Kindergarten in full swing!

 Every Friday I will update you, via this blog, as to what we have been learning that week.  This is my digital newsletter, rather than sending home paper copies that typically get lost or mis-placed.  This way, you can access the information at any time and any place.  You can also pull up the pictures in this blog to help with conversations with your child about their week.  Twice a month we will send home a Kindergarten team newsletter that will be in paper form inside the Friday Folder.  The first one went home last week.

A look at our learning...

Routines & Expectations: we continue to work on learning routines and expectations at school and in our classroom.  Using this time to practice, reinforce and build a community of learners will set us up for success throughout the school year.  We are learning what it looks and sounds like to be a learner, how to listen with your whole body and not just your ears, how to take turns in conversation and listen to others who are speaking, how to raise our hand if we want to speak and not interrupt others, sharing, turn-taking, friends names, the list is endless!  Kindergarten is hard work! 

Fundations: this is a 30 minute time of daily instruction where we learn our letters, letter sounds, correct letter formation and eventually spelling.  Please see the handout in your child's Friday Folder to read more about this and how you can help reinforce this learning at home.  This week we learned lowercase letter t.  We also learned what sound the letter t makes and the correct letter formation. Ask your child to make the t sound for you.  If it sounds more like "tuh" with the "uh" sound at the end, we want to correct that.  It should be a short t sound, like in the word "top."  

Correct letter formation/handwriting is SO important.  

Please use the following verbal prompts to help your child form their letters correctly: 

t: down, across

Your child SHOULD NOT be going up first when forming this, or any, letters.

They are taught these verbal prompts in the classroom and should be familiar to them.

Fundations parent packets will come home weekly in the Friday Folder on the "keep at home" side of the folder.  These do not need to be returned.  The hope is you will use them at home to support their classroom learning.  The more you reinforce at home what we do at school, the more successful your child will be. 

Handwriting homework will also be coming home in the Friday Folder every week on the "return to school" side.  It will correspond with the letter(s) we learned that week.  This week you will see a worksheet for the letter t.  While this is optional, I highly encourage you to have your child do it.  The more they practice, the better they will get.  Any student who returns the worksheet on Monday will earn a small treat from me.  If they return it later in the week that's amazing as well, but they will only get a treat if it is returned on Monday's (or Tuesday this week due to Labor Day.  Please make sure they use a pencil (not a crayon or maker).  I will post a video on our class Facebook page of what this should look like. 

Math: every week math worksheets will come home in the Friday Folder with ideas and activities for you to extend the learning beyond the classroom based on lessons your child did that week.  I hope you will utilize these each week as well. These are for you to keep and do not need to be returned.  

This week we discussed length, worked on counting, numbers and explored shapes. 

Health & Safety: this week our health unit focused on ways to stay safe at home, school and in our community.  We learned about warning labels, practiced severe weather and fire drills and learned about community helpers.  Check out the cute community helper flip book they made and brought home!

Self-Portraits: we read the books We are all alike, we are all different and All Are Welcome. These books discuss things we all have in common and things that make us unique and special.  We decided it would be a very boring world to live in if we were all the same and our differences make it more fun!  After listening to the stories, the children thought about features that make them special: their curly hair, freckles on their noses, glasses to help them see, etc.  They chose a color of construction paper that they thought best matched their skin color and made a self-portrait.  The self-portraits will hang in our classroom until the end of the year. What a beautiful class we have!

Library Check-out: Tuesday is our library check out day.  We ask that when your child isn't looking at their library book, they keep it in their backpack rather than a nightstand or some other place at home.  This ensures nothing happens to it and they will have it every Tuesday when it is time to get new books. 

If they do not return their books on Tuesday, they will not be able to check out a new one until they are returned. 

Counselor Lessons: this week we had our first counselor lesson with Mrs.Bergeson.  She will visit our classroom every other week.  The counselors teach a 30 minute lesson and focus on important skills such as feelings and how to manage them, friendship skills, social skills and safety.  We have two wonderful counselors at our school, Mrs. Alls and Mrs. Bergeson.  Mrs. Bergeson is the primary counselor for Kindergarten this year. 

Alphabet Fun: yesterday we had a yummy treat to help us practice identifying our letters! Each child was given a bag of alphabet cookies and a "cookie sheet" with the letters printed on it.  They were to take a cookie out of the bag, say it's name, color it on the "cookie sheet" and then they could eat it!  Learning is fun and yummy!

Don't forget...

to send in a family picture, in a frame, for your child's cubby.  No bigger than 4x6 and the frame can't exceed 8 inches in width or it won't fit.  The picture can be vertical or horizontal.  It is so nice to see our family pictures throughout the day!

So much fun and learning in Kindergarten!