January Citizen of the Month

 A look at our learning over the past two weeks...

Fundations: we have begun Unit 3, which will mainly focus on learning to "tap out" 3-4 letter words quickly when reading and writing.  We will also begin learning "trick words."  Trick words are words that can't be "tapped out" and are words we have to "just know" or memorize.  They are important words as they are ones that will show up often in books as they are becoming readers.  In your Fundations parent pack are "trick word" flash cards.  I encourage you to cut these out and place in a baggie to practice often.  I have included these words in our spelling words for the rest of the year.  Meaning, when it is the week in Fundations for us to learn a particular "trick word," I will make sure it is also one of our new spelling words this week.  That way you aren't practicing additional words.  That being said, you do not have to wait until that week to start practicing the other words with your child!  The more you practice, the better they get! 

Please check your child's Take Home Folder for their end of Unit 2 assessment to see what areas they did well on and if there are any areas you may need to practice at home.

                                                       

Shared Reading: we read the big books Too little, Too big and Go In.  Both books featured our new spelling words of the week.  They were able to add small copies of these books to their book boxes to practice reading during Read to Self time.

Below, they are highlighting spelling words they notice in the book.  Noticing "known words" in text is an important skill when reading. 

Next week's new spelling words:

an

can

Daily 5 workstations: we have several new workstations that focus on "tapping out" 3-4 letter words.  This ties into our Fundations lessons and is more practice to help us become better readers and writers.  Pocketchart is one of these new workstations. Check out how hard these girls worked to "tap out," read and match every word with it's picture!  

Writing Workshop: after a couple of weeks of really learning what an opinion is through stories, fact vs. opinion sorts and verbally sharing our opinions and supporting reasons why, we began writing opinion pieces over the past two weeks.  

We are starting with papers that begin the sentence for us and we fill in our opinion and reason's why.  As you can see below, this writing assignment was "The best pet and why."  As we get better with this we will move to writing every word by ourselves without a sentence starter. Really working on "tapping out" words, like mentioned at Fundations, and practicing and knowing their spelling words will help them be more successful as writers.  They all tie in together. 

We also continue to work on putting spaces between our words so it is easy to read.  This week I taught them about the "two finger word space."  They simply hold up two fingers and after they write a word, they put their two fingers on the paper to leave a proper amount of space between the word they just wrote and the next one. 

Ask your child to show you how to do a two finger word space. 

Math: we are beginning Unit 5 in math.  Please check your child's Friday Folder for what we will learn in the upcoming unit and how you can support their learning at home. 

A few things to see if your child can do:

*Count to at least 60 by 1's and 10's

*Identify the following shapes: circle, square, triangle, rectangle, trapezoid, hexagon, rhombus

*Identify at least 15 numbers from 0-20

*Count backwards from 10

*Write their numbers to at least 15

All of those will be items assessed and reported on for the 2nd trimester report cards in 3-4 weeks.  We practice at school, but if you notice your child can't do these things, extra practice is encouraged at home. 

Science: we had a super fun day in Kindergarten on Thursday!  We spent the entire day rotating through all six Kindergarten classrooms going to science stations for our "Force and Motion: Pushes and Pulls" unit.  

Some key things your child learned about:

*Force

*Motion

*Pushes

*Pulls

*Friction

*Gravity

Ask your child to tell you about what they did/learned in each classroom that day!  You can use the pictures below and on our class Facebook page to guide their conversation. We don't have pictures from every classroom, but they still should be able to tell you about it. We have a lot of pictures, so I will post a few here and the rest on Facebook. 

Friday Craft: the kiddos have been obsessed with SNOW lately, so we read several books about snow and made a craft that shared what we love to do in the winter. A few books we read: Winter is Here by Kevin Henkes, Snow by Cynthia Rylant and Snow Day! by Lester L. Laminack.

January Citizen of the Month: yay Jenna!  She was chosen, by her peers, as our January Citizen of the Month!

Weekly Update

 A look at our learning...

Fundations: We finished our letter formation review for all uppercase letters this week.  Your child has now learned how to form ALL uppercase and lowercase letters correctly.  While I do see them forming their letters correctly, for the most part, when we explicitly work on it during Fundations time, I do notice many struggling to carry the correct formation over into their daily writing.  I continue to encourage you to hold them accountable for forming their letters neatly and correctly at all times.  The more we perfect it now, the more successful they will be as writers as they go to first grade and beyond.  

Don't know where to start to hold them accountable for their learning? Their name is a great place to start!  Do they rush and just slop their name down on paper?  If so, have them erase and tell them to slow down and form their letters correctly.  Then expand beyond that. 

Please refer to the Fundations parent packet in the Friday Folder.  I encourage you to use the ideas for handwriting and tapping out words at home throughout the week.

Shared Reading: This week we read the books Up & Down and I See Animals.  Both texts featured our new word wall words, up and see.  Today they brought home a worksheet that went with the book I See Animals.  Ask them to read the sentences on the paper to you.  Make sure they are pointing to the words when they read. 

Spelling Words:  We are now up to 8 known words!  We are becoming better readers and writers as our spelling word knowledge increases.  That being said, the tests this week were a bit rough with many incorrect spellings.  I encourage you to practice our spelling words nightly with your child.  They need practice writing them and reading them.  As mentioned before, flash cards are a great way to practice reading them.  You don't need to buy fancy pre-made flash cards, simply write the words on index cards, post it note's, whatever!  Put them in a bag on their nightstand and practice before bed or keep a bag in the car and practice while going places or at appointments.  2-5 minutes each night and you're finished!

