Week of December 7, 2015

Letter of the Week:  

This week we will be working on the letter Uu. 

Star Word:
like
play

The star word and the letter person worksheet were sent home on Monday in your child's red folder.

 Skills  

Letter that have been introduced so far in Unit 4:
n, h, s, f, v, z, p, e 
Words students should be able to read and write are: 
can, man, men, den, ten, tin, tip, sip, zip, zap, fit, fig, fog, dog, hog, hot, hat, cat, vat, van, did, tag, tad, mad, dad, den, end, fed, get, hem, hen, met, net, peg
We are finishing up Unit 4 this week and we will start Unit 5. Students are working on blending words at a faster rate. You will notice your child writing more words, and beginning to read phrases and matching words to pictures.
We are working on forming the letters in a word very close together. We say, "Letters in a word like to hug" "Words need their space". During morning meeting we take apart words and sentences. We are also working on reading and writing Star Words during our Skills lessons. 

Centers

We will post pictures throughout the week to show you what your child has been working on.

As you start to see some of the games and activities, talk to your child about what they were doing in  each center. 

Writing & Reading

In writing we will continue our Over the Weekend writing. 

In writing, we are focusing on putting spaces between our words this week. Most children are using their fingers to add a "finger space" but it has not been mastered by all children. So we are going to learn ways to add a space between our words (using our finger, popsicle stick or hopping away from our word). We will also be writing sentences as a group at the carpet during morning meeting.

In reading, we are going to continue to practice sounding out 3 and 4 sound words at a quicker pace. We have learned several chunks so far: ch, sh, th, ck, ou, ee, ow. It is important that children quickly recognize these chunks as they are blending words. I've come up with a ton of decodable sentences that have these chunks. We will have a center focusing on reading these sentences and recognizing blends. We will also read authentic text at each child's instructional reading level to focus on: using picture clues, stretching out words from left to right, rereading, and asking ourselves, "Does this make sense?"

As always, reading at home every night is encouraged.
Thank you!

Math  

We are finished with Module 2 in math! We will have our assessment on Tuesday, and Module 3 will start on Wednesday.
In Module 2 your child should be able to recognize 2 dimensional shapes (rectangle, triangle, hexagon, circle, and square (special rectangle). They should also be able to recognize 3 dimensional shapes (cone, cube, cylinder and sphere). All children should also understand the positional terms (above, below, beside, under, over, next to, on...) We had a Shape Fair on Monday with 4 different centers.
As we start Module 3 you will notice your child using the words longer, shorter, and taller. We will compare children to objects around the room, and we will also compare two separate objects. Try using this language at home!

 Farms

So far, the kids learned that a female chicken is a hen, and a male is a rooster. A male cow is a bull and a baby cow is a calf. They also know that a female pig is a sow and a male is a boar. A baby pig is called a piglet. A female sheep is a ewe (pronounced: you) and a male is a ram. A baby sheep is called a lamb. They are also learning about crops. This week we will continue to work on our farming crafts that we will hang in the hall. I will take some pictures so that you can see what we have been working on!

Vocabulary your child will be introduced to: 

crops, harvest, pasture, calf, bull, produce, grazing, hen, rooster, chick, peck, pig, boar, hog, wallow...

We do not expect students to master all of this vocabulary, but it is important that they are exposed to this language. They will now have the prior knowledge that is necessary to gain mastery in future grade levels.

Thank you for visiting our blog!
Have a fantastic week!

Week of November 30, 2015

Letter of the Week:  

This week we will be working on the letter Dd.

Star Word:
do

The star word and the letter person worksheet were sent home on Monday in your child's red folder.

 Skills  

Letter that have been introduced so far in Unit 4:
n, h, s, f, v, z, p, e 
Words students should be able to read and write are: 
can, man, men, den, ten, tin, tip, sip, zip, zap, fit, fig, fog, dog, hog, hot, hat, cat, vat, van, did, tag, tad, mad, dad, den, end, fed, get, hem, hen, met, net, peg

Centers

We will post pictures throughout the week to show you what your child has been working on.

As you start to see some of the games and activities, talk to your child about what they were doing in  each center. 

Centers:

Listening Center: The book called, The Shaggy Dog and the Terrible Itch.

Reading and Writing Center: Mix and Fix with sentences on sentence strips. Students will write the sentence when they are done ordering the words. 

Letter Names and Letter Sounds: Pumpkin sounds and letter sorting (lines and curves) 

Craft

Writing & Reading

In writing we will continue our Over the Weekend writing. 

