Learning Lately

A big thank you to each and every one of you for attending Parent-Teacher Conferences.  Although it makes for a very long couple of days and our time is very short, I truly enjoy speaking with all of you and sharing your child's successes!  

They have come so far in a short amount of time!

Also, a big thank you to our phenomenal PTA who provided delicious dinners for us each night.  It is appreciated more than you know!  

If you aren't a member of PTA, I encourage you to join!

Kindergarten won the attendance award this week!  Way to go!

This means they earn an extra recess, but we decided to take it during this upcoming week since the playground was covered with snow and ice much of this past week.

Our class also won the Lego Tub!  We will be working on creations to display in the display case across from the tech lab.

Heroes Day

A reminder that Monday is BEU's annual Heroes Day celebration.  This is a day we encourage every child to have either a grandparent or another special "hero" in their life come to school.  We will have a short assembly in the gym featuring our Timbertonix choir and Miss Missouri.  Guests will then be able to visit classrooms and the Scholastic Book Fair. The K-2 assembly begins at 9:00 in the gym and guests can visit the classroom afterwards from 9:30-10:00.  Guests can take their child to the Book Fair during the 9:30-10:00 time if they wish.  We ask that when guests leave at 10:00, students remain at school.  I hope that every child will have a grandparent or special guest attend.  If your child will not have a guest attend, please email to let me know so I can help prepare them.  It can be tough on little ones if they don't know ahead of time.  

Zipping Coats

Now is the time to start practicing zipping coats.  I will always help the kiddos, but I tell them I must see them try first.  In Kindergarten, it is our goal that all children will be able to zip and button their coats on their own by the end of the school year.  I know it takes longer at home if you allow them them to do it on their own, but it is an important skill to learn.  Thanks in advance for your help and practice at home!

A look at our learning this week...

Fundations: we learned the letter name, sound and correct formation for lowercase x and y.

Please use the following verbal prompts:

x: slant down, slant backwards

y: slant down, slant baaaaackkkkwards (we stretch it out to the "worm line")

Shared Reading: we read the poem "Love is..." and the big books I love the Earth and For mom to help us practice our new word wall words love and mom. 

We continue to focus on monitoring on a known word when reading.  This means when we are reading we should be pointing to the words and making sure the word we are saying is the word we are pointing to on the page, especially when it is a known word wall word. 

Below, the students are reading these books and finding/highlighting their known words to help them when pointing and reading. 

Daily 5: we learned a new center this week called "Sight Word Center."  At this center students practice writing their word wall words with different writing tools: pencils, crayons, markers and highlighters.  

While the students are working at Daily 5 centers I am working one on one or in small groups with children on skills or reading.  Some groups are working on learning all of their letter names/sounds, some groups work on correct letter formation, some groups work on rhyming, some are reading in books, etc.  If we talked at conferences about an area they are a bit behind in, that is probably the skill they are working on with me during this time. 

 Math: this week we worked on representing numbers in different ways (tallies, fingers, drawing objects, etc.), a fun "Spin the number" game, putting numbers 0-10 in order and are finishing up learning how to form the numbers 0-10.  While we don't stress correct number formation in Kindergarten like we do letter formation, we do touch on it a bit.  

Writing Workshop: my favorite part of parent-teacher conferences is showing you how far they have come in writing this year.  We write personal narratives in Kindergarten because the kiddos are experts on themselves and the things they do!  It is easiest to write about things you know.  We started the year learning how to draw: people, objects, backgrounds, etc. Then we moved onto labeling our picture to tell a story.  Now we are writing a sentence to go with our picture and labels!  At this point in the year a sentence is a "story."  I am so proud of how far they have come!  

Please continue to encourage your child to "sounds out" words when they are writing a story.  The only words I expect to be spelled correctly are word wall words.