Newsletter Information

November 14^th, 2014

Notes~

v Practice the last sounds a word makes.  Ask your child to identify them.

v Practice our word wall words that come home each week.

v Practice names of 2D and 3D shapes.

v Practice writing numbers to 50.

v Listen to your child read their take home book.

What We Are Learning~

We spent the first week of November working on voting/elections.  This was a very interesting topic to spend some time on.  The students got to learn about ballots, voting, and even do some voting of their own.  Ask about our classroom cookie election.  It was fun and tasty!  Then we moved on to Long Ago/Thanksgiving work.  This will take us through to the end of the month.  We will be busy learning about Pilgrims, Indians, and the life long ago.  We will be working on a variety of comprehension strategies while studying about Thanksgiving.  These strategies are: asking questions, visualizing, and checking for understanding.  We have also been very busy learning our word wall words.  We have introduced our first 25 and are working hard on the last half of the list.  These words are a bit harder!  Keep practicing them at home!

In math we have just begun our new unit on numbers to 20 and above.  We started the first week on just learning to count and write the numbers from 11-20.  We spent a lot of time discussing the number pattern that they will see while writing these and counting them.  Then we moved on to discussing the actual make up of these numbers.  We have been working on part, part, and whole.  What 2 numbers make up the number are the 2 different parts and the number is the whole.  Ask your child about their work!

We have been working very hard on our writing!  WOW!  We have really improved our skills.  We have been working on being “famous authors”.  We have looked at how their pictures show details, their words match the pictures, and even how when they think they are done, they have just begun.  It has been great to see all the progress we are making each day!  Have your child show you a little writing for them.

Upcoming Events~

v November 19 – Early Out

v November 26, 27, 28 – No School

v December 4^th – 6:30 at the HS Aud.

v December 10^th – Early Out

v December 24 – January 2- No School Winter Break

Halloween Fun!

What a great day we had!  We wrote about our costumes and our favorite candy.  Then we ate a delicious snack for our party and finally we dressed in our costumes for the parade!!

Building Shapes

We just finished up our unit on 2D and 3D shapes.  We were very busy during this time.  We started our learning about the 2D shapes then moved to our 3D shapes.  We ended each part with taking pretzels, toothpicks, and marshmallows then creating the shapes.  WOW!  We had a great time and they are very good at creating things!  Keep up the great work!

Spiders

We were busy learning about spiders at school in the past couple of weeks.  We learned about fiction and nonfiction books thru spiders.  It was a lot of fun.  We ended the week making our own spiders and talking about what we are  busy learning in Kindergarten.

Writing Fun!

We have really been moving in our writing!  We were very busy working on adding details to our writing in the pictures and the words we are writing.  We have started writing about small moment stories that happen in our lives.  It is great to hear about what the students have been doing after school and on weekends!

Newsletter Information

October 30^th, 2014

Notes~

v Practice the syllables each word has by having your child clap them out.

v Practice our word wall words that come home each week.

v Practice counting to 100!

v Practice writing numbers to 30.

v Listen to your child read their take home book.

What We Are Learning~

During our reading time we have been focusing on Halloween.  We spent one week discussing bats.  We learned a lot about bats.  This led us into discussions on fiction and nonfiction books.  We defined each of them as fiction-a made up story (not real), nonfiction-giving us true information.  So each time we read a book we discuss if the book was fiction or nonfiction.  We also introduced our first comprehension strategy of schema during this time.  Schema is all that information we have in our heads on all different types of things.  Now we are using our schema before we read to see what we already know about the topic.  What fun it has been!

In math we have been very busy learning our 3D shapes and also learning all about the features each of these shapes have.  We have discussed: cone, sphere, cylinder, and cube.  We have worked hard on deciding if they roll, stack, or slide.  We have been doing some building with shapes also.  What fun we have been having while we learn!

We just finished up our basics to the Writer’s Workshop.  We learned all the different aspects to becoming a writer.  Now we are beginning our first unit on personal narratives.  It will be fun to see our writing as we continue!

Upcoming Events~

v October 31 – No School

v November 5- Early Out

v November 13- End of 3^rd Trimester

v November 19 – Early Out

v November 26, 27, 28 – No School

Newsletter Information

http://mrshendershotskindergaren.blogspot.com/

October 17, 2014

Notes~

v Practice writing the upper and lower case letters.

v Practice the syllables each word has by having your child clap them out.

v Practice counting to 20 or even higher!

v Practice writing numbers as high as your child can go.

What We Are Learning~

During our reading time we have been focusing on fire safety and the author Eric Carle.  The students have learned a lot of great things during both of these studies.  We also have been really working on our reading skills.  We are working very hard on the word wall words and looking at the beginning sounds in unknown words we come to while reading books.  Many have been working on beginning readers in our room.  It is great to see their excitement and I hope you are enjoying hearing about these adventures at home.

We have spent the last couple of weeks working very hard on our shapes.  We started out with our 2-D shapes.  These were: rectangle, triangle, square, circle, and hexagon.  We really investigated the sides, vertices, types of lines, and things in real life that make these shapes.  Now we have moved on to 3-D shapes.  We are working on: cone, cylinder, sphere, and cube.  These can be tricky so be sure to discuss these with your child.

We have finished up our lower and upper case handwriting curriculum.  Now we will be utilizing what we have learned as we really get into our Writer’s Workshop time.  We have been learning the basics of Writer’s Workshop currently but will start learning about writing personal narratives in the weeks to come!  Have your child show you their writing skills!

Upcoming Events~

v October 22 – Early Out

v October 23- Early Out-P/T Conferences

v October 27 – Early Out – P/T Conferences

v October 28 – Picture Retakes

v October 30- Halloween Parade 2:30 in gym

v October 31 – No School