Apples and Fall

Hello Everyone,

Thank you to everyone who was able to make it to the open house!  I had so much fun seeing students so excited to show their parents around our learning space.  

We had so much fun with our culminating apple project.  I’m sure you have heard by now that we successfully made our own, “class-made” applesauce.  Students were so pleased with their creation.  Many students made remarks stating, “it tastes so much better than it looks,” and “ I peeled the apples in this stuff!”  Everyone, even the few students who don’t really care for apples helped out with our peeling production.

Here we are helping out making our very own Crockpot applesauce.

We created our own “apple orchard” as seen below

Ask your student about the “magic” star inside apples.  We read a tale about the “magic” starts inside apples and why they are there.  Here are some below:)

This week, we will be starting our fall unit.  This theme will take place for the next two weeks.  We will be outside collecting/graphing leaves, learning a little about leaf identification, and completing a few leaf rubbing projects to solidify our identifying abilities.

In math we will be finishing our first unit of the Bridges Math program.  Our focus will continue on recognizing a variety of patterns.  Students will copy, extend and create repeating ABAB, ABCABC and ABBABB patterns using their hands, feet and other body parts.  If you are not familiar with a ABAB pattern, it’s a pattern that repeats itself and has two parts.  A pattern such as black, white, black, white would be an ABAB pattern.  An ABBABB pattern has two parts but one of the parts repeats within the pattern.  A pattern with colors again that would represent an ABBABB would be black, white, white, black, white, white.  If you would like to support this type of learning at home, begin one of these patterns and ask your student to extend it further.  You can use coins, crayons, blocks, Legos, and even letters written on paper.

In Fundations we will be continuing to master our phonemic awareness.  I made a mistake with last week’s letter, we were actually learning the letters “i” and “u.”  This week our focus will be “c” and “o.”  Ask your student what sounds they hear at the beginning of words that begin with the letter sounds b-t-f-m-n-i-u-c-o.  Words with short letter sounds at the beginning, such as, bat, top, fun, man, nut, itch, up, cat, and octopus.  Most students really enjoy letter sounds if it’s made into a game.  You can refer to my letter last week if you need any ideas.

The students in Room 8 are blossoming into amazing little authors.  Our writing club has been a huge success.  Some students are beginning to write “words” while others are still trying to master labeling their illustrations.  Most parents wonder about how writing develops and why.  Soon, I will begin sending their writing home and you will see temporary misspellings that haven’t been corrected.  

Do you remember when your child first learned how to talk?  S/he may have had many “mistakes” or approximations in his/her speech, but it didn’t really concern you that much.  At times you may have corrected their speech, but mostly you included your child in your conversations, encouraged them to talk, and delighted in your interactions with them.  As parents, you know that children learn to talk the same way they learn to crawl or walk...They learn to talk by talking.

Learning to write works the same way.  Here is an example of writing in the early stages of writing.

IFAGDFDA

This may not look like standard writing but it is an approximation and it is AMAZING!  It actually tells us a lot about the student’s abilities.  This shows that this child knows that written language is supposed to mean something and the child can explain exactly what it means.  When asked, we are told:

I have a goldfish called Adam.

Just about every letter stands for one word in the story.

I    F    A    GDF        D        A

I     have    a    goldfish    called        Adam

Some additional developmental stages come before this one, and others come after.  From this sample we see that child knows the following:

• Print goes in a straight line from left to right.
• Print is made up of letters.
• Letters stand for sounds in the words s/he wants to write.

Later we might see:

I FNDA LPANDA GENE CAMOT

I found a lamp and a genie came out.

Here is what this WONDERFUL piece of writing tells us about the child’s writing development.

• Written language is made up of words and separated by spaces.
• Written words are made up of a number of different letters.
• Written words have beginning and ending sounds.
• Written words have vowels.
• When you know a word “AND” you spell it the same way every time.

Teachers help children learn to write the way parents and families help them learn to talk.  If we put our energy and focus into correcting each and every approximation, the child will get discouraged and lose a natural desire to write.  What reasearch tells us about heavy correction is that meaning is less important than spelling the words correctly.

If we invite them to use their oral language in their writing, even if they can’t spell all the words correctly, we give them the freedom to say what they mean.  Children learn to write by writing.  When we support and applaud their “best attempts” we see their writing take off.

Do we have have time to teach spelling, grammar, punctuation, and handwriting? Absolutely!  We do this during our whole group instruction and individual conferences.  We select one or two teaching points that are within their writing development and support them as they take on this new skill.

My goal in sharing my thoughts with you is to encourage you to share in your child’s joy of writing.  Kindergarten is an amazing year of growth for writers.  The skills will come with time.  Just remember...We learn to write by writing!

As for the other learning adventures in Kindergarten this week, we will be asking ourselves about the texts we are reading.  Questions such as, “What might characters say on this page?”  or “How does this page connect to the next page in the book?”  These questions encourage student understanding of text and comprehension.  When you are reading at home with your child, you can further this comprehension and text understanding by asking the same questions.

If you would like to sign up for a mystery reader spot, please do so on the Mystery Reader letter I will be sharing with you shortly.

Many students would like to have water bottles at their desks and I feel this is a great option to minimize distractions and transitions to and from the water fountain.  If you would like to send in a water bottle with your student please do so with his/her name on it.  A hydrated brain is a healthy brain!!

Memos:  Picture day- October 4th

       Field Trip-  October 22

Thank you for everything you do!

-Jenn Livingston