Our skills program is helping students with their ability to get words on their paper with minimal assistance. 

We are starting a new center called, Mix and Fix which is great for fluency and comprehension. (I will post pictures soon!) Students also write the sentence they fixed which helps them with sentence formation. We are beginning to stress the importance of capital letters, and punctuation marks. Your child will be writing sentences each day and they will be fixing sentences that I write on sentence strips every morning.
Since we have made quite a few books so far this year, we need to start cleaning out our reading boxes. This week we are going to master the books in our boxes and we hope to send all books home by the end of the week, or on Monday. When the books come home, find a space in your home to store the books that your child created.
In reading, we have been working on sounding out words by starting at the beginning (left). To master this, students need to point to the beginning of a word and read each sound from left to right and then blend the sounds. We do a lot of practice with 3 sound words and are slowly working on 4 or more sounds. 

As always, reading at home every night is encouraged.
Thank you!

Math  

We will continue to work on Module 2. Have your child look for solid and flat shapes at home. Try sorting objects in your house. Lately, we have been working on sorting objects and making up a "rule" for our sorting. For example: shapes with curves and no curves, blue shapes and red shapes, flat shapes and solid shapes, points and no points, faces and no faces.... Have your child look for solid figures around the house. We have been making flat and solid shapes with our play dough. In Kindergarten we are expecting students to be able to name the following flat shapes: rectangle, square (aka special rectangle), triangle, circle and hexagon. They should also be able to name the following solid figures: cube, sphere, cylinder and cone. Of course, cone is pretty much mastered by all students!! The rest of the shapes need to be practiced much more because this language is very new for the kids. Any extra practice at home is extremely beneficial.
Along with mastering all of these shapes and being able to describe each shape in detail, we are also working on positional words (above, below, beside, next to, in front of, behind...) We practiced positional words in class by standing in front of, behind, or beside someone else in class. Try asking your child to go infront of, behind, beside, above or below objects in your home. We had a lot of fun with this activity in class today!

We also played a "Guess Who" game... let me explain! We placed solid shapes and flat shapes in a bag and we described what the shape felt like and the students needed to guess what shape we were describing. It's a really great game that also helps with visualizing, which is an important reading strategy!

 Farms

When students are finished with their work throughout the day, they are still able to work on a farming center. Their choices range from: math worksheets, tangrams (making animals), books, coloring pages to reading books about different farm animals. The books and tangrams are most popular with all of the kids!
So far, the kids learned that a female chicken is a hen, and a male is a rooster. A male cow is a bull and a baby cow is a calf. They also know that a female pig is a sow and a male is a boar. A baby pig is called a piglet. This week we will continue to work on our farming crafts that we will hang in the hall. I will take some pictures so that you can see what we have been working on!
This week we will learn about sheep, crops, and read the book called, The Little Red Hen.

Vocabulary your child will be introduced to: 

crops, harvest, pasture, calf, bull, produce, grazing, hen, rooster, chick, peck, pig, boar, hog, wallow...

We do not expect students to master all of this vocabulary, but it is important that they are exposed to this language. They will now have the prior knowledge that is necessary to gain mastery in future grade levels.


Holiday Fair
On Friday, December 4th we will visit the Holiday Fair as a class. Please discuss with your child what you would like them to buy. Luckily, there will be tons of parent volunteers there to help your children shop. If you do not want your child to buy gifts at the fair, that is perfectly fine. We will fully support you in that decision! 

Thank you for visiting our blog!
Have a Dazzling week!

Week of November 16, 2015

Letter of the Week:  

This week we will be working on the letter Ss.

Star Word:
she
said

The star word and the letter person worksheet were sent home on Monday in your child's red folder.

 Skills  

We are now working on Unit 4 in our Skills program. Students are doing really well with blending sounds together to make a word, and we are now learning how to stretch a word to hear all of its sounds. This is a harder skill that will take some time for most students to become comfortable with but they are doing great as a whole group! Every day we sound out 2 & 3 sound words. We are working on sounding out 4 sound words.
Letter that have been introduced so far in Unit 4:
n, h, s, f, v, zWords students should be able to read and write are: 
did, tag, tad, mad, dad, did, dim, it, at, cat, mat, dig, dog, van, fan, sat, sip, fit, fog, hog, not, an, man, can, tan, fin, tin, if, zit, zag, zig, sag, sad, oz, hit, hot

We are also focusing on handwriting during skills. A few days a week we write sentences together as the teachers walk around and make sure all students are bumping the lines, spacing out their words and making the letters close together in a word. The students are loving the sentences and at this point in the year, it is done with a teacher modeling at the board. :)

Centers

We will post pictures throughout the week to show you what your child has been working on.

