Hello Everyone,
We are very excited to be going with
Mrs. Lasher’s class to Parker’s Pumpkin Patch on Tuesday afternoon. If
you are planning to come with us on the field trip, please let me know by
tomorrow (Monday). Please make sure we have your fingerprint and
background information completed.
Now that our colors week has
commenced, we will continue our focus on Fall and nature’s changes in
preparation for Winter. In addition to visiting the pumpkin patch, we
will be making shaving cream pumpkins, learning about the life cycle of a
pumpkin, and going outside to explore the seasonal changes around us.
This week in Fundations, our literacy program, we will be focusing on the letter/sound keywords for “e” and “r”. While in Kindergarten, students will be focusing on:
- Letter formation associated with sounds
- Write manuscript letters in lower-case and upper-case
- Print knowledge and concepts of print: track print left to right/top to bottom of page; match spoken words to printed words
- Identify separate words in an oral sentence, segment words into syllables; segment syllables into sounds (phonemes) - up to 3 sounds
- Phoneme substitution, deletion, addition, and manipulation activities done with letter cards and tiles to assist with cognitive manipulation
- Isolate phonemes using tapping procedure for both blending and segmenting (segment phonemes in words; blend phonemes into words)
- Alphabetic order
- Know a-z letter/sound relationships (map letter to sound and sound to letter)
- Read and spell approximately 200 CVC words
- Read targeted high-frequency words: the, a, and, is, was
- Identify 75% of first 100 high frequency words, including 25-30 irregular (trick words) such as the, was, of
- Identify and name correct punctuation (period or question mark)
- Identify upper-case letter use for beginning of sentences and names of people
- Retell short narrative stories
- Echo-read a passage with correct phrasing and expression
With all of this happening at school,
it’s very important for students to continue this practice at home.
Students have been doing very well
with their newly earned trick-words. As students “master” their words,
they will continue to earn different colored new trick-words. So far,
most students have mastered the first level of their sight words (trick words)
challenge. They are very motivated to continue “climbing” the colored
levels.
We will also be focusing on sharing
information we learn in our books with partners during Reader’s Workshop.
Students will continue to learn about concepts of print, book handling,
sharing ideas and thoughts in partnerships, rereading books using prior
knowledge, retelling using details from the story, and using pictures, dialogue,
and narration to make sense of the story. When you are at home, you can
reiterate some of these learning experiences by asking questions after reading
a book together such as, “Can you tell the dog what just happened in the book
we just read?” or “What voice do you think we should use for this character in
the story?” These type of questions allow your reader to be the “teacher”
for a moment and continue to reinforce the excitement of reading. I can’t
stress enough how important reading to your child is, playing language games
such as clapping out words in a sentence or singing together, and encouraging
your child to write. Read alouds, language games, and writing, strongly
support and foster student development of reading.
In Bridges, we will be focusing on
tally marks and continuing our exploration of subitizing objects and
manipulatives. Students have been learning “shortcuts” while counting and
are becoming very proficient at counting on. We play a game in school where I
flash my hands at the students and hold up a random number of fingers, it
becomes their job to tell me as quickly as they can, how many fingers I flashed
at them. This helps with their development of part-part whole, subitizing,
counting on, etc. It's a fun and simple game they can play with you too. They
can also flash their hands at you and you can "guess" how many
fingers they were holding up. Sometimes we play with points. Every correct
answer receives a point:) Have fun learning together!!
Thank you to everyone who was able
to come in for a conference, it’s so helpful to have an opportunity to ask
parents questions and hear your ideas about your child’s education. If
you were unable to attend a conference and would still like to arrange a time,
please call or email me to set something up.
I think that's all for now, thank you very much for everything you do to raise such amazing students,
-Jenn Livingston
Kindergarten Long-term
Substitute
Hinesburg Community School
"Education is
the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world." -Nelson
Mandela
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