Friday, January 26, 2018

Brown Bag Breakfast & Weekly Update

We LOVED having you attend our "Brown Bag Breakfast" this morning.  We hope you enjoyed this special time eating and seeing how much your child has grown in their writing skills since the beginning of Kindergarten!


















Puzzle Day fun!
















A look at our learning...
Fundations: we have reviewed the correct letter formation for uppercase letters A-P.  We continue to work on "tapping out" words to help us spell.  I highly encourage you to do the worksheet pages below with your child to reinforce this skill.  They came home last week, this week and will again next week in the Friday Folder.  This explains what "tapping out" means.  We really want them "tapping out" words they don't know how to spell, write or read
Shared Reading: we read the big books I was with, Carlos Goes to School and I had to look.  These books featured our new word wall words, my and was.  They now have their own copies of these books in their book boxes to practice reading during Read to Self time.

Next week's word wall words:
go
so
no (review word)

Daily 5 & Reading Groups: during reading groups, the children are learning many strategies to try when they are reading and come to an unknown word.  Here are the strategies they have learned and I encourage you to use at home when they are reading:
1) Look at the picture (please let them do this and DO NOT cover up the picture.  Early readers make meaning from pictures and this is so important.)
2) Get your mouth ready for the first sound in the word.  So if the tricky word is bike, they should be making the "b" sound.
3) Say the word slowly or tap it out
4) Reread to see what would make sense and to make it sound smooth


Math: we have continued to work on teen numbers 10-19.  We are learning that teens are "10 and some more."  We are using 10 frames to help us understand this concept.  Ask your child questions such as "14 is 10 and how many more?" or "16 is 10 and how many more?", etc.  

Writing: since the beginning of Kindergarten we have worked on narrative writing (true stories about things we do in our everyday life).  Before we switch to a new kind of writing (more about that next week) we have been looking at our writing and setting goals on how to improve it.  Each child is setting a goal, with me, specific to their writing.  Once they master this goal, we will decide on a new goal for them.  We have talked about how it takes lots of practice to master a goal and they won't be setting a new goal for awhile.  Goal setting is quite a "big kid" thing and I think they feel pretty special to be doing this!
Ask your child what their writing goal is!
picture taken before all goals were posted...each child does have a goal

Wednesday, January 24, 2018

Mid-week reminders

A few reminders...
100th day collection items are due by this Friday, January 26th
We need one from each child. 
 A detailed note came home a couple of weeks ago explaining the project. 
The ones that have already come in are so fun!

Donations for our Lego themed silent auction basket are due by February 9th
Check out what we have so far.  We need MANY more items for this. Thanks to those who have already donated.

If your child would like to send a candy gram to a friend (or you to your child) these are due by THIS Friday, January 26th.  This project supports 1st grades service learning project.

Friday, January 19, 2018

Fancy Friday

We sure have some handsome gentleman and beautiful ladies in our classroom!  I love seeing all of the kiddos dressed up fancy today in honor of "Respectful" Week!



I hope you all enjoyed listening to your little readers last night!  They beamed with pride as I read the comments you wrote to them on their reading log!  I hope you enjoy the Tuesday/Thursday reading homework each week!

Next week's word wall words:
was
my

Please make sure you are practicing word wall words nightly.  A few they are still having trouble with and need extra practice: said, can, you, like. Please make sure they aren't writing letters backwards such as b/d and p/q or any letters that change the meaning of the word.

Math
We have been working on numbers in the teens during math.  This is a song that helps us learn these tricky numbers!  Feel free to listen and sing along at home!


Don't forget about the collections going on at school:

*Kindergarten Penny Drive to help the Kindergarten students at Kohfeldt Elementary in Texas purchase new items for their centers and clipboards.  This is Kindergarten's Service Learning Project and we appreciate everyone's support.  We are collecting from now until Spring Break

*Box Tops until the end of February to help us earn a Pizza Party and new playground equipment

*Winter Clothing Drive for the homeless in Columbia.  4th/5th grade Service Learning Club is sponsoring this and the collection ends next Friday

*LEGO silent auction basket.  Please see the detailed note in the Friday Folder.  This is for the upcoming BEU Circus, our schools largest fundraiser

*100th Day of school collection for our classroom.  Due by Friday


Friday, January 12, 2018

91 and counting...

