School is officially in full swing and we are loving every minute of it! Another great week with your kids and I am looking forward to what the rest of the year has to bring.
Here is a brief overview of the week!
Centers:
Listening Center:
The kids listened to Clifford the Big Red Dog, drew a picture of their favorite part of the story, and then dictated a sentence to a teacher about the picture.
Orange Table:
The kids worked with a parent to make a Corduroy puppet that will be coming home in the Friday Folder. Your child worked on their fine motor skills.
Yellow Table:
The kids worked with Mrs.Bondanza on handwriting and the letter of the week. They wrote a sentence using the letter Ii in their alphabet sentence book. This was an opportunity to work on penmanship, practice listening skills, and following directions. The kids also practiced writing their names in "kindergarten handwriting".
Green Table:
The kids work with me making animal patterns. They used the animals that are found in the book Brown Bear, Brown Bear. This center worked on math skills, motor skills, and direction following. They also practiced tracing the numbers two and three. Most of this center was done independently.
Red Table:
With a parent the kids painted a picture using watercolors of an animal from the story Brown Bear, Brown Bear. They also colored a bear the color of their choice and practiced tracing their name in kindergarten handwriting.
Handwriting:
Our letter of the week this week was Ii. The kids are experts on writing the letter Ii and are expected to do it all the time in their best kindergarten handwriting. Sometime your child will need extra practice so you will find a practice sheet in their homework folder. We are working on writing our names using only one upper case letter and the rest lower case. We call this "kindergarten handwriting". Your child will be expected to write their name in "kindergarten handwriting" from now on. It won't be perfect and we don't expect it to be. There will probably be a mix of letters from time to time but we would like them to "try" it and do there best at it from now on. Please practice this at home.
Social Studies:
You should have found a newspaper in the back pack this week about classroom rules. Those are what we use to guide our social studies lessons. We talked about why we need rules both in and outside of the classroom.
Science:
Today we kicked off our science lesson about trees. We will begin studying trees next week. We took a walk and looked at different trees and their leaves. Your child is more then welcome to bring things in from trees around their house. We will be talking about what we use trees for and what grows on trees. They can bring in things that aren't just leaves such as acorns, fruit, nuts, etc.
Math:
We continued to work on patterning making AB patterns (red,blue,red,blue) and making AAB (red, red,blue,red,red,blue) or ABB patterns (red, blue, blue, red, blue, blue).
We also worked on identifying shapes and drawing shapes. We worked on number writing practice as well.
Language Arts:
In Open Court your child has been working on finding rhyming words. We have been doing this through games and song. We have been singing "Down by the Bay" all week. We have also been working on sorting things. We have been listening to stories about being in school and starting kindergarten.
Movement:
On Thursday Winnie Comfort came to lead a PE class for the kindergartners. It was a great time. It will be every Thursday from 10:55 to 11:25. Please remember to send your child in sneakers on Thursday.
Buddy Classes:
On Wednesday we met with our buddy class. We are paired up with Mrs.Dees fifth grade class. Your child was assigned to a buddy for the year. This week we read stories together and then played.
Classroom Announcements:
The Rancho Roundup is on October 2nd. Each year the classes collect items to put in a basket. Our basket theme is Boys Box of Fun. We hope everyone will donate to the basket. The baskets will be sold at the Family Dinner.
Every Friday is Rancho Spirit Day. Your child can wear a Rancho shirt (order forms were sent out today) or blue and white!
Thank you to all the families who volunteered in the classroom. The kids loved seeing you! Keep up the great work!
Upcoming Events:
Please check out the calendar of upcoming events on the actual blog!
ranchok-1am.blogspot.com
Have a wonderful weekend! If you haven't gotten all your paper work in please do it by Tuesday.
