Weekly update

What a GREAT Halloween party today!  Thank you to our room parent coordinators, Jackie Seymour and Mara Thomas, for their leadership and the MANY families who came to help out. The kids had a blast! I will post more pictures from today once I get them uploaded.

A look at our week...

Fundations: we learned the letters l, h, k

Shared Reading-our new word wall word was can.  We read the books My Dog and I See Halloween to help us with our word wall words.  Please check your child's backpack for their weekly spelling test AND our most up to date word wall list to help you practice at home.  

Next week we will NOT learn a new word.  We will be incorporating a science unit on bones and muscles into our Shared Reading time; therefore reading books about those subjects.  We will pick back up with a new spelling word in a week or two.  Keep reviewing the old ones in the meantime!

Daily 5-ask your child what Daily 5 activities they worked on this wee.  They are especially loving MyOn and Osmo center.

Math-the children are doing great at creating, extending and copying patterns.  We will wrap up our pattern unit next week in a fun way!  Craig Adams, who is in charge of the CPS STEAM bus, is coming out to team teach with myself and Mrs. Fitch on Thursday.  We are going to use Ozobots (Google them to find out more) to help us work with patterns.  This is a STEM activity (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math).  I will post photos and videos after we are finished.  

Writing-ask your child how they can use two of their fingers as a word spacer between words when they write! We have been practicing this at school this past week and continuing to sound out words to help us spell (this will be on-going).  

Have a fun and safe Halloween!  Remember, NO SCHOOL on Monday.  It is a teacher workday to prepare for parent teacher conferences.  We will be working on report cards that day.  

*Please have your child turn in their October reading log on Tuesday.  November's are in their Friday Folder.  

Weekly update

What a GREAT Halloween party today!  Thank you to our room parent coordinators, Jackie Seymour and Mara Thomas, for their leadership and the MANY families who came to help out. The kids had a blast! I will post more pictures from today once I get them uploaded.

A look at our week...

Fundations: we learned the letters l, h, k

Shared Reading-our new word wall word was can.  We read the books My Dog and I See Halloween to help us with our word wall words.  Please check your child's backpack for their weekly spelling test AND our most up to date word wall list to help you practice at home.  

Next week we will NOT learn a new word.  We will be incorporating a science unit on bones and muscles into our Shared Reading time; therefore reading books about those subjects.  We will pick back up with a new spelling word in a week or two.  Keep reviewing the old ones in the meantime!

Daily 5-ask your child what Daily 5 activities they worked on this wee.  They are especially loving MyOn and Osmo center.

Math-the children are doing great at creating, extending and copying patterns.  We will wrap up our pattern unit next week in a fun way!  Craig Adams, who is in charge of the CPS STEAM bus, is coming out to team teach with myself and Mrs. Fitch on Thursday.  We are going to use Ozobots (Google them to find out more) to help us work with patterns.  This is a STEM activity (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math).  I will post photos and videos after we are finished.  

Writing-ask your child how they can use two of their fingers as a word spacer between words when they write! We have been practicing this at school this past week and continuing to sound out words to help us spell (this will be on-going).  

Have a fun and safe Halloween!  Remember, NO SCHOOL on Monday.  It is a teacher workday to prepare for parent teacher conferences.  We will be working on report cards that day.  

October Citizen of the Month Awards

Congratulations to Kenzi, who was chosen by her classmates as October Citizen of the Month. Congratulations to Max for being chosen by Mrs. Fitch as the Specialists Citizen of the Month.  We are very proud of them for being Kind, Respectful, Responsible, Positive, Problem Solvers at Beulah Ralph Elementary! 

October Lunch with the Principal

Congrats to Madison Mills for being chosen to have lunch with Dr. Majerus for the month of October.  Every month, one child from each classroom is chosen for this fun event!  She enjoyed lunch with him and friends from other Kindergarten rooms on Friday.  

Weekly catch up

Wow, this week flew by!  Especially with early release on Wednesday and me being absent tomorrow for a trip to Chicago.  My husband went to college and played football for Northwestern University, so we will be attending homecoming there this weekend.  I have a sweet group of kiddos and know they will do a great job for their substitute teacher tomorrow!

A big THANK YOU to everyone who donated food and books for "Make a Difference Week" this week.  The sweetest comment came from one student who said "I don't have a book to bring, but I'm making one on my own so that kids who don't have books like I do can have one."  Melt my heart! That is what this week is truly all about and shows how even the littlest of people can help this world be a better place!

