Lots of Learning Going On!

Literacy

This week we focused on the letter Ss and the word I. I am so excited at how much the students learned about these two things this week. Please be sure to practice identifying and writing the letter Ss and also finding and reading the word I.

We have also been hard at work during literacy stations. The stations are provided to help the students practice the skills we are working on during literacy time. The students work at one of five stations per day. The stations are:  computer, big book, letter, library loft, and writing. I am so pleased with how well the students work independently at these stations. They only need a few reminders to use quiet voices.

Math

We finished working on position words this week. We had the most trouble with before and after. Please review these with your child at home. Next week we will start working on numbers 0-5. I think the majority of the students already know these numbers by sight, so we will work really hard on writing these numbers and placing a value with these numbers. We will place a value with them by counting objects and placing them in the correct number pile.

Science

We were able to conduct our first investigation this week. I am so pleased with how well the students did during the investigation. We checked to see which item would soak up the most water. We tested foil, paper, wax paper, and a sponge. Ask you child which one soaked up the most water.

Please let me know if you have any questions about what is happening here at school!

The First 9 Weeks

We are half way through the first 9 weeks of kindergarten! This year is going to FLY by. I wanted to update you on what the children are working on this 9 weeks. With the new Common Core Standards each has some "Big Ideas" that encompass what will be taught during that quarter. So, here they are for Language Arts and Math.

Language Arts:

• Students know how books work.
• Students know how to use oral language to express their own or respond to other's ideas.
• Students know ideas expressed orally can be recorded as written text which can be read.

Math:

• Students understand that the world is made up of shapes that have identifiable attributes that do not change based upon position, orientation, or number.
• Students understand that the names of number symbolically represent objects and each successive name refers to a quantity that increases by one.

Please let me know if you have questions about what is being taught during your child's school day.

On Friday I sent home some papers showing you your child's progress so far in kindergarten. I hope that these were easily understood. Sometimes it is hard to relay information about progress because we use some difficult terms to understand (even for me). Please let me know if you have any questions about your child's progress.

This week (starting 9/17) we will start interventions for any child needing them. For literacy this will start with letter identification. Our goal for the first 9 weeks is for the students to identify 50% of the uppercase letters and 50% of the lowercase letters. I will be working with groups of students to help master this. Please work with your child at home identifying any letters they do not know. Focusing on one letter at a time until it is mastered is the best way to do this.

I hope you all had a great weekend!

More Shoe Tying

I found another way to learn how to tie shoes this weekend. Check it out and let me know what you think. I thought it was amazing!