Weekly News: August 29

News:

There is no school next Monday, September 5th due to the Labor Day Holiday. Enjoy the time off with your families!

It is Kindergarten Assessment Week! We will be testing students after school every day until 1:00. You should have received a green note with your child's assigned test day. Please send your child to school with a lunch on his or her assigned test day, as we will be eating lunch together in the classroom. Thank you for your support!

Please visit the SONGS tab on our website to hear our sight words songs and other songs we learn in class. This is a great way to learn the sight words and reinforce letter identification too.  Have your child point to each letter as they sing the letter name.

Thank you SOOOO much to ALL the parents who attended our first Prep Party on Friday! I am completely overwhelmed by how much work you got done! We could not do it without you and you are much appreciated!

Our very first Scholastic Book Orders are being sent home this week. This is SUCH a great and inexpensive way to order books for your child and with every order, you are providing a free book towards our classroom library!!! Just follow the directions on the Order Form Page I sent home. Book orders are due next Friday, September 9th.

I still do not have all of your email addresses!! I send a lot of emails out during the year and want to make sure you are receiving them! If you have NOT received an email from me yet, please send your email address to school with your child. Thank you!

What Are We Learning This Week?:

Sight Words: IS, THE, ME, OR.

Letter Team: TH (we are learning that TH has two different sounds - a hard sound [like in mother and the] and a soft sound [like in thumb])

Reading: We are learning the vowels!!!! Ask your child about our special vowel song and what sounds the vowels can make! We are learning the different parts of a book: title, author, illustrator, title page. You can help at home by asking your child to point to each part of the book before you read. Students will continue to practice one-to-one matching this week. We will also learn two new reading strategies: Look at the Picture and Get Your Mouth Ready for the First Sound (see the Reading Strategies tab for more information).

Writing: We are writing a new book together about our shapes and colors using our sight words of the week. This week we are learning that a sentence starts with an uppercase letter and ends with a period. We are working on putting finger spaces in between our words. We are also learning to use our sight words in our sentences and to listen for the sounds in all unknown words using our sound chart. You can help your child at home by using the same sound chart on the back of  your GO Folder to help with sounding out words and writing at home.

Math: We are learning to sort objects by color and size. We are also learning to read and extend patterns. We will also focus on identifying what number should come next without going back to 1 to count. For example, if I ask a student to "count on" (we call it "popcorn counting") from the number 7, I would like them to tell me "8, 9, 10.." without having to go back to the number 1 to figure it out. We will continue to identify, order, write, and count numbers to 30. 

Leadership: This month our theme is "responsibility". We will discuss ways to be responsible at home and at school.