Ms. Concannon's Kindergarten: 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 for you to see at the end of the week when complete. In your child's Friday Folder this week are the verbal prompts they learned for all letters. They should be forming all letters correctly from here on out. Please use this to help hold them accountable and practice at home.

Our final two letters are z and qu. We learned that q 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 book They are on to help us practice our new spelling word. 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 word:

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.

Check out a few stories from students this week! They wrote these without any support from me! This is what independent Kindergarten writing should look like at this point in the year.

I saw deer at my house. It was fun.

Me and my family went outside. I rode my bike.

Math: we continued to work on teen numbers, 10 frames and graphing. We also learned about calculators and were able to explore them one day. They thought this was pretty cool, as most are used to only seeing a calculator on a phone and not an actual math tool.

Geography: we continued to learn about maps, compass rose and map keys. They brought home a map they made and many map/geography related activities throughout the week to share with you.

Lunch with the Principal: yay Carter and Arya! They were chosen to have "Lunch with the Principal" for the month of December. Carter was our classroom winner and Arya was chosen by Mrs. Starbuck in art.

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! Check out a few of the traditions below.

If you have not completed this family project, sent home in last week's Friday Folder, please do so by December 18th. This would be a great thing for you to work on this weekend.

Please make sure you have your child practice reading what you wrote on the paper, so they are confident in what to share when they bring it to school.

We have so many fun things planned for 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!

Kimball's family collects nativities from their travels. They have 37 so far!

Laelah always goes to a restaurant on her birthday-her favorite being Texas Roadhouse.

Calvin's family picks out a real Christmas tree and decorates it together every year.

Koda and his dad go to Uprise Bakery for breakfast every Saturday-just the boys!

Class book exchange: a reminder that we are doing a class book exchange on Friday, December 20th and all students need a book to participate. A note was sent home in last week's Friday Folder. Please email me if you mis-placed it and need more information. All books are due no later than Thursday, December 19th. If you have it now, send it on in to school! Just make sure it is wrapped and says who it is from. Leave the "to" part empty.

Winter class party: we still need MANY slots filled to help make the students winter party on Friday a success. If you were unable to help donate items during the Fall party, I hope you will consider donating for this party. Thank you to all who have already signed up to help send in items needed and to Heidi Clements for organizing. Click here to sign up.

More fun from our week