Fall Party Fun!

The kiddos have been looking forward to their first school party and today didn't disappoint!  They had a blast!

Thanks to all of the families who sent in supplies or came to help out! Your help is greatly appreciated!

A look at our learning this week...

Fundations: we reviewed lowercase e and r from last week.  We also learned the name, sound and correct letter formation for lowercase p & j. 

Please use the following verbal prompts at home:

p-dow...n, up, around (we go wayyyy down because it's a digger letter)

j-dow...n, curve up, dot

Shared Reading: we read the following books that featured our new word wall word can:

*Pumpkin Life Cycle

*My Dog

*I Can

We also read the poem Halloween.

All of these were added to our book boxes to practice during Read to Self time.  

Next week's new word wall words:

you

an

Daily 5: this week during Daily 5 centers I have been working with kids one-on-one checking their letter id, letter sounds, number id, counting, shape and pattern knowledge, etc. I look forward to sharing this information with you at parent-teacher conferences.

We have a couple new Daily 5 centers.  Ask your child about the following centers:

*word wall word cut & paste

*new sorting activities at pocketchart

*new books at books on cd

Math: we began Unit 3 this week.  Check your child's Friday Folder for an overview of what they will learn during this unit and how you can help at home.  There are several papers this week that your child can do at home for extra practice.  

Writing:  we have added a new step (step 4 on the chart below) to our Super Writers chart.  I am so proud of the kiddos for being fearless writers and trying their best to move beyond just labeling their picture and starting to write sentences.  They are using their letter sound knowledge from Fundations to help them spell the words in their sentences!  They are also using the word wall words they have learned and incorporating those into their stories.  

I also introduced new writing paper this week.  It has a special place for the picture and words.  Right now the kiddos aren't required to use it and can still use blank drawing paper if they prefer.  Once I have modeled the new paper for awhile and feel they are ready I will take away the blank paper.  Ask your kiddo if they have tried the new writing paper yet!

super writers chart

new writing paper

new writing paper

The kiddos looked so cute on Dress-up day!

Have a great 3 day weekend!

I will see the kiddos on Tuesday!

October Lunch with the Principal

Congratulations to Hunter!

He was chosen to have "Lunch with the Principal" 

for the month of October!

Fall Party on Friday

Our fall party will be held in the classroom on Friday from 2:30-3:00.  Thanks to our room parent, Kelsey Cunningham, for arranging all of the fun and to all the parents who are helping out by sending snacks, supplies, etc.  The kids are super excited.  

At Beulah Ralph the students ARE NOT allowed to dress up in their Halloween costumes for the fall party or for Halloween.  Most schools in CPS follow these same procedures.  We will have our fun "Dress-up Day" tomorrow to celebrate excellent reports from the substitute teachers last week when I was unexpectedly absent.  

What's been going on?

A look at our learning this week...

Fundations: we learned the letter name, letter sound and correct letter formation for lowercase e & r.  Please use the following verbal prompts when practicing at home:

e-across, over, around, open

r- down, up, curve

On our weekly spelling test your child receives one point if they spell their name correctly AND form the letters correctly (if we haven't learned the correct formation yet, I do not deduct a point as that isn't fair since it hasn't been taught).  

We have learned the following letters this year: t, b, f, n, m, i, u, c, o, a, g, d, s, e,r

If any of these letters are in your child's name (or our word wall words) please help hold them accountable for correct formation when you practice for the test at home.  

Shared Reading: we read the following books that featured see, our word of the week:

A firefighter, The colors of Fall and I See Halloween.  They now have copies of these books in their book boxes that they practice reading daily during "Read to Self" time.  

Next week's new spelling word:

can

Math: as the end of 1st trimester is drawing near we will be looking for the following things:

*can your child count to at least 30?

*can they identify the basic 2-D shapes? (circle, square, rectangle, hexagon, rhombus, trapezoid, triangle)

*can they create and extend simple patterns? 

*can your child write numbers 0-10 in order and with correct formation?

*how many numbers, 0-31, does your child recognize when shown to them out of order?

These would be great things to work on at home as well.  