As you start to see some of the games and activities, talk to your child about what they were doing in  each center. 

Centers for this period:

Listening Center: The book called, The Ugly Duckling

Reading and Writing Center: Making a book for the word, "said"

Game Center: Word/ Letter Hunt 

Graphing: Sorting flat figures by their similar characteristics, tally & graphing "ex. four sides that are straight (rectangles), three sides (triangle)..."

Reading Centers 

Writing & Reading

In writing we will continue our Over the Weekend writing. I will model thinking about what I did over the weekend and putting the sounds I hear onto the paper. There will be different levels of writing occurring in the classroom. Some students will be able to add details to their picture, adding more sounds to a word, adding more words to their sentences and some will now work on adding punctuation to their sentences. Each student is getting what they need by a teacher sitting side-by-side and giving advice as to how they can make their writing even better.
We always start with a positive, "Wow, you really worked hard on..." Then we start to teach a skill, "Great writers also..." we model, "Let me show you..." and then we say, "Now you try...". This is a good way to work with your child at home. This is how we teach our writing/ reading lessons in class, whether it is whole group, small group or 1:1. 

In reading we are continuing to use picture clues to help us with our reading. We will also read quite a few rhyming books to become confident with our ability to rhyme words. We are good with simple rhymes like: cat, mat.. rap, tap... but need to work on words like: switch, twitch...  match, patch... play, May...

Try and find some rhyming books at the library and have your child finish sentences that include rhyming words! When we do this in class, everyone gets a kick out of thinking of a word that rhymes and makes sense in the sentence! We read, Rhyming Dust Bunnies on Monday last week and you should have heard them laughing. They thought the book was hilarious!!

As always, reading at home every night is encouraged.
Thank you!

Math  

This week we will start Unit 2 in our modules. All of the students did really well with numbers to 10. We will continue to practice forming these numbers this week as well as working on shapes.
Your child will have several discussions about shapes this week. Before we "name" a shape, we will describe it. I need all students to understand that a flat shape is a shape that does not have any openings. If a shape is not connected on all sides, then it is not considered a flat shape.
Within the lessons, students will be able to look around the room for each shape and draw the shape on a clipboard as they find it. We might bring this activity into the hallways to make it a little more enjoyable. Students will also make different shapes on their own personal geoboard. We will see if we can make shapes: bigger, smaller, longer, shorter, wider, thinner...
The shapes students will learn (or describe) this week are: rectangles, triangles, circles and hexagons.

 Farms

When students are finished with their work throughout the day, they are able to work on a farming center. They are really loving this new choice. Every child is choosing what they are interested in, and it's also giving me valuable information about their interests. I love to see what children pick when given a choice. Their choices range from: math worksheets, tangrams (making animals), books, coloring pages to reading books about different farm animals.
We have learned about tools on the farm, equipment, the role of the farmer and cows. Students learned that a calf is a baby cow last week. We will be making a cow craft sometime this week.
We will also learn about pigs, and chickens. 

Vocabulary your child will be introduced to: 

crops, harvest, pasture, calf, produce, grazing, calf, bull, hen, rooster, chick, peck...

We do not expect students to master all of this vocabulary, but it is important that they are exposed to this language. They will now have the prior knowledge that is necessary to gain mastery in future grade levels.

Thank you for visiting our blog!
Have a Super week!
:) 

Week of November 9, 2015

Red, White and Blue Day
Tuesday, November 10th, 2015.
Don't forget to wear either: red, white or blue today! 
*We will have an assembly at the end of the day for RWB day.

Veterans Day
No School
Wednesday, November 11th, 2015.

Letter of the Week:  

This week we will be working on the letter Ii

Star Word:
you

The star word and the letter person worksheet will be sent home on Monday in your child's red folder.

 Skills  

On Monday and Tuesday we will complete the last 2 lessons in our skills book. Students are going to continue practicing the 8 sounds that have been taught with this program. All students should now be fluent with the following sounds: a, o, i, m, t, d, g and c. Students will be able to stomp and spell words, play spelling hopscotch, and spell words by holding a sound and manipulating themselves to form a word. Similar to last week, we will also write the new decodable words around the room on a vertical surface, on white boards, on lined paper, with my pocket chart and with the children's individual chaining folder.
We will also play "pass the sound" at each table. All students will need to quickly say the sound that they are holding. This is a game that not only works on recognizing sounds, but also helps with rapid naming which benefits reading fluency.
On Thursday we will start Unit 4. You will see the Skills book (from Unit 3) coming home with "Pausing Points" at the end of the book. You are more than welcome to complete these pages at home. Send in the extra work and I will give students a raffle ticket for every extra page that they complete. We will have a drawing at the end of the month where I will pick a few student to pick out of the prize box if their name is chosen. I will discuss this with students as well. Send in extra work but keep the Skills book at home to see what your child has done over the past few weeks!

