Upcoming Events/Mark your calendars:
- Monday, October 13: No School
- Tuesday, October 14: 8am Mass
- Wednesday, October 15: Dining for Dollars at Portillos, 5-8, in Summit
- Wednesday, October 15: Bring in your favorite apple today! See below.
- Thursday, October 16: Kindergarten field trip to the La Grange Farmer’s Market
Looking Ahead:
- Halloween Day: October is here and that means lots of talk about HALLOWEEN! Here’s what you need to know:
1.) The classroom party will be on Halloween (Friday) in the MORNING, from 10:15-11:15. The sign up genius was sent out by our room parent, Mary’s mom, and we’re all set! Thanks room 108 families, you’re the BEST! Here’s a reminder of what you signed up for: https://www.signupgenius.com/go/10C084AA9A62AA2FFCE9-58831114-halloween#/
2.) Students should wear their Halloween costumes to school.
3.) In the AFTERNOON, students will parade through the “haunted car yard.” This is where parents park their cars, decorate them, and pass out candy to students. Students will collect candy in bags which they will make at the class party earlier that morning. No need to send anything in! Feel free to come and decorate your car (parents can arrive at 12:45) and watch the students parade around!
What’s Due:
- Hot lunch orders: A lot more kids are ordering hot lunch now and they’re loving it! 🙂 Order now!
- Apples: bring in an apple on Wednesday, October 15. See below.
- Virtus training: In order to volunteer in our classroom or go on a field trip, you must be VIRTUS TRAINED: https://stcletusschool.com/volunteering/; Please be sure to get this completed! We’d LOVE to have you in our classroom! 🙂 Please reach out to Ms. Krieger in the office with ANY questions about virtus training: mkrieger@stcletusparish.com . We LOVE volunteers and are happy to help you with any questions. A BIG thanks to all that have gotten these requirements completed. We are so grateful to our volunteers!!
This Week:
The PBIS store opened this week! Students have been working hard to earn “cardinal dollars” for showing respect, responsibility and compassion. This week, they got to purchase items from the PBIS store with all that hard earned money! Great job, kinder-cardinals! Be sure to let your child see how proud you are of the respect, responsibility and compassion he/she has shown here at school!
Next Week:
Next week is our field trip! We will take the bus to the La Grange Farmer’s market and will be there for about an hour. It’s such great first field trip for our little ones! Before going, a representative from the La Grange Farmer’s Market will come to speak with us about what to expect on Thursday. She will visit our classroom the day before the trip, on Wednesday.
Next week, we’re all about APPLES! On Wednesday, October 15th, I am asking each student to bring in his/her favorite color apple. We will sort and graph these apples and we will also have a taste test to decide which ones we like the best. We will end the week with crockpot applesauce on Friday!
Language Arts:
- Fundations: So far, I’ve introduced:
t, top, /t/
b, bat, /b/
f, fun, /f/
n, nut, /n/
m, man, /m/,
i, itch, /i/
u, up, /u/
c, cat, /c/
o, octopus, /o/
a, apple /a/
g, game, /g/
d, dog, /d/
s, snake, /s/
e, Ed, /e/
r, rat, /r/
Next week, I’ll introduce: p, pan, /p/ and j, jug, /j/
Fundations reminders: We are ONLY working on LOWERCASE formation right now in Fundations. Each letter is introduced as “letter-keyword-sound”. Here is what that sounds like and how the students recite it each day: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AYhKyXCs7Ug
During Fundations, formation will be explicitly taught for each lower case letter using the following language: Sky line (top), plane line (dashed), “grass line” (under the plane line) and “worm line” (bottom).
_1.jpg)
- Journal writing: Journal writing continues! Journal writing is still very guided at this point in the school year. Currently students are writing “I see” sentences in their journals, finishing the sentence off with a word from our writing center pocket chart. Students are expected to use lowercase letters, finger spaces in between words, write with a pencil and add a detailed picture above. They’re rockin’ writing time!
- Listening center: Halloween stories will still be out at the listening center.
- b/ds: These letters are always tricky for our early learners. Please note, in fundations, the “d” is formed by starting at the “plane line.” “First you make a c, then you make a d!” It makes it more about muscle memory when you teach it that way and hopefully eliminates that b/d confusion since “b” starts at the “sky line”. Of course, it also just takes a lot of time, practice and patience. Those b and ds sure are TRICKY! 🙂
- Poetry journal: We will illustrate 2 new songs/poems in our poetry journals: “way up high in the apple tree” and “Apples!”
- High frequency words: I have introduced: the, I, we, go, yes, no, will, to, see, like, is. Next week, I will introduce “a”. We will practice reading and writing these words during centers and calendar time.
- Decodable books: Next week, students will visit reading group and we will practice reading another story. Our focus right now in reading group is: Pointing to the title, left to right tracking, marking word wall words and stretching out any unfamiliar words. We will practice segmenting and blending vowel consonant blends such as “od”, “im”, “ag”, etc.
Math:
We finished modules 1-3! These workbooks were sent home with your child and should not be returned. Next week, we will skip ahead to modules 7-9 (we will go back to modules 4-6 right after) which is all about representing numbers 6-10.
- Teen numbers: We are practicing reading and writing our tricky teen numbers.
- Counting to 40. We are now practicing counting to 40. At home, please practice counting to 40 (or beyond)! The goal by the end of kindergarten is to count to 100 (or beyond)!
- Greater than/less than: Students will continue to compare numbers using the < > = symbols. Students will then have to practice READING those number sentences, using the words ‘greater than,’ ‘less than,’ or ‘equal to.’
- One more/one less: students will practice naming “1 more” and “1 less” for numbers within 10.
- Graphing: Students will complete apple graphs.
Religion
- We will continue to attend 8am Mass each Tuesday. Remember, doors open 5 minutes early, at 7:45.
- The next several weeks during religion time are all about how God is with us no matter what we’re feeling–happy, scared, sad, angry. Along with our “I am Special” book, we will also incorporate our “Second Step Program.” This is our social emotional learning curriculum that teaches social emotional skills to students. It teaches students how to manage emotions, improve listening and attention skills, develop empathy and emotion management, and foster positive social skills like getting along with others and solving problems.