.  We will begin Unit 3 in Fundations which will focus on our word wall words (referred to as “trick words” in Fundations), distinguishing between long and short vowels, and CVC words. We will also practice reading sentences in meaningful chunks, sometimes called “scooping.”  This will help with comprehension. When reading this sentence– “She will run up the hill.”– scooping would look like this: “She will run”  “up the hill.”
• We will continue to meet in reading group. We will practice fluency passages, Superkids decodable books and participate in word work practice. A student’s fluency will improve when reading the same text multiple times.  Keep watching for the book pouches I send home and practice the the books/passages included several times before sending it back.  Thank you for your support at home!
• High Frequency words:  I have introduced: NO, GO, THE, YES, WE, TO, WILL, DO, A, MY, LIKE, AND, HAVE, HAS, HIS, YOU, AT, IT, IF, IN and color words, RED, ORANGE, YELLOW, GREEN, BLUE, PURPLE, WHITE, PINK, BLACK, BROWN, BY, WENT and number words ONE, TWO, THREE, FOUR, FIVE, SIX, SEVEN, EIGHT and NINE, AM, PLAY, WITH, LOVE and FROM, DEAR, OR, FOR. Next week, I will introduce CAN, NOT.
• Journaling: Journaling continues!  Expectations include:  2+ sentences, finger spaces in between words, starting each sentence with a capital letter, correct spelling of word wall words, independent “stretching” of unknown words, generating a topic, and a detailed picture.  PHEW! That’s A LOT! They’re doing GREAT!

Read alouds: The kids enjoyed a week full of Elephant and Piggie stories.  We did a lot of reading and a whole lot of laughing! Be sure to have some of these books in your home library collection! Next week, we will begin our Dr. Seuss unit. Please take a look at my suggestions for Seuss books by clicking the link below.  Some Seuss books can be a bit long and wordy, but I hope the list below will help you pick out some good ones for your child.  The silly characters, the humor, the rhythm and rhyme and use of high frequency words are all reasons why Seuss books are perfect for beginning readers.  Click my recommendations below and be sure to check these out at the library or purchase them for your home book collection!  https://docs.google.com/document/d/1hJLDRjB23sy983xakw33f5NkGEKqhH-k/edit?usp=sharing&ouid=102750389033909029220&rtpof=true&sd=true

Math: We’re still all about addition and subtraction in kindergarten! We will continue modules 11-13.  Addition and subtraction will be our main focus through the end of February. We are a little more than halfway through this workbook. It’s one of the longer ones! 🙂

• Counting to 100 by ones. At home: please practice!
• Counting to 100 by tens (10, 20, 30, 40, 50, 60, 70, 80, 90, 100). At home: please practice!
• Counting to 100 by 5s.  At home: please practice!
• Counting to 20 by 2s. At home: please practice! This has been the hardest one for the kids.
• Acting out and solving  addition problems within 10.
• Acting out and solving subtraction problems within 10.

We will also continue to practice:

• tallying, graphing and sorting!

Religion:  We wrapped up our senses unit with TASTE!  The kids enjoyed a taste test on Friday.  We tried sweet, sour, salty and bitter foods.  We also started Bible stories this week including The Good Samaritan and Jesus Welcomes the Children. We will continue to discuss how Jesus used PARABLES to teach people lessons on love and kindness.  This will take us right up to Lent which begins on March 5 with Ash Wednesday.