Thank you!

 Thank you so much for taking time this week to meet with me during parent-teacher conferences.  I love sharing how far they've come since the beginning of the year and ways we can work together to help them progress over the next trimester.  Although it's quick, it's so nice to sit down and talk with you.  Thank you for sharing your special children with me this school year.

A look at our learning...

Fundations: this week we learned the name, sound and correct letter formation for lowercase v and w.  They are "slant down" letters.  The "slant down" can be a bit tricky for kids.  When practicing at home this weekend, watch and see if they are slanting down the correct way.

Please use the following verbal prompts for correct formation:

v-slant down, slant up

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

Literacy Workstations: we are now going to two literacy workstations a day.  During this time, children work in partnerships at various literacy (and a couple of math) stations.  While they are working, I am working one on one or with small groups of children at my "teacher table" on literacy skills such as letters, sounds, handwriting and reading.  

Ask your child what literacy workstations they went to this week!  We have some new ones!

Writing Workshop: we are working hard on learning how to sound out or stretch out words to help us spell.  In Kindergarten, phonetic spelling is what we mostly want to see.  We will begin learning sight words next week (I call them word wall words) and those words are expected to be spelled correctly at all times.  If it isn't a sight word, then sounding it out is developmentally appropriate.  

To help with this at home, when your child asks "how do I spell...?" please encourage them to "sound it out or stretch it out and write the sounds they hear."  They may ask "did I spell it right?" when finished.  Please try and refrain from telling them no, as this will discourage them and make them afraid to try.  They will start to think everything they do is wrong.  I just say "did you write the sounds you hear? Great! Looks good to me!"  especially if it is close.  At this point in the year, we are hoping for beginning and ending sounds.  So for "house" they may write "hs." If they get a middle sound in there too, great!  

Math: we worked on more counting/sorting/graphing, rote counting (working towards 60 as our next goal), measurement (specifically longer/shorter) and learning how to correctly form numbers 0-4.  Next week we will work on number formation for 5-9 and be finished.  Once they can write 0-9, they can write any number!  We just briefly introduce correct number formation.  In Kindergarten, learning how to form our letters correctly is our main focus.  It is still developmentally appropriate if they are writing numbers backwards and not something we really stress over.  

Turkey's in disguise: the kiddos have loved sharing their "turkeys in disguise" family project this week!  Check out the ones that have been brought in!  So creative!  These are due next Friday, November 19th.  The long weekend would be a great time to do this!   Don't forget to send in the writing sheet that goes with it.  

What beautiful Fall weather we had this week!