Dear Parents and Friends,
It’s going to be another great week in kindergarten! Nothing out of the ordinary for this week but next week we have a lot of special events planned. Next week on Tuesday, February 11th we will be celebrating our 100th day of school! We will be sending a sign up sheet home to see who is willing to send in ice cream sundae ingredients, as we have been counting down our days until this yummy celebration! We can’t believe that we have been in school for 100 days already. This year is certainly flying by! We would also like for each child to bring in 100 items: pennies, Cheerios, macaroni… just a few examples! We will be sharing them in class. No worries if you can not make this happen as we will be sharing. We will also be sending home a class list so you and your child can make out Valentine cards together and send them in (If you wish to do so). A snack sign up for our Valentine’s Day Party, which will take place next Thursday afternoon, will be coming home as well. Thank you in advance for your contributions to these events. We will begin a new unit this week, Words and Roads Take Us Places. Our focus this week will be on Communication. Our students will learn the importance of sharing a message through communication. We will also learn that there are verbal and nonverbal forms of communication such as pictures, words, signs, and sign language. Our KinderRoots shared story this week is Sig the Pig, which focuses on the letter g. Our shared stories are getting more difficult, so again, please read each night with your child. It certainly does make a difference in your child’s reading. Remember to sign the homework slip as well. Thank you! In Writing, we are coming to the end of our Narrative writing unit. We have thoroughly enjoyed watching our budding authors as they continue to write about true stories that have really happened in their lives. If you would like assistance or help reading or understanding what the NWEA MAPS Family report means please reach out to your child’s teacher. These are the reports that we sent home on Friday. We would be happy to schedule a short meeting (15 minutes) and discuss what these reports mean. Please keep in mind that these results are just a snap shot of learning- they do not show you the whole picture. These assessments do not always align with what we see in the classroom with hands on learning. This is the first time our students are seeing a testing platform and it is a challenging task we are asking them to complete. They all did well and tried very hard- that is what is important! *Don’t forget that Wednesday, February 5th is Walk to School Day-See you at Hetty Green Park at 7:30! *No School February 17th-21st for Winter Break Have a Great Week! Amy and Ashley
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Dear Parents and Friends,
It’s another Monday in kindergarten and it looks like it is going to be another full week of learning! We have been lucky that our snow days and delays have been limited…Let’s all hope that continues. This week we will continue with our theme, Day and Night, Dark and Light. We will focus on Opposites and how two things can be related but, are very different from each other. We will discuss concrete examples such as big and little, clean and dirty when we read Harry the Dirty Dog. Then when we read The Empty Pot we will address opposite values of honesty and dishonesty. This unit is both serious and silly :) Since last week was only 3 days we are going to use Monday to review our book Dogs in Hats, Dogs in Bows. Your child will not bring home a new KinderRoots shared story until Tuesday afternoon. On Tuesday, we will begin with our new book Nan’s Pet, which focuses on the letter p. As the weeks progress the books are getting harder for the children to read. So, please read each night with your child. We have been noticing that more and more children are not practicing reading each night and are beginning to struggle when reading in class. Complete success with this program depends on reading both at school and home. Thank you in advance for your support! In Math this week, we will continue to concentrate on 3-D shapes. We are even going to build cubes with tooth picks and gum drops! After our cube building hopefully we will all have a better understanding of edges, vertices and faces. You can practice geometry skills at home by asking your child to find everyday objects that look like specific 3-D shapes (cones, cubes, spheres). Many of the kids are already seeing 2-D and 3-D shapes all around in the classroom. Friendly Reminder: Monday, February 17th- Friday, February 21st: Winter Break, No school Have a Great Week! Amy and Ashley Dear Parents and Friends,
Happy Wednesday! We hope families enjoyed a little extra free time together. We are backing to having our New England winter. It’s been cold and snowy again but hopefully everyone is getting outside when they can for a little fresh air. This week we will beginning a new theme, Day and Night, Dark and Light. This week our focus will be on the differences with the sun and the moon. We will discuss the activities associated with certain times of the day or night. This helps our students concentrate on logical thinking. Hearing a child’s perspective on certain events can be an enlightening experience. Our KinderRoots shared story this week is Dogs In Hats, Dogs In Bows, which focuses on the letter n. Each week, usually on Monday, your child will be bringing home the new book as well as last week’s book. These previously read books are yours to keep. You and your child can practice them when you have extra time. We are hoping homework is going as well as reading is going in class each day. Please let us know if there are any problems with