Dear Parents,
I wanted to thank parents and students for having such a great first month of journal entries with the Blue Bags! Everyone seems to be letting their children do all their own spelling, and are encouraging them so well in their efforts! I already see improvement in the writing just in this short time. Remember that the focus in kindergarten is giving kids the ability to use their phonics skills to write on their own and get their thoughts down on paper. As they move through the grade levels, spelling will become more of a focus. Right now the focus is the process and applying phonetic sounds so that they have that framework to fall back on whenever they need to write on their own.
We had a wonderful "Snow Day" last Wednesday-- thank you! It seems that
for the past 3 or 4 years, Snow Day is always on one of the warmest days
in January-- we finally broke our streak last Wednesday! The kids had fun with the snowball fight, and enjoyed some treats afterward.
This week's share is 100 Day collections. Please have your child bring
in 100 of the same item that they'd like to show on his/her share day. This is a
fun counting activity at home, plus a fun way to see the many ways 100
can look. I will probably ask your child how they counted out their
items (by 1s, 10s, 5s, etc.), so have him/her prepared to talk about the
process. Remember that it can be as simple as 100 cheerios-- whatever
your child has 100 items of that s/he would like to share. If they want
to glue down the 100 items and make a picture out of them, that's fine,
too.
The 100th day of school is this Thursday , and we will have lots of fun
projects and activities in class in celebration of the day! We have 180
total school days, so we are more than half-way through the year.
Spring conferences are rapidly approaching (March) and I sent out those
sign-ups in a separate e-mail. Thank you to so many of you for already
returning your time selections. As in the Fall, you can either print
out our schedule and write in your time preferences & send it back
with your child this week, or you can e-mail me with your three time
preferences.
This week's letter is Kk, and our Alphafriend is Keely Kangaroo. We will be learning a new word this week, here. We are now up to 18 sight words. Please check the sight word link on the website and make sure that your child knows the words we've introduced, as this is a heavy emphasis at this time. If your child is struggling with these words, a good website to go to is http://www.spellingcity.com
and log in under my name for the "40 Word List" of all the sight words we're covering this year. Last week, we learned a new vowel, Ii, and met the Alphafriend Iggy Iguana. Now we can read and spell CVC words with both short a and short i. We will finish the chapter on numbers 20-30 in math.
Our art activities this week will continue to center around our snowy
theme, the 100 day theme, and penguins.
On Thursday, February 14th, we will be celebrating Valentine's Day in
class. Just a reminder (since I know your children will be eagerly
shopping for Valentines soon!) in kindergarten, we have the kids sign
their valentines, but we do not have them write who the valentine is
"to." This makes distribution MUCH easier, since many kids cannot read
the names. So please sign the cards, but leave the "to" box blank.
Please send in 25 valentines so that there are enough for each child in
the class. Thanks!
The afternoon class has a Wacky Wednesday this week. Class runs from 10:00 to 1:20.
Please send in your child's blue bag tomorrow, and please continue sending in the permission slips for the field trip. Thank you!
Upcoming Events:
1/30: January's Wacky Wednesday
1/31: 100 Day-- celebration of the 100th day of school
2/13: Special Wacky Wednesday(p.m. class) and field trip to see a play (all K classes)
2/14: Valentine's Day celebration: only sign valentines
2/18-2/22: President's Week: No School
2/27: February's Wacky Wednesday
3/4-3/15: 2nd Trimester Conferences
