Upcoming Events/mark your calendars:
- Fall fest this weekend!
- Monday, September 11: No School
- Friday, September 15: School Assembly
What’s due?
- All handbook agreement pages should be turned in by now.
- Hot lunch orders: don’t forget to submit any hot lunch orders!
- Today your child is coming home with a “house page.” Please cover the house page with pictures, words, stickers that represent your family. What makes your family so sweet? We will be putting these house pages together and then it will become a traveling book. Each child will have a chance to take it home so you can learn a little bit more about our kindergarten families. Please do not use any 3D embellishments as this will be going through the laminator. You will get the house page back at the end of the year, but again, it will be laminated. Also, please make sure you decorate THE SIDE WITH YOUR CHILD’S NAME (so the chimneys are all on the same side when we turn it into a book.
This Week:
- We had a “lockdown drill” on Friday; the kids know their job is to go to their “safe spot” while Mrs. Zontos and I have our jobs to do. They did a good job.
- Centers are going REALLY well. I am very proud of how they’re getting used to the routines, how they’re interacting with each other and using the materials.
Next Week:
- We finished up the reading iReady “diagnostic” and next week we will start the math iReady “diagnostic.”
- New “boom cards” will be posted on Sunday on Seesaw. If you’re having ANY issues with Seesaw, please reach out! Remember, the boom card links are good for 2 weeks, so you have plenty of time to complete. After 2 weeks, the link will become inactive.
Language Arts:
- SuperKids: We are on to O for “Oswald”; we are practicing correct formation of letters, always starting at the top.
- Name writing: the kids are working hard on using one capital letter and the rest lower case.
- Initials: we’ve been talking about our initials and next week we will do a special project with our initials.
- Phonemic awareness: this is about 5-10 minute ORAL practice of phonics skills. For example, we practice repeating rhyming, isolating the beginning sounds in words, counting up words in a sentence, “punching out” the end sounds in words, etc. It’s a short but very important part of our day. Phonemic awareness is a big indicator of reading success.
Math:
We have started GO MATH. During our morning centers, we have a very hands on approach to learning new math skills. Two-three days a week in the afternoon, half the class will complete GO MATH pages in our workbooks at lap desks on the floor while they follow along with me on the smartboard. The other half will be doing their iready math. The two groups then switch. Next week, we will continue to work in CHAPTER 2 of Go Math while also rotating through our hands on math centers.
Chapter 2, Go Math: Comparing numbers to 5
- Tally marks: tallying numbers up 10 remembering to “make a bundle with 5” and “circle groups of ten”.
- Number formation: We will practice forming numbers 1-10 using poems. These poems were sent home this past week. We have been practicing numbers 1-4. Next week we will focus on 5 and 6. We will practice them on whiteboards, on the smartboard, in salt and more.
- Counting to 20: We are practicing counting to 20 and are being extra careful with “13, 14, 15”
- Ten frames: representing numbers 1-10 on a ten frame. We have introduced the “double ten frame” and are starting to show numbers 1-15. We are learning that numbers 11-19 are, ” 1 group of ten with ___ ones left over”
- Comparing numbers 1-5 and naming them as less than, greater than or equal to.
Religion:
We will continue with our “I am special” chapter. We are doing many name games, chants, songs to get to know our friends’ names. We are focused on using our friends’ and teachers’ names instead of “he”, “she” or “teacher”. We illustrated the pocket chart “I am special” song this past week. Next week we will draw a self portrait of ourselves focusing on details–hair color, eye color, clothes, etc. God made each and every one of us special. There is no one in the whole world just like ME!
Our start date for 8am Mass (for the early childhood students) will be Tuesday, September 19th (not the 12th as I previously thought)