91 days of Kindergarten and counting!  Wow!  The kiddos are anxiously awaiting the 100th day of school!  We will celebrate in our classroom with fun crafts, activities and a dress up day! Check out the Friday Folder for a note with more information about this fun day!

A look at our learning...

Fundations: we continue to learn how to "tap out" words to help us spell, read and write.  Ask your child to "tap out" a simple word, such as hat, fog, sit, etc. to see what this means.
We are also quickly going over correct uppercase letter formation.  We learn 2 letters a day.  This moves much faster than when we learned 2 lowercase letters and practiced them a week at a time.  That is because most Kindergarteners come into school knowing uppercase letters from preschool or daycares and just need a quick refresher.  This week we learned uppercase A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H.

Shared Reading: we read the big books Jack and Lily's Favorite Food. I like and The New Forest Path to help us learn our word wall words like and by.  

Next week's new word wall words:
be
up

Daily 5: ask your child what Daily 5 centers they went to this week.  While they are at centers I am meeting with the kiddos in small reading groups of anywhere from 2-6 kids daily.  On Tuesday, they will begin bringing home their newest book from reading group to read to you!  Look for their book and a detailed note coming home in their Take Home Folders on Tuesday!  

Math: we have started unit 5.  There are several math papers coming home in the Friday Folder this week.  Check them out to reinforce their learning at home!  We also got to work in our new math workbooks for the first time.  In the pictures below we are playing and recording a game called "Roll & Record."  They roll 2 dot dice, add the numbers together and color in the total.  





Writing: we are learning to take our knowledge of "tapping out words" from Fundations and applying it during writing workshop.  We also continue to work on telling more detail in our stories, rather than just writing one sentence.  Check out the Story Hand that each child has in their writing folder.  This helps them tell more details by remembering to write who is in the story, where the story took place, 3 details, and how they felt.  


Counselor:Our counselor lesson this week was about having a positive mindset, which tied in nicely with our word of the week at BEU POSITIVE.  They discussed turning our cant's into cans and most importantly learning that mistakes are okay.  Mistakes show that we are learning.  The photo below shows something they have learned in Kindergarten and something they would still like to learn about.  They talked about how far they have come in Kindergarten because of a positive mindset.  They are doing things now that they couldn't do before! 











Social Studies: this week we learned about Martin Luther King, Jr. and why we celebrate him with a day off of school on Monday.  We learned that he was a KIND, RESPECTFUL, POSITIVE, PROBLEM SOLVER just like we are at Beulah Ralph.  We learned through read alouds and discussion that he changed rules that weren't nice and because of him we can go to school and be friends with all types of people.  We also talked about how it's not what's on the outside that is important, but rather what's on the inside that truly matters.  

Positive Week Celebration-NEON DAY!
What a bright bunch we are!


Tuesday, January 9, 2018

We have a new friend!

We have a new friend!
His name is Diego!
We had such a fun day getting to know him and 
so happy that he is a part of our school family!

Monday, January 8, 2018

Lunch with the Principal and Golden Broom!

Yay Lilly!
She was chosen to have Lunch with the Principal
for the month of January!



Our class won the Golden Broom Award!
This means the custodians thought our class did the best job last week of keeping our room clean!


Friday, January 5, 2018

Happy 2018!

Happy New Year!
While I miss sleeping in and wearing pj's all day, I loved seeing the kiddos again this week!  They did a great job transitioning back into the school routine and hopefully that continues when we have a full 5 day week next week!

A few notes...
*No Friday Folders or behavior checklists this week
*January reading logs are in their take home folders
*New word wall words: like, by
*Please check their take home folder for a few notes

Before winter break our class won the Lego Tub at the Monday Morning Meeting. Our Adventure themed Lego creations are in the display case across from the Media Center until next Friday.  Check them out when you are at school!

Indoor recess fun
Magnatiles
Pipes & Spouts


Bowling
Interlox


Candy Land

Connect Four