Ms. Concannon's Kindergarten: A full week of learning

A look at our learning...

Fundations: we learned the correct name, sound and letter formation for lowercase r and e this week.

Please use the following verbal prompts (and make sure your child is saying these verbal prompts as well) when practicing at home:

r-down, up, curve

e-across, over, around, open

Shared Reading/Spelling: we've enjoyed some Fall and Halloween books and poems over the past couple of weeks. This week, we read the books I see Halloween, A Fall of Colors, Counting Spiders and the poem Pumpkins. They all featured our word wall words a, I and see.

Reading books and poems, such as these, help them learn how to monitor on the known when reading (identify words they know when reading), which is an important part of learning to read! Many of you have shared with me that they are noticing more and more words when reading books at home! This is exactly what monitoring on the known is! So give them a pat on the back when they do this!

Next week's new spelling word:

the

Literacy Workstations: look at how focused our class is during literacy workstations! Every day, they work with a partner and rotate through various literacy workstations. These stations focus on a variety of things: letter names and sounds, practicing correct letter formation, practicing word wall words, writing, reading, rhyming, fine motor and more! While they work with a partner at their stations, I am able to work with students one-on-one or in a small group on literacy skills at my teacher table.

This week we learned two new workstations: Roll & Record and Search & Tally. Both help them practice their word wall words (spelling words). They brought these home throughout the week for you to see. Search & Tally also ties into our math focus this week (tally marks).

Writing Workshop: we are finishing up our study of characters and settings and are learning how to add words, in the form of labels, to our stories. To adults, it might be confusing as to why labeling is important, but it is a stepping stone to writing sentences and stories! First, a child must be able to verbally tell a story (which they can all do), then they must be able to legibly draw a picture to match their verbal story (still working on this) and labeling comes next. The labels help tell the story. Once they are experts at this, we can move onto actual sentences. Even a sentence in Kindergarten is considered a "story." Some students are already writing a sentence and that is great! However, they will still add labels to their picture in addition to their sentence.

Math: in kindergarten, we’ve been learning about tally marks and how they make groups of five when you "close the gate" (aka add the diagonal line). We connected this concept to our number racks by showing the same number in both ways, on the rack and with tallies. We’re also practicing tally marks at our new literacy workstation, Search & Tally, where students look through picture books for word wall words and add a tally each time they find one. Cross-curricular learning at its finest!

At the end of 1st trimester (October 31st), your child should be able to do the following:

*Count by 1's to at least 30

*Recognize numbers 0-10 (out of order)

*Write numbers 0-10 in order

*Identify square, rectangle, triangle and circle

Can your child do these things? If not, they are great things to practice at home.

Lunch with the Principal: yay Bara! She was chosen to have Lunch with the Principal for the month of October! She enjoyed a special lunch with Mrs. Isenogle and these kindergarten friends on Monday!

Science: we are finishing up our unit on living vs. non-living. Over the past few weeks we have learned what living things need to survive (water, food/soil, air, sunlight and possibly shelter), the life cycle of plants (specifically pumpkins) and discussed how things change for plants and animals as we are in Fall heading into Winter. This is always a fun science unit that ties in so well with our field trip to the pumpkin patch!

Health/Handwashing & Germs Lesson: on Tuesday, Nurse Emily visited our classroom for a fun and important lesson on how to keep ourselves and others healthy! She taught us about germs and how they spread, when to wash our hands, and how to use our “cough pocket” (the inside of our elbow) when sneezing or coughing. The students loved seeing the pretend “germs” (a special lotion) glow under a blacklight before and after washing; it was amazing to see how easily germs can hide! We discovered that wrists and fingernails are often the most-missed spots.

Nurse Emily also showed us the proper steps for washing hands to stay healthy:
1️⃣ Wet hands with warm water
2️⃣ One squirt of soap
3️⃣ Scrub for 20 seconds (we sing the ABC song!)
4️⃣ Rinse and dry with a towel

We are continuing to practice proper handwashing and restroom habits at school—including remembering to flush every time! Please help us keep everyone healthy by encouraging your child to flush and wash their hands carefully each time they use the restroom at home, too.

Book Break: our class has read all of the books in the Creepy book series and loves them: Creepy Carrots, Creepy Crayons and Creepy Underwear! This week we did a Book Break and listened to author Aaron Reynolds tell us all about his books, how he decided to become an author and why he writes about creepy things! We also learned how to draw a Creepy Carrot, just like in the book!

Bookbreaks.org is an online resource for schools that connects us with real life authors in real time! Similar to a webinar! We have done two so far this year: Kevin Henkes and Aaron Reynolds! The kids love them and help them see authors as real people and hopefully see themselves as an author!

Friday Craft: we made these cute fire trucks to tie in with our fire truck visit and fire prevention week! Your child should be able to read the sentence to you since it has several of our word wall words in it.

Boo Basket: a “Boo Basket” has been making its way around our school to spread a little Halloween cheer! Our class was so excited to receive one on Thursday filled with fun surprises. After enjoying the treat, we will keep the spirit going by secretly passing the basket along to another class to continue the Halloween fun!

PTA Donut Party: our class won a donut party from PTA for being the class with the most parents/families joining PTA this year! Yay! Thank YOU for being involved in your child's education and helping us win! The kids were SO excited this morning!

PTA Pumpkin Patch: join us for the Beulah Ralph PTA Pumpkin Patch on Sunday, October 26, from 4–6 PM! This free event for our school families includes picking a pumpkin, enjoying a fun craft, and grabbing a tasty snack. Don’t miss it!