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!

Learning to Tie Shoes

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.

Have a great weekend!

Scholastic Book Order

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.

Start of the Year

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

Miss Shue