Seasons

Our Kindergarten students have been very busy learning this week! We have been working on our fifth sound book and have learned the sounds for z, w, ng, and v.  The students have been busy "blending" the sounds together to read words and "segmenting or stretching the sounds out" to write simple words.  The students have also been practicing reading Kindergarten sight words!  The students were very excited to practice putting these skills together to read BOOKS during our guided reading groups! The students have been practicing reading independently during our "Read to Self" time and have also been learning how to read with a partner during our "Read With Someone " time.  The students have learned to sit EEKK (elbow to elbow, knee to knee, book in the middle so we both can see) while reading with a partner!  The pictures for today's post show our students sitting EEKK practicing reading!.

We have been busy learning about the four seasons!  The students have learned how the change of the seasons affect people (we dress differently, our activities change, etc.), plants (we learned how trees change throughout the year), and animals (hibernating, birds migrating, etc.).  Quiz your child at home and see if he/she can tell you the four seasons and how the weather changes during each season.

In math, the students have been identifying 2D shapes.  We have been using attributes to compare shapes and describe how the shapes are different.  We ended the week working with our 3rd grade buddies to use 2D shapes to make an Angry Bird!  Ask your child to identify 2D shapes (square, rectangle, circle, triangle, and rhombus) and describe at least one attribute for each shape!

Schedule for Next Week:
Monday- A Day
Tuesday- B Day
Wednesday-C Day
Thursday- D Day
Friday- A Day

Apples

We are working on learning the sounds in our fourth sound book (ai, j, oa, ie, ee/or).  This sound book is challenging and features double letter sounds.  We learned the rule "when two vowels go walking, the first one does the talking" to help us remember the double letter sounds.  Learning and applying these sounds is very difficult for our Kindergarten kids!  Please practice producing the sound when shown the letters, writing the letters when given the sound, and blending words that contain these sounds (pie, tie, train, boat, goat, bee, see, fort, etc).  It is very important for students to begin to apply this letter/sound knowledge when reading unknown words. 

Our class has been reading nonfiction and fiction stories around an apple theme!  We have been making mini-books that contain our Kindergarten sight words and have been practicing reading these stories to ourselves and to a partner!  We are working on reading with a "reading finger" and pointing to the words as we read. The Kindergarten students are so excited to be able to READ these stories!  Continue to practice the 31 Kindergarten sight words at home.  The more fluent our students become with these words, the better reader he/she will become!  The students really enjoyed making homemade applesauce and eating it on Wednesday,  (Recipe for Applesauce: 20 sliced and peeled apples, 1 cup of sugar, and 1/4 to 1/2 a cup of Red Hots.  Cook in a crockpot on HIGH for 5/6 hours, mashing the apples several times while cooking).  Ask your child if he/she enjoyed our homemade applesauce!

We are continuing to build our number sense.  We have been focused on the numbers in the teens!  We have practiced identifying the numbers, writing the numbers, ordering numbers, and playing fun math games to help us manipulate the numbers.  Continue to practice number identification at home!

Schedule for Next Week:
Monday - D Day
Tuesday- A Day
Wednesday - B Day
Thursday- C Day
Friday- D Day

Ribbon Ceremony

Today we celebrated Kindergarten success by holding our first Ribbon Ceremony! We celebrated in the cafeteria with ALL the Kindergarten students at English Landing! Students were recognized for meeting one or more of our eight Kindergarten "ribbon" goals (naming the uppercase and lowercase letters, counting to 100, recognizing the numbers 0-31, producing all 42 Jolly Phonics sounds, reading all 31 Kindergarten sight words, reading at a level 4, identifying the coins and their values, and earning an Eagle Excellence Award for good behavior)! It was so exciting to see ribbons on our classroom ribbon bulletin boards! We discussed the need to work hard and practice learning goals at home in order to meet Kindergarten goals and EARN ribbons!

Schedule for next week:
Monday-C Day
Tuesday-D Day
Wednesday-A Day
Thursday-B Day
Friday-D Day

Feelings

The Kindergarten kids have learned so much in this short week! We have finished the second Jolly Phonics sound book (s,a,t,i,p,n,c,k,e,h,r,m,d)! The students have been learning how to read simple three to four letter words made from these sounds (pat, hit, man, set, pant, and many more)! We have also been working hard to "stretch" out the sounds to write simple words! Please continue to practice these skills at home! We have also learned six Kindergarten sight words (a, I, me, my, and, can). Please practice these words at home!

We have been building our number sense and working on identifying numbers! Next week we will really focus on numbers in the teens! Have an amazing weekend!

Our schedule for next week is:
Monday- B Day
Tuesday- C Day
Wednesday- D Day
Thursday- A Day
Friday- B Day