It is also important to practice writing them.  Write them with pencils, markers, chalk, whatever!  Keep in mind what I mentioned in the Fundations section though, please also focus on writing neatly. 

Please check your child's Take Home Folder for their test so you can see what words they need help with. 

Next week's spelling words:

if

in

it

Due to NO SCHOOL on this coming Monday, next Friday and the following Monday and Tuesday we will introduce the 3 new words above on this Tuesday, January 18th, but the test will not be until Friday, January 28th.  This will give them ample time to practice and freshen up on the older words as mentioned above. 

In the pictures below they are working on one of our new literacy workstations, Search & Tally.  At this station they search in books for the listed spelling words and when they find a word they mark a tally.  Easy to do at home as well when these papers come home in their folders.

Writing Workshop:  This week we started a new unit of writing: opinion writing.  We mostly discussed what an opinion is, read books and shared our opinions in regards to those books.  We also discussed the difference between a fact and an opinion. 

We read the book Not Norman: A Goldfish Story and shared our opinion on the best type of pet.  We also read Too Many Toys! and discussed if we agreed with the mom's opinion that her child had too many toys or the child's opinion that he did not have enough toys. 

On Friday, we did our first writing activity with opinion writing.  We read the super fun book Duck! Rabbit!. If you haven't heard of this book, ask your child to tell you about it!  Next, we discussed and charted why one character in the book thought the animal was a duck and why the other character thought it was a rabbit.  After that, each child shared their opinion on if they thought the animal was a duck or a rabbit and wrote three reasons why.  Last, we made a craft to match out opinion.  The craft and writing piece came home in your child's Take Home Folder today.  Check it out!

Math: we worked on counting by 10's (can your child do this to 100? ask them to show you; it's an end of Kindergarten goal), number identification and counting.  In your child's Take Home Folder is another Top-It game for you to cut out, keep and play at home.  They have played this game at school with number cards as well. 

Friday Craft: today we read and learned about Martin Luther King Jr. to help the students understand why we have school off on Monday.  We learned he was a kind man who helped change unfair and unkind laws.  We did a directed drawing of him for our craft.  We did not have time to color them, but I told the kids they could at home.  Check them out in their folders, they did a beautiful job!

  

Library day is one of our favorite days!

It will be library day when we return on Tuesday!  Make sure they have their books!

Thank you!

If you happened to be a part of the group that went around school with kind words and words of encouragement like this, THANK YOU!  It was so nice for our staff to see as we walked into school this morning.

To say teaching during Covid has been a challenge, is an understatement.  Since returning from winter break things have been especially challenging due to so many illnesses, staff and sub shortages and many other things.  Your kindness through these chalk messages, emails, notes, etc. does not go unnoticed and is appreciated more than you know.  So again, thank you.  In a time full of challenges, it's wonderful to see the good in so many people as well. 

Welcome back!

 Welcome back!

I hope you had an enjoyable winter break and holiday season with your family!

A look at our learning this week...

Fundations: as we have returned from winter break, I really noticed the students struggling with "tapping out" 3 letter words and blending them together to say the word.  To help support their learning in the classroom, I really encourage you to refer to the parent handout this weekend and throughout next week and practice at home.  Make it a nightly routine to do the activities.  Should only take 5 minutes or so.  Learning how to tap out words is fundamental in helping them learn how to read and write.  Hopefully with some extra reinforcement at home, we can get back in the groove. 

Shared Reading: this week we read the big book What I like.  We worked on pointing to words when we read, quickly identifying and reading any word wall words that are in the book and looking at the picture to help us solve unknown words.  Each child added a copy of this book to their book box to read during "Read to Self" time.  

I mention "Shared Reading" every week, so you may be wondering what it is. "Shared Reading is an interactive reading experience that occurs when students join in or share the reading of a book or text while guided and supported by the teacher.  The teacher explicitly models the skills of proficient readers, including reading with fluency and expression." (source: Reading Rockets)

A big book is an enlarged book that all students can see.  We work on the same 1 or 2 big books all week and once the students are "experts" at reading the book, they get a smaller copy to keep in their book box to read independently.  

In the pictures below, students are highlighting word wall words in their smaller copies of our big book mentioned above. 

Spelling words: beginning next week, we will learn TWO new spelling words a week, rather than one.  Please make sure you are practicing with your child daily.  Reading and writing the words.  I will begin posting the new words every Friday in the blog in case you want to get a head start with practicing over the weekend.  The words will still be introduced to the students on Monday's. Every Friday, the most up to date word wall list comes home in their Take Home Folder. 

Next week's new spelling words:

see

up

Writing Workshop: this week we worked on a special writing activity called "Winter Break in a snap." Each day we had a share time where we shared about our winter break and recorded our sharing on this paper.  You will see it in your child's take home folder tonight!

Next week, we will switch from writing personal narratives (stories about our lives) to opinion writing.  

Math: this week we worked on being flexible thinkers by making shapes in multiple ways and making numbers in multiple ways.  On Wednesday and Thursday they brought home the work that they did in their take home folders.  We are also learning about weight and capacity. Check your child's Friday Folder for ways to extend their math learning at home. 

Friday Craft: today we read the book Snowmen at work and made our own snowmen!  The kids are ready to experience their first snow day!  

We have a new friend!  Her name is Lilly!  We enjoyed getting to know her this week!