It's Fall Ya'll!

A look at our learning...

Fundations: this week we learned the name, sound and correct letter formation for lowercase i and u.  We learned that these two letters are vowels and the other letters we've learned so far are consonants (t, b, f, n, m). 

Please use the following verbal prompts when practicing letter formation at home, especially if your child has these letters in their name:

i-down, dot (the dot should be just that, a dot.  Not a circle or scribble)

u-down, curve up, down (make sure they are going straight back down on the last part of the u.  It should be flush with the other part of the letter and not have a space between or "look like a mountain" between the curved part and down part)

Spelling and Shared Reading:  our new Word Wall Word of the week was the word I.  We learned how I can be a letter or a word.  We learned that when I is by itself it must always be uppercase.  

To help us with our new Word Wall Word we learned the poems I am me & The Colors of Fall.  Both poems featured the word I. 

Writing Workshop: we are learning that writers can tell stories through their pictures.  In Kindergarten we write stories about the things we do in our everyday life.  This means we need to get really good at drawing people.  In Kindergarten we DO NOT draw stick people or spider people (a circle for a head with sticks/lines coming out of it for arms and legs....we don't have arms and legs coming out of our heads in real life, so neither should our drawings).  We are learning to draw people using shapes.  They are doing so well!  The precursor to writing is being able to draw a picture and verbally tell what is happening.  

Ask your child to draw a person for you using shapes, not sticks.  A great thing for them to work on when they are off of school next week! 

Literacy Workstations:  this week we began literacy workstations. Students work at a station with a partner.  Stations mostly include literacy and fine motor skills tasks, but we will also mix in some math stations from time to time.  During this time, I pull students to work one on one or in small groups at my teacher table on more individualized instruction.  

Math: we have begun Unit 2 in math.  This week we learned more about shapes, made and extended patterns, played our fun counting card games Top It and Match It and worked with a 100's chart. The card games came home in last week's Friday Folder with directions.  I encourage you to cut out the playing cards (let your child, this is good practice for them), put each game in a Ziploc bag and play often.  If your child has a desk or special area where they work on school things, keep it there!  These are great games to save and play throughout the year! If you mis-placed yours and need a new set, let me know! 

Health/Hand-washing: learning proper hand-washing in Kindergarten is a big deal.  We want to keep ourselves and our friends healthy and at school. Kids this age often wash too quickly, without scrubbing.  To help everyone stay healthy at school, I encourage you to reinforce proper hand-washing at home.

1) wet hands (soap "doesn't work" unless hands are wet first)

2) ONE squirt of soap.  Scrub hands, with the water turned off so they aren't tempted to wash it off, while singing the ABC song.  Make sure to get all sides of the hands, between fingers and around the wrists

3) wash off with warm water

4) dry

Nurse Emily came in for a hand-washing lesson on Tuesday. This is part of our Disease Prevention/Health Unit.  She brought a bottle of "germs" (lotion) that she had the children rub on their hands.  Next, she used a special tool to shine on their hands so they could see the germs on their hands.  After that, she had each child wash their hands.  Then they came back and she shone the light on their hands again to see how well they did at washing.  We learned that we often miss our wrists, in between our fingers and around our nails.  She also taught us the proper steps of hand-washing mentioned above. 

Another thing I have noticed is we have quite a few friends who put their hands in their mouth/nose.  We are really working on keeping our hands away from our face, using tissues if needed and nothing should be in our mouth except food or water.  This is a hard habit to break and many don't even realize they are doing it.  We share so many things in the room and we really can't have pencils, crayons, hands, anything up near our lips.  

I know it seems silly, but it takes a lot of practice.  I appreciate your help at home. Making sure they flush the toilet after using the bathroom is another big skill we are working on.  😀

Crafts: we celebrated the end of summer and beginning of fall with these beautiful projects and poems coming home today.  The students came up with things we are saying goodbye to in the summer and hello to in the fall.  I wrote the words for them, but the ideas were all theirs on their own!  

Counselor: this week's lesson with Mrs. Alls was about kindness.  She read the book A Wrinkled Heart by Tracy Hoexter.  Find it here if you'd like to listen at home. Students then colored their own, small paper heart.  They discussed unkind things they heard in the book and folded their heart for each unkind thing.  Upon hearing kind things, they tried to unfold their heart, but learned that it still left wrinkles. This is a powerful visual for little ones that shows the effect hurtful words or behaviors have on someone.  This activity is simple and a great reminder to be kind to others. 

"Before you speak, think and be smart. It's hard to fix a wrinkled heart."

This activity came home in their folders on Tuesday. 

Flash's Big Top Circus:  We need MANY more volunteers to help work a quick and easy 30-minute shift at the circus on September 27th. Have your student work the shift with you if needed! Have a high school age student? You can sign them up to work as well! The circus is our schools largest fundraiser and we need all hands on deck! Please sign up here.

Thanks to all of the families who donated an item to our Lego Class Basket for the raffle.  It turned out awesome and one lucky kiddo will be going home with SO many Legos! I can't wait to see who wins! 

Kindergarten Family Picnic: what a  wonderful turnout we had at our Kindergarten Family Picnic!  Thanks to all who attended this yearly BEU tradition!  I saw several phone numbers being exchanged for playdates, etc., which is what this night is all about; building community at your child's school!  I love it!  A special thanks to The Patty Wagon food truck and Kona Ice! Here are a few pictures, but all of them are on our class Facebook Page!  Please join if you haven't!

Fire Drills: these kiddos are becoming experts at fire drills!  We had another one this month.  We have at least one fire drill per month.  

Kindergarten Playground:  we are lucky to have a playground especially for kindergarten and district special education classrooms.  Since it is a smaller playground, we take turns using it.  Our class uses it every Tuesday.  We wrote a grant a couple of years ago for fun toys and yard games to use in the grassy area of this playground and it was funded by our amazing PTA!  Check out the fun below! 

More fun from our week