The countdown is on!

                                                              A look at our learning...

Fundations: now that we have finished learning all 26 lowercase letters, we are moving onto reading and writing 3-4 letter words by "tapping them out."  Ask your child to show you how to tap out a word.  Information on this was on the back of last week's Kindergarten Newsletter.  

Please check your child's Friday Folder for the end of unit 1 Fundations assessment and practice any skills needed. 

Shared Reading/Spelling: we read the books I can see shapes and I can see Christmas to practice our new spelling words.  Both books had similar patterns that featured many of our word wall words "I can see the...", so this was great practice monitoring on the known. This week we also worked on looking at the picture as a reading strategy when we come to a word that isn't a word wall word. We learned we can look at the picture AND look at the first letter of the unknown word and this can sometimes help us figure it out!  They did a great job of this with the I can see Christmas book!

We will not learn new spelling words next week, due to the short week.  Spelling words will resume the week of January 8th.  I highly encourage you to spend time practicing their spelling words, reading and writing them, over the winter holiday.  While we want you to enjoy your break, students who do not do any learning during these times, show regression upon the return to school.  It is important that they are still read to/read every day and work on some basic school skills for 10-15 minutes a few days a week. It makes a huge impact!

Writing Workshop: we continue to work on sounding out, or now tapping out, words to help us spell when writing our stories.  This is a continuous theme in Kindergarten writing.  Their words should be more decodable and easier to read now that they know all of their letter sounds.  

Over the past two weeks, I have been conferencing with students about their writing.  I do this daily, but this time we focused on finding things they do really well (praise is so important) and then also discussing things they can improve on.  Each child was given a goal to focus on every day at writing.  Once they have shown they have mastered this goal, their goal will change.  How will we tell they have mastered it?  We will see it improving daily in the stories they independently write.  Please keep in mind that we discussed how no one is perfect and everyone has something to improve on, even adults.  We all have goals to work towards! 

Working hard at Literacy Workstations every day

Math: we began unit 4 this week.  Please check your child's folder for a detailed note about the things they will learn in this unit and how to practice math at home. 

Packmate of the Month: Yay Lilly!  She was chosen, by her peers, as our December Packmate of the Month!  We are so proud of her! 

Family Traditions: We have thoroughly enjoyed hearing about each child's family traditions this week.  The students were so excited to share special things about their family and did an amazing job! Thank you so much for participating in this sweet project. 

We have so many fun thigs planned for our 3 days of school next week!  I hope to see every child at school every day (unless sick) so they don't miss out on the fun and special memories! 

Fun at school and our silly elf Jack!

Letter experts!

 A look at our learning...

Fundations: we have learned all 26 lowercase letters of the alphabet!  Yay!  This means your child should know the name, sound and correct formation of all 26 lowercase letters.  Next week, they will take a Fundations assessment so you can see what letters/sounds/formations they need to work on.  I will send these home in next week's Friday Folder.  

Our final two letters are z and qu.  We learned that "qu" is a "scaredy cat" and can never be alone.  When spelling words, q and u must always be together.  

Please use the following verbal prompts when forming these letters:

z: across, slant down, across

qu: over, around dow....n, curve back (q) down, curve up, down (u)

Shared Reading/Spelling: this week we read the books Go In and Too Little, Too Big to help us practice our new spelling words.  They are discovering they can read more and more books as they are learning more and more new word wall words every week.  When they are finding words in books they know, this is called “monitoring on the known,” which is a HUGE skill to learn! So proud of them!

Next week's new spelling words:

an

can

Writing Workshop: now that we know all 26 letter sounds, students should be applying this knowledge more and more when spelling words and writing stories.  At the beginning of the school year simply drawing pictures was ok, then adding a random string of letters showed they had an awareness of print even if you couldn't read it.  Now, they should be writing words that are legible and using their letter sounds for at least beginning and ending sounds in words.

I was at a birthday party at my house with my mom and dad.

I went to the Mizzou basketball game!

Math: we have finished unit 3 and will begin unit 4 next week.  This week we focused on teen numbers, learned a new game called "Roll & Record" that helps us with identifying numbers and forming them correctly, positional words and learned how to access games in the CPS Portal under the ConnectEd app.  You can access this at home by visiting the CPS website, having your child log-in with their username and password (sent home several weeks ago on a keypad for them to practice) and going to the ConnectED app. They loved it!   

Social Studies/Family Traditions: in your child's Friday Folder is a form for you to fill out about a special family tradition.  A bag is attached for you to send in something that goes along with your family tradition.  This can be a tradition of any kind: Christmas, winter, yearly summer vacation, another holiday your family celebrates, a yearly family baking day, a special family recipe, anything! Please have your child practice what they will be sharing about at home so they are prepared when we share throughout next week. 

Not only does this help us learn more about each other, but ties in nicely to our cultures and traditions Social Studies Unit.

Counselor: this week they focused on thinking of things that make them happy when they are having a tough day, a sad moment, worries, etc.  They also reviewed their breathing techniques learned earlier in the year.  

Craft: check out the beautiful trees we made this week!

Lunch with the Principal: yay Wyatt! He was chosen to have "Lunch with the Principal" for the month of December!  He enjoyed games and lunch with Mr. Foulk and a few other Kindergarten friends. 

A big thank you to everyone who signed up to help with the holiday party!  The sign-up is full and we are ready for some fun on Wednesday, December 20th! Special thanks to one of our room parents, Kayla Hagedorn, for organizing.  

Another special thanks to Krissy Mielke for another cute door decoration!

Fun with friends and elf shenanigans!