Thank you for also donating skinny markers and more crayons to our classroom.  They are greatly appreciated by me and the kiddos!

A look at our week...

Fundations-we learned the letter name, letter sound and correct letter formation for lowercase p & j. The weekly packets are in the Friday Folder for extra reinforcement at home.

Shared Reading-we learned the tricky word "the" and read the book We See Halloween to help us. We will continue to work on "the" next week, but also add the word "can" to our word wall.  Your child's spelling test came home today; please help them practice any words they missed so they will be prepared for the weekly test next Friday.

Daily 5-we added a few new centers to our Daily 5 choices.  Ask your child about using MyOn reader on their ipads and computers.  They can access MyOn at home as well by going to www.myon.com  It's a great reading website! Their login is 29, followed by the 3 initials of their name, and 01.  So if I was a child mine would be 29dlc01.  Their password is their student ID number that they use all of the time. They should know their log-on but if they are having trouble just let me know and I can send it home for you.  We also added Osmo's as a center.  Ask your child about the Osmo's or feel free to Google them, they are super cool and we have 6 of them in our classroom!

Math-we are learning patterns, counting and numbers 0-10.  We will continue this next week as well.

Writing-we are continuing to work on adding words to our stories by saying words slowly and writing the sounds we hear to spell unknown words.  The more letter sounds we learn during Fundations time, the easier this will become!  Ask your child what they wrote about this week!

Your child's Friday Folder is full of papers that need to be filled out and returned as soon as possible next week.  One of the items is a Bookworms Club (if interested; it is optional) that Mrs. Croom and I are sponsoring for Kindergarteners.  We are so excited!  Check it out!  

Pumpkin Patch and a week of fun!

What a fun, busy week we have had!  We have been learning about Fire Prevention Week and loved our visit on Wednesday from the Columbia Fire Department.  See the pictures in the blog post from earlier in the week.  We had a blast at Peach Tree Farms on Thursday and loved having so many of you come and have fun with us!  Thanks for your help! 

Click this link https://flipagram.com/f/xP5yIzYLti  and check out the darling slideshow (turn up your volume) that Kasey Laughlin made for us.Thanks Kasey for taking so many wonderful pictures! 

We met our first Class Dojo point goal and had a pajama party on Friday.  They look so cute and cozy in their jammies!

We enjoyed doing ST math in our pj's as well

On Wednesday we had another counselor lesson with Ms .Harris. She visits every other Wednesday for 30 minutes. She read us a book about Howard B. Wigglebottom.  Howard taught us about bullies, how to handle them and how to NOT become a bully.  Check out more Howard B. Wigglebottom stories and character lessons at https://wedolisten.org/

An overview of our learning this past week:

Fundations-letter e, r.  Check your Friday Folder on more ways to help with Fundations at home. 

Shared Reading-We read the big book A Firefighter and the poem Halloween.  Both featured our new word wall word, see.  We also took our first spelling test on Friday!  Check your child's take home folder to see how they did.  Please help them practice ones that they missed as they are expected to spell/read/write all of them correctly.  Every Friday we will have a spelling test over the new word of the week.  Next week's new word is the.  Every Friday your child will bring home their word wall list that has all of their words on it...this will help you practice at home.  Every Monday they get a new word wall list to keep in their book box with the new word added to it and they read it daily at Read to Self time.  

Daily 5/Read to Self- Ask your child what Daily 5 centers they went to this week.  Ask them what they read during Read to Self  time.  Ask them what day they get to shop for new wish books at Read to Self time. .

Math-we continued to learn about numbers 0-10.  We are also practicing counting to 30.  Next week we will continue to work on numbers, but also learn about patterns. 

Writing-ask your child about the new writing paper we use at writing time.  We have moved from blank paper to special paper with a place for our name/date, picture and lines to write our story on.  Check out our Good Writers chart that helps us with this new paper.

Enjoy your weekend!  Take some time to read to your little one and play outside!

Fire Prevention Week

We are celebrating Fire Prevention Week in Kindergarten. Every day we have done some sort of activity or heard a story about fire safety.  Today the Columbia Fire Department came to visit. We were able to learn about and walk through the fire truck.  We were also able to learn about their special turnout gear and help them put it on.  So much fun!
The firefighters have a special homework assignment for you at home!  Most of the kiddos answered "NO" when asked if their family has a meeting place outside of their house if there is a fire or if they practice fire drills at home.  We practice at school and the kids know their meeting place here; please discuss and practice these things at home as well.