the reading at home. To clarify, the red and green words that we learn in class are colored as we learn them however, in the books they are not color coded. I know this is a little confusing and we wish they would just print them in color! If you feel like it is helpful you may find and color the words or underline them in their color (just a thought). Please keep those questions coming as you have them...Open communication is necessary for success! In Math this week, we will be learning about 3-dimensional shapes. We will be learning how to describe, identify and compare 3-D shapes. We will also be building our own 3-D shapes with clay. There will be a lot of hands-on exploring with 3-D shapes for sure! As we move into more shapes we will also continue to work with students on counting and writing quantities because we want them to continue to practice and sharpen their skills. The students are working very hard at getting dressed in their winter wear all by themselves. Thank you so much for helping with this skill at home. Your efforts do not go unnoticed. Each week, we have more and more students who are able to get ready independently. Important Dates to Remember: Monday, February 17th- Friday, February 21st: Winter Break, No school Have a Great Week! Amy and Ashley Dear Parents and Friends,
We have another “normal” week ahead of us. Last week we persevered through some pretty difficult standardized testing. This week we settle back into days filled with hands on learning! We will be continuing with our theme, Winter Weatherland. This week we will focus on Winter and snow and the changes that occur. We will also concentrate on how people and animal behaviors change in the winter and what they do to prepare for the temperature change. This is a perfect theme to focus on this time of year. Our KinderRoots shared story this week is Miss Sid, which focuses on the letter i. Please keep in mind that as the week’s progress, so does the difficulty of our stories. We are pleased with the efforts of both children and their families. Almost all of the students have been reading at home and it is obvious as to who is reading at home. Success of our program does rely on both reading at school and at home. Again, Thank you for reading each night! In math we have been talking about 2-Dimensional shapes. Last week we made a beautiful winter scene shape mural where the kids used shapes to create an entire winter scene. There were people ice fishing, skiing, sledding, skating, clouds, trees, snowmen, igloos…It truly was a masterpiece! This week we are going to be practicing putting shapes together to create new shapes. Putting shapes together to complete puzzles and make new shapes can be challenging but they will only need a little practice before they are experts! It has been very cold outside, so we are asking that you please continue to send in the proper winter wear. Hats and mittens are the most forgotten item for sure! We have lots of students who are now leaving sneakers/shoes at school each night. This has definitely helped in the morning when getting ready for our day. Friendly Reminders: No school Monday, January 20, 2019: Martin Luther King Jr. Day No School Tuesday, January 21, 2019: Teacher In-Service Have a Great Week! Amy and Ashley Dear Parents and Friends,
We sure are glad to be back in school with all of our kindergarteners! Last week we decided to slowly get back into the hang of school again after being away for almost two weeks. We spent two days getting back into the school and classroom routines. This week we will start a new unit titled “Winter Wonderland”. The focus this week will be on the concept that winter isn’t the same all over the world on the same day and everyone doesn’t experience the same season at the same time. We will also discuss cloudy and rainy days which will help introduce the wonders of the water cycle. We will learn the importance of our sun! Our KinderRoots shared story this week is Tam and Tad, which focuses on the letter t. Just like in our first story, there will be green and red words on the front cover of each book. The red words are sight words that they will learn by saying the word, spelling the word while clapping each letter and then saying the word again. The green words can be phonetically sounded out. This will be difficult in the beginning. But with continued practice week after week, the routine will become easier. Thank you so much for your continued support with reading at home. The kids are so excited when they are actually reading the words on their own and understanding what they are reading. Their expressions are truly priceless! What are corners, vertices, sides, curves, or faces? We plan on finding all the answers as we begin our new shape unit. Shapes are always so much fun to talk about! There will be a lot of activities to help us learn more about shapes. We will begin with 2-D shapes and then move into 3-D shapes. We will be discussing the differences in shapes as well has how to describe shapes. Please remember that we do go outside everyday, if it it not too cold!! If the temperature is so low that it is unsafe to be outside we will be inside-please continue to send in winter wear. Also, please send in a pair of shoes or sneakers each day. We don’t have an abundance of extras and some children don’t like the limited choices that we have. Your child is more than welcome to leave a pair of shoes/sneakers in their cubby rather than carrying them back and forth each day. Just send in a note or email us, so that we know we have your permission to keep them at school. Thank you. Dates to Remember: No School January 20th: Martin Luther King Jr. Day No School January 21st: Teacher In-Service Day Have a Great Week! Amy and Ashley |