Welcome to Kindergarten

Welcome to my blog! This is where I will post (hopefully) each Friday with an update of our week. I will try to cover each area we have worked on during the week, however there is so much that if you ever have any questions please contact me. Email is the best way to get a hold of me during the day. I try to check it during the day, however please allow time for me to respond after the day has ended as some days may not allow for me to contact you back immediately. I appreciate everyone's support in the first and second weeks of school. I know it has been a huge transition for the children and they are all making great strides in their learning (even from just the first day). 
Here is the review of our week!

Phonics

Our sounds of the week: /s/ (last week) /a/ and /t/. 

Popcorn Word

 This week we learned: a
We read books and practiced sorting our popcorn word. In the coming weeks we will be practicing new words. In the beginning it is only 2 words a week but as the year progresses we will eventually be up to 4 words a week. 

Handwriting

In handwriting this week we practiced vertical and horizontal lines. These lines will help us form the letters of the alphabet.

Reading

During our reading time we read the book Me on the Map by Joan Sweeney. The story was about a girl who shares different places on maps. This week we also were introduced to Daily 5.

In daily 5 we are working on the 3 ways to read a book as well as "Read to Self." The 3 ways to read a book include; reading the pictures, reading the words, and retelling a familiar story. Everyday we have practiced reading alone during read to self time. We are working on building our stamina to read up to 15 minutes without being distracted by our friends. We made a chart of the ways we want to act while we are reading so that we do not disturb our friends.

- We will read the whole time.

- We will keep our eyes on our own books.

- We will read quietly.

- We will treat our books with respect.

- We will stay in one spot.

We made it to 5 minutes today (Friday September 5th). This was a huge accomplishment.

Here are the times we made the other days:

Tuesday  45 seconds (after a lot of practice)

Wednesday 1 minutes

Thursday 3 minutes

Friday 5 minutes (!!)

Math

This week in math were started our counting unit. We have been practicing reading, writing, and counting the numbers 1, 2, and 3. In our math centers we have been working with our math manipulative (the students call them toys!) During this time it was free exploration of the math tools at our centers. Many of us unknowingly were practicing math skills like sorting, matching, counting, patterning, etc.

Important Reminders
Half Day September 25th

Scholastic book orders are due September 26th. 

Email me with any questions!

Last Two Weeks of School!

This will be our last post for the year. I waited until tonight to do the post so I could share some pictures from the picnic day. We got lucky on both the zoo field trip and again today with beautiful weather. I know everybody enjoyed both days and we look forward to the three remaining days of Kindergarten. I want to thank each and every parent for their support this year. Whether you came in weekly to help with computers, volunteer from home to help design, develop and execute the holiday parties, practiced popcorn words, math facts, read a story, or chaperoned a field trip we couldn't have had such a successful year without you! I am going to miss this class tremendously, but I know they will do well in first grade.

Below are pictures from our picnic day and one from the zoo.

Face/Arm paintings

 

Long Jump 

Olympic Torch Craft

 Velcro Catch

 Zoo Field Trip

 Here is what we focused on last week and this week

Phonics

Our word family sounds of the week:  Blends and Digraphs

Sounds we know: s, a, t, i, p, n, ck, e, h, r, m, d, g, o, u, l, f, b, j, ai, oa, ie, ee, or, z, w, v. y, x, oo, OO, ch, sh, ng, th, qu, ou, oi, ue, er, ar

 Word Families: at, an, ap and am, it, in, ip, ing, en, et, ed, ot, op, ock, ug, un, um

Popcorn Words

This week we reviewed all of our popcorn words through various games. We played roll the popcorn word, we built them using tiles, stamps, and snap cubes.

Over the summer continue to search for these words in bookd, magazines, newspapers, even when you are out shopping.

If you take a vacation practice the popcorn words in the sand, with shells, or rocks.

Words we know: a, I, it, in, see, big, my, like, up, run, at, on, we, me, am, did, not, is, can, but, to, too. little, and, yes, go, no, so,  the, you, down, he, she, be, our, here, out, get, help, now, look, good, jump, will, have, must, one ,two, three, four, nine, said, this that new, soon, went, come, do, all, there, who, what, where, say, away, play, they,eat, please, want, with, came, make, ate, ride, was, saw, are, well, pretty, funny, under, find, blue, yellow, red, pink, black, white, brown, orange

Reading 
Our poem this week was called Field Trip and this week our poem is called Summer Vacation. We brought home our poem books today. Take time this summer to reread the poems and finding different words within the poems. In the beginning of the year we did not circle popcorn words on the poem sheets, this would be a good time to do that. As our poetry unit evolved we started adding songs and dances to poems so you might find we know the poems starting in December better than our old ones.

Math

In math we have continued practicing adding and subtracting within 5. We have played many summer themed math centers and this week we will continue some math centers before we leave for the summer. Most of our centers involved addition including cutting and pasting numbers. We rolled two dice, added them together, and colored the number on the picture. In the summer packet that almost everyone requested there are alot of math pages to practice this summer! Use these to keep the summer slide from happening. Many of the games we have played a variation of at school. Some might require a dice (look in a board game) others might need a spinner (we love pencils and paperclips!).