November 29

Good Morning! I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving holiday! Can you believe it is almost December? This year is sure flying by.

This week we will be learning about the letters q and u. Remember, q and u always stick like glue and can never be alone! The students always get a kick out of that. We will also be continuing to work in our dalmatian math books. These books help us to reinforce all the number practice we have been done. Remember, since some of our friends work slower than others, if you see work coming home not completed, you need to be completing them at home. This will really help to make sure they realize the importance of working and not talking!

We have been doing a lot of "show me" in math. I will ask a student to show me a certain number of cubes and they have to count that many out. Most of the students are doing well with this until we get into the higher teens. They like to skip around when we get into the higher numbers. This would be a great activity to practice at home.

Dibels testing will be coming up in the next couple of weeks. Students will be tested over how many letters they can say in a minute, the sounds like hear in a word, the beginning sound of words, as well as reading nonsense words. We have been practicing these skills in small group but extra practice at home is always helpful!

Thank you to those who have been reading and returning the orange little readers. Please remember that most of the time it is just me in the classroom and I will not necessarily get to read with each student every day. I try my hardest to return books at least every other night so please be understanding if you do not get a book home each night.

I hope everyone has a great week! If you have any questions, please contact me.

November 15

This week we will be learning about the letters x and v. We will be working especially hard on our handwriting. I am having the students write x and v words using their best handwriting. A lot of the students are struggling with writing in between the lines so I will try to stress that more at school. You can do your part at home by making sure they are using the lines correctly. We use the term "mr. letter man". He teaches us about the lines, he has a head line, tummy line, and foot line and sometimes he is fishing into the water. Students need to make sure their lowercase letters are under the tummy line. I have a lot of students wanting to write above the tummy line. Kindergarten is really the only grade that focuses on handwriting so we need to make sure they soak it all in now! There is a great website, www.handwritingworksheets.com that you can print your own handwriting worksheets off of. Just make sure you are choosing the d'nealian style since that is what they are graded on in my class.

Progress reports will go home on Friday. Please let me know if you have any questions. This time around they were assessed on all 26 capital letter names and sounds. Remember, everyone needs to know all letter names and sounds by the end of December, thats only 1 month away! I will be assessing them on their lower case letter names in December.

The next round of dibels testing is coming up in December. This time your student will need to name letter names as fast as they can, tell the beginning sound of a word, segment a word saying all the letter sounds they hear, as well as read nonsense words such as jin. These are some great things to be practicing at home!

A new homework packet went home on Friday. Please let me know if you did not get one.

The turkey project will be coming home tomorrow. They are all due back to me by next Monday the 22nd. If you get it done early feel free to send it in when it is done! This is such a fun project and I cannot wait to see what everyone comes up with!

The next two weeks will be filled with fun Thanksgiving projects. Make sure you are checking your child's backpack and folder for great things to decorate for the holiday with!

If your student is coming home with work that is not complete, please have your child complete it as part of their homework. We are expected to work at such a fast pace in half day kindergarten that some students are not able to get everything done. This does not mean they shouldn't be finishing it at home! I always tell the students to take it home and finish it so hopefully you are doing your part at home to allow them to finish what they did not get done in class.

I hope everyone has a great week! If you have any questions, please email me.

November 8th

Good Morning! I hope everyone had a great weekend now that the weather is finally cooling down!

This week we will be focusing on the proper way to write the W and words that begin with the /w/ sound. We will also be doing some fun character counts activities since this is character counts week. We are also starting the -ig family. The words that will be on the spelling test are, pig, fig, big, wig, dig. Please make sure you are helping your students sound these words out so everyone can get 100% on their spelling test.

We will also be introducing the sight words "look" and "it". Everyone is doing a great job with their sight words. I hope they have all sung you the sight word chant!

Remember, there is no school this Thursday, November 11th, due to Veteran's Day. This Wednesday, November 10th, PTO is putting on a bingo night. I hope everyone can make it!

In small group, we are focusing on segmenting words. The dibels test is coming up again at the beginning of December and everyone needs to be able to segment a word. For example, if you say "cat", students should be able to sound out the word by saying /c/-/a/-/t/. We have been hoping the words out in class to show them the motions of each sound. Students will have to sound out real words as well as nonsense words such as "foz". With your help at home, I know everyone will do a great job!

Next Monday, 11/15, I will be sending home an at home project for your whole family to work on. Everyone will be getting a turkey to decorate however they would like with whatever they would like. You can use beans, feathers, cereal, markers, glitter, pom poms, crayons, rice etc. Basically anything you want! We will be hanging them up in the classroom for everyone to enjoy. This is always my favorite project of the year since it is so fun to see what each family can come up with.

I hope everyone has a great week! If you have any questions, please email me.

November 1

Can you believe it is already November? The time sure is flying by in kindergarten!

Thank you to everyone who helped at our harvest party. I think everyone had a really great time and hopefully everyone came home full of stories!

This week we will be learning about the letters K and O as well as continuing our -in family. We will also be continuing numbers 0-20. Please make sure you are having your child count orally to 20. I have a lot of students that can count to 14 and then they get all confused. Counting orally is the first step to putting everything in order. Also, please make sure to saying the word teen, a lot of students think they are saying thirty instead of thirteen.

On Thursday, November 4th, we will be having our open house. I hope to see lots of you here. From 5-5:45 there will be a concert, from 5:30 - 7 you can come check out our classroom as well as some class work! From 5:45 - 7:30 there will be a pie and ice cream social. The book fair will also be open this night. This is sure to be a fun time!

We are in need of glue sticks! You would not believe how quickly these students go through glue. If you are able to donate some glue sticks I would appreciate it!

Next Thursday, November 11, there is no school due to Veteran's day.

A new homework packet went home today. Please let me know if you didn't get one. I did have one fall out of a folder and no one wanted to claim it so I know at least one person didn't get their homework!

If you have any questions, please let me know. Have a great week!