I wanted to thank parents and students for having such a great first month of journal entries with the Blue Bags! Everyone is working on 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" on Friday-- thank you! It seems that for the past 4 or 5 years, Snow Day is always on one of the warmest days in January, and this year was no exception! The kids had fun with the snowball fight, and enjoyed a treat afterward. We also had a few snowy day activities & stories in class.
Our new letter this week is Ll, and the Alphafriend is Larry Lion. We have two new words this week, is and his. We will also introduce another vowel sound this week, Ii, and that Alphafriend is Iggy Iguana. Iggy will help us spell words with the short i sound, such as: bit, pin, rib, etc. We are now up to 19 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.
We will continue working on subtraction this week. Please continue reinforcing the concept at home using apps on iPhones & iPads or logging into the ixl.com account I have set up for your children. Although ixl isn't a "game," it does provide solid reinforcement of the facts & concepts covered in kindergarten. If you need a reminder of how to log into your child's ixl account, please email me.
Other sites to continue taking advantage of are raz-kids.com and lexia.com. All of these sites-- ixl, lexis, and raz-kids, are paid for by the district or through Home & School Club monies, and you should definitely make use of them. These are great sites to use for the children who'd like more homework. Raz-Kids has comprehension questions after reading books at the "A" level on up, so it is a good way to build up reading comprehension skills. If you are having trouble accessing any of these sites, please email me.
This week's share is homemade item. Children should bring in something they made or mostly made themselves, and be prepared to talk about how they made it. Crafts from parties, preschool, home, etc are all great for this share.
On Friday, February 13th, we will be celebrating Valentine's Day in class. Just to give you some advanced notice (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 21 valentines so that there are enough for each child in the class. Thanks!
I wanted to thank all the families who participated in the book drive, "Laundry to Literacy." Our school collected 1000 books, which doubled their goal of 500! Thank you to so many of you for helping support this organization.
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, with the book & homework folder inside. Thank you!
Upcoming Events:
1/28: January's Wacky Wednesday
2/3: 100 Day Celebration
2/13: Valentine's Day celebration
2/16-2/20: President's Week
2/25: February's Wacky Wednesday
3/14: Bocce Ball Fundraiser at Campo di Bocce
