November Lunch with the Principal

Yay Hendrix!

He was chosen to have 

"Lunch with the Principal"

for the month of November!

Today we made books and bracelets to help us tell the story of the First Thanksgiving.  Ask your child to tell you the story like our friend does in the video below.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Enjoy a few songs from your little turkeys!

They are coming home with "thankful" crowns they made today.  They are blessed with so much and I'm thankful for all 18 of them and the wonderful families in this class!

Our week at a glance

A look at our learning...

Fundations: we learned the name, sound and correct letter formation for the lowercase x and y.  We will not introduce new letters until after Thanksgiving break.

Please use the following verbal prompts when practicing at home:

x-slant down, slant down

y-slant down, slant dow...n

Shared Reading: we learned a few Thanksgiving poems that featured our new word wall words on and we: Turkey, Turkey and I'm a little Indian. Ask your child to sing these songs to you! We also read the books The Sandwich and We Make Cookies.

 We will not introduce new word wall words until after Thanksgiving break.

Please continue to practice reading and writing our current word wall words with your child next week, especially ones they miss on their weekly test.

Math: check your child's Friday Folder for worksheets to reinforce this week's learning at home.  Book 2 of the "math at home" booklets are also in their folders. These are for you to use and keep at home.  We have also included directions on how your child can access Everyday math games at home on a tablet or computer.  They haven't learned how to do this at school yet, but will begin learning on their next Media Center day (the Monday after Thanksgiving break.) 

playing "roll & record" to help us with
correct number formation

Playing "roll & record" to help us with
correct number formation.

Writing Workshop: 

The steps the children follow
when writing

What a Kindergarten piece of writing
looks like at this point in the year.
"I went to Lazer Lanes."

Makerspace Friday: today we visited Mrs. Fitch in the library for an hour for Makerspace time.  The children were able to explore various STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) activities.  They had a blast and these would make great Christmas ideas!

November Citizen of the Month

Congratulations to Max!

He was chosen, by his classmates, as our

November Citizen of the Month!

We are so proud of you!

Heroes and Grandparents Day

Today was a wonderful day!

I love our school tradition of honoring our veterans, heroes and grandparents on this day each year.

Enjoy the slideshow below and be sure to turn up the sound to enjoy the music

November News

I enjoyed meeting with everyone on Monday at parent-teacher conferences and look forward to more tonight!  I love sharing all the things your wonderful children are learning!  Have a great weekend.  Don't forget, NO SCHOOL tomorrow.

We are excited for Heroes/Grandparent's Day on Monday.
Don't forget to send your child to school in their BEU attire or our school colors of blue and green on this day.  There is an order form in this week's Friday Folder for BEU attire if your child doesn't have any.  We love for everyone to wear their spirit wear every Monday.

A look at our learning...

Fundations: we learned the lowercase letters v and w this week.

v-slant down, slant up

w-slant down, slant up, slant down, slant up

Shared Reading: we read the big book Carlos and his teacher and 3 poems: Turkey, Turkeys  and Jack and Jill to help us learn our new word wall words, and & me.

Next week's spelling words:

we

on

Math: check the Friday Folder for several ways you can extend this week's learning at home.  You can also work on counting to 60 and writing/identifying numbers 0-20.  Those are two of our goals for the end of 2nd trimester in February.  Writing numbers in the teens are always the trickiest, as they tend to write them backwards....61 instead of 16, etc.  

Writing: we are getting better and better at writing sentences to go along with our pictures.

Next week we will be cleaning out our writing folders and sending home the stories we have written so far this year.   You can look at your child's writing and see how their work compares to our goals below.  These were written by some of our Kindergarten friends this year!

Fun things this week...

watching the workers on the playground 

craft for Veteran's Day

Scholastic Book Fair

The Scholastic Book Fair is here!

Yesterday we were able to walk through the book fair in the library and your child made a "wish list" of books they'd love to have. They were SO excited to see all of the books!  Feel free to visit the book fair when you come for parent-teacher conferences this week or any other day during the times listed below.  

Books make GREAT Christmas gifts. 

 I will not be sending home Scholastic Book orders in November due to the book fair 

Wednesday 2:30-5:00 p.m.

Thursday 3:30-7:30 p.m.

Monday (grandparents/heroes day) 8 a.m.-noon

Don't forget, our spelling test is on Thursday this week due to NO SCHOOL on Friday.  Our test will be 10 words long for the remainder of the year.  I randomly choose what 10 words based on which words the children are still having trouble with.  The new words of the week will always be on the test though.

Happy November

A look at our learning this week...

Fundations: we learned the letter name, letter sound and correct letter formation for the following letters:

l-down

h-down, up and over

k-down, slant in, slant out

We have learned 20 out of 26 lowercase letters.  Please continue to look for and reinforce correct letter formation at home when your child is writing.  We want to "write" our letters, not "draw" our letters.  Writing is a natural movement that typically doesn't stop until the letter is finished (some exceptions are t and k because you have to pick up your pencil halfway through).  "Drawing" a letter would be making a circle and then adding a stick when forming the letter a, rather than the natural movement of "over, around, down."

Shared Reading: we read the big book You and I this week and the poems "Red" and      "Y-O-U" to help us practice our new word wall words.  

Next week's new word wall words:

and

me

The test will be on Thursday, due to no school on Friday.

Math: our lessons this week focused on shapes, measurement (longer/shorter) and simple addition verbal story problems using our fingers/manipulatives to help us solve.  Check out the Kindergarten team newsletter and the Friday Folder to see ways you can help with math at home.  

Writing: continuing to work on adding more words to our stories.  I look forward to showing you a piece of their writing from the beginning of the year and one they recently finished!  I'm sure you will be amazed at the growth, I always am!

Enjoy some pictures from math this week.

Making shapes with yarn and using our bodies to measure shortest to longest.