Words students should be able to read and write are: 
did, tag, tad, mad, dad, did, dim, it, at, cat, mat, dig, dog...

Centers

When we finish our center rotations, students get to free read for a few minutes before we switch subjects. I LOVE listening to them read or make believe they are reading. A lot of the kids have "Star Word Hunts". They try to find the most amount of star words on one page. 

As you start to see some of the games and activities, talk to your child about what they were doing in  each center. The game that was a hit last week was, "Rapid Naming". We passed around a dice and students needed to quickly name an animal and then pass the dice to a partner. See if you can play similar games like this with your child at home. Start with categories that interest your child and then work up to harder concepts (like farm animals or farm vocabulary) ;) 

We will start our Farm Unit for Listening and Speaking this week. Start to get your child thinking about farm concepts, so that they are able to easily understand new concepts that are being taught. If you're going to the library, pick up some nonfiction farm animal books! 

Centers for this period:

Listening Center: The book called, Smiley Shark

Reading and Writing Center: Sentence cut and paste: "you"

Game Center: Rapid Naming, What says " ___", and Chaining folder

Graphing: Using candy corn

Writing & Reading

In writing we will start our Over the Weekend writing. I will model thinking about what I did over the weekend and putting the sounds I hear onto the paper. There will be different levels of writing occurring in the classroom. Some students will be able to add details to their picture, adding more sounds to a word, adding more words to their sentences and some will now work on adding punctuation to their sentences. Each student is getting what they need by a teacher sitting side-by-side and giving advice as to how they can make their writing even better.
We always start with a positive, "Wow, you really worked hard on..." Then we start to teach a skill, "Great writers also..." we model, "Let me show you..." and then we say, "Now you try...". This is a good way to work with your child at home. This is how we teach our writing/ reading lessons in class, whether it is whole group, small group or 1:1.

We wrote a "Thank You" letter to our Veterans on Monday! 

Below are a few examples, we will glue them onto construction paper on Tuesday!

We love our Veterans!!

In reading we are focusing on picture clues. On Friday we looked at the book called, The Very Lazy Ladybug and we talked about the vocabulary that was being introduced. We used the picture clues to figure out the definition of: ambled, plodded, swung...
The kids had great discussions about the vocabulary. They were studying the pictures to find out the meaning of new vocabulary and also using the pictures to figure out unknown words. We will continue working on picture clues this week.
Students will practice this with their new books in the book boxes. 

As always, reading at home every night is encouraged.
Thank you!

Math  

The kindergarten teachers had a discussion about our math program and the consensus was that "1 more" is the language we want to continue working on with students. After introducing "1 less" it became confusing for some students to become flexible with the language. We are going to work on only using "1 more" this week in class until ALL students are able to verbally explain what 1 more is for all numbers from 0-9.
There were however, some students that were flexible with the language and we will work (during centers) on pushing them to work on "1 less" and "1 more" but we are not making this an "end of module assessment question" until all students are ready. This language will be repeated in other units when all students are developmentally ready for it.

In centers we will work on: 

• writing numbers 0-10 
• pointing to each object (1:1 correspondence) as we count in a: circle, scattered, linear, array and 5-group
• rolling a dice and adding one more
• roll, write, tally (showing numbers in more than one way)

You can also play some of the "1 more" games for extra reinforcement. If they have mastered this,
see if your child can also do "1 less"!

 Farms

We are going to have baskets set up in the room to look through farm animal books & pictures. Animals that have not yet been presented will be in the bins and it will hopefully get the kids thinking and engaging in conversations that are NOT teacher directed! :)
Each day we will have informal conversations about an animal that is found on the farm. All kids will have a chance to come up with questions that they have about the animal we are discussing. Each day we will read books and learn new and interesting facts. 

Vocabulary your child will be introduced to: 

crops, harvest, pasture, calf, produce, grazing

We do not expect students to master all of this vocabulary, but it is important that they are exposed to this language. They will now have the prior knowledge that is necessary to gain mastery in future grade levels.

Thank you for visiting our blog!
Have an Incredible week!!
:)