I hope everyone has enjoyed some time with your children this past week! It's nice to put the boots and snow pants away for while!
Many thanks to all the parents who helped with our Valentine's Day party! The kids had a lot of fun!
100th DAY
Hopefully you received the note about the 100th day. Our 100th day of school will be on February 25th. If you would like to help your child put together a collection of 100 objects that would be great. I gave some suggestions on the sheet (paperclips, cotton balls, pasta, pennies, legos) anything small that your child can transport easily. You can even decorate a t-shirt or make a poster?! Be creative and have fun.
MATH
In math we have moved onto the concept of subtraction, the kids did well with addition. We will revisit addition/subtraction again in our next unit. As you've probably noticed we continue to work on one to one correspondence, rote counting and number formation. We've also touched on the "teen" numbers, these come up every month when we look at the calendar. This will help us when we start to talk about the numbers in "ones and tens" (14 is "1 ten and 4 ones").
HANDWRITING
I've introduced all the lower and uppercase letters and the correct formation. Letter formation is something else we are constantly working on. It is important that the kids are forming the letters correctly, using the appropriate stokes and starting in the right spot. Many children are still making letters from the bottom and going up....there are NO letters that start at the bottom. This can be a hard habit to break, if you see your child making letters bottom up, try to remind him/her of the proper formation. Starting letters in the correct spot will help with the efficiency of writing.
LITERACY
We continue to work on "tapping out" our CVC words. It is kind of tricky manipulating the fingers but the kids are getting it! You can work on this in the car, before bedtime, or really anywhere! Give your child a CVC word and watch them tap. Try writing the CVC word and watch how great your child is at blending the sounds together! Everyone's writing is really coming along as well! During Writer's Workshop the kids have been writing "How To" books. Ask your child what his/her book is about. We've had some great books about making pizza, making s'mores, playing sports, building a snowman etc. In addition to what our "How To" books need (numbered steps, transitional words such as first, next, then, specific directions, and pictures) we continue to work on spacing, best guess spelling, and lowercase letters.
READING AT HOME (RAH RAH)
Your child will be receiving a bag of books called "RAH RAH" books. (Reading At Home) These books will be at your child's independent level of reading, meaning that these will be books that s/he can read with ease, they aren't challenging, they aren't meant to be books that you have to assist your child with many words. These will be books that will build up your child's confidence and show everyone in your family what a great reader your kindergartner is! The book bag will go home on Tuesdays and be your child's homework. S/he can return the book bag with the books s/he has read anytime before the following Tuesday. I will need to check out 2 new books to each student to go home on Tuesday. There will be some information in their bag that you can take out and read through. Math homework will go home on Wednesdays.
CONFERENCES
March conferences will soon be upon us. Be on the look out for a google doc to sign up.