Writing: we continue to work on labeling our drawings and saying our words slowly and writing the sounds we hear to spell unknown words.  Next week we will begin to work on adding sentences, in addition to our labels, to our stories.  Simple sentences such as "I went to Cosmo park" or "We went on a field trip to the pumpkin patch."  

Here are a couple examples of some friends in our class who are already writing simple sentences and are a good example of what to expect from your child over the coming weeks.  Notice the detailed picture, labels, neat coloring, best guess spelling and a simple "story"/sentence.

I am playing outside at school.

I opened presents at Christmas.

Friday craft: every Friday we take time out of our day to do a craft.  Crafts are such an important part of Kindergarten.  Not only are they cute, but it helps with fine motor skills, scissor skills, eye-hand coordination, improving focus and attention, listening and following directions and so much more!  

Check out our Frankesteins from today! 

Have a great weekend!

October Citizen of the Month

Congratulations to our TWO Citizen of the Month winners for the month of October.

Baylor was chosen by her peers as our classroom winner.

Joselynn was chosen by Mrs. Fitch, our media specialist, as the Citizen of the Month in specials (art, music, P.E., media)

Congrats to all of our K-1 winners!

Science-The Human Body

Golden Broom Award
Our class won the Golden Broom Award today at the Monday Morning Meeting.  This means the janitors thought our class did the best job of keeping our room clean out of all the K-2 classrooms last week!  We have the beloved "Golden Broom" to hang in our classroom all week!

Science
Today was our last day of our human body science unit with Mrs. Fitch.  The kiddos had to be scientists and figure out what materials they would need to make a cast for a broken arm.  They had four things to think about: comfortable, light, strong and waterproof.  They had so much fun and did a great job!  They brought their launch logs (journals) from this unit home today in their take home folders.

Kindergarten Field Trip & Weekly Update

We had a blast on our field trip to Peach Tree Farms and Cosmo Park!  I think it wore them out and many still seemed a bit sleepy today, teachers included! Thanks to everyone who came on the trip or sent drinks or snacks. 

Check out the slideshow of pictures below.

A look at our learning this week...

Fundations: we didn't have fundations this week due to our daily science lessons with Mrs. Fitch.  Our last day of the science unit is on Monday and we will resume fundations on Tuesday.  Please continue to review the letters we have learned so far (name, sound, letter formation): t, b, f, n, m, i, u, c, o, a, g, d, s.

Shared Reading: we read the big book Setting the Table and the poem Firefighter Song. Both featured our new word wall word, the.  The poem also tied in nicely with Fire Safety Week.  Many of our read alouds at snack time and our morning work activities from 8-8:20 were also centered around Fire Safety Week. 

Next week's new spelling word:

see

Practicing our spelling words

Science: We completed 4 out of 5 lessons on the human body.  Mrs. Fitch, our media specialist, and I teach these lessons together.  They last about 1 1/2-2 hours each morning.  Monday is our last day.  Today we had 30 seconds to put as many legos on a lego board as possible.  Then we did it again, but the second time we taped 3 of their fingers with masking tape.  This was our way to help them kind of see what it would be like if their fingers only had 1 bone in them instead of 3.  They found it much harder to bend their fingers, pick up the legos, etc. this way.  We had great conversations around what they noticed and learned.  Then we charted about scientists.  Everything on the chart is something one of the students shared.  They came up with some great ideas! 

Math: we worked on counting backwards from 10, identifying shapes and adding this week.  Check the Friday Folder for ways to help at home.  

Writing: we are learning how to add labels to help us tell our story.  Check out the "best guess spelling" on the poster with the house. That is totally kid spelling with no help from me!  So proud of how many of them are trying to be fearless spellers!

Skeletons!

Science

Today was our 3rd day of learning about the human body with Mrs. Fitch.  We learned about skeletons and the bones in our hands.  We learned that our thumb has 2 bones and our other fingers have 3 bones for a total of 14 bones in each hand!

We traced our hands on black paper and put together a bone puzzle inside.  Once the puzzle was complete we were able to glue it down.  These will come home soon!

The kids are loving our science time this week and learning so much!

Counselor

Today we had counselor with Mrs. Davison.  We talked about 4 types of feelings: mad, sad, scared and happy.

We read the book F is for Feelings. Mrs. Davison taught us that it is ok to have all types of feelings, but it's how we control our feelings that really matter.