Since last year was my first year teaching kindergarten I never knew how many shoes there were to tie. I tied more than my fair share of shoes last year. So many that I never wanted to tie my own. I've taken to wearing slip on shoes to avoid tying shoe laces. But, with the start of a new school year comes more shoes to tie.
With that being said I just realized I have not tied as many shoes this year as I did at this time last year. I'm not sure if this is because the kids came in more prepared to tie their shoes or if they are wearing those slip on shoes I just mentioned. But if they know how to tie them already kudos to you parents!
At any rate I wanted to include a video on how to teach a child to tie shoes in less than 5 minutes. You read that right...5 MINUTES!
I know this is a "kit" to buy, but I was just thinking of what you could use at home to use at the circles to hold the bunny ears. You could use washers or some other sort of circle. Let me know if you try this method. I'd be interested in seeing if it works.
Coming home today you will see a book order form in your child's VIP folder. If you wish to place an order please return the order form and money to me by Friday, September 7. If you are going to write a check please make it out to me, Amanda Shue. I will then write one big check for the orders to make it easier and quicker to get the books back. Please let me know if you have any questions regarding the order forms. This is a great opportunity to build your child's home library.
Wow! I can't believe we have been in school for almost 3 weeks! So much has been going on at school since we have started. We were able to get a 4th kindergarten class, so our class size went from 28 to 21. Boy what a difference that makes. Our time is so much calmer now that there are less bodies in the room. Although, we were sad to see some of our friends go we can still see them at recess and lunch.
We just finished up NWEA testing. This test will give me an idea of where the children are coming into kindergarten. I was so pleased with how the students tried their best while taking the test. We will be discussing these results at Parent Teacher Conferences in October. I will use the results to help drive my instruction for small groups.
This week and next week I will be working on more assessments for each child. These include Letter Identification, Concepts about Print (knowing how books work), Hearing and Recording Sounds in Words, Written Vocabulary (how many words they know how to write), and Word Test (how many words they can recognize by sight). These assessments will also help drive my instruction for small groups. We will also be discussing these results at Parent Teacher Conferences in October.
For the last 3 weeks we have been discussing colors. We will continue to refer back to the colors throughout the year. Each child will be expected to recognize the color words. You could help your child with this by reviewing the colors with them throughout the week. We learned red, blue, yellow, green, orange, purple, brown, black, white, and pink. We sang songs about how to spell these words. Almost all of them know how to spell red. Ask your child how to spell red.
This week we have been studying shapes. We are learning songs abou the shapes. During math time we are cutting out the shapes and seeing what we can make from them. This takes a lot of imagination and I am so impressed with what I am seeing. We are going to take each creation and put it into a book. This will help the children review their shapes. We are studying circle, square, triangle, rectangle, and hexagon. Please review these with your child at home. It is part of the Common Core Standards for the children to master naming these shapes.
School Procedures: Kindergarten is a lot about practicing how to be in school. We have learned so many procedures. It would be great if you could practice these procedures at home. In the hallway we use 1s, 2s, and 3s. These stand for: 1 mouth quiet, 2 hands behind your back, and 2 eyes facing forward. Ask your child if they can show you what our hallway procedures are.
Please let me know if you have any questions regarding anything going on at school.
UPCOMING DATES: September 3: No School- Labor Day September 12: Midterm September 25: Family Literacy Night
