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!