I was sitting in my living room last night and thinking about the day at school. I thought I might tell you again just how much I love being your kids' teacher. They are an amazing group of people. I am lucky to know them and to work with them at this stage in their lives. Thank you!
Needless to say the weeks just get better and better. There were lots of great centers this week and the introduction of computers! Woo Hoo!
Listening Center: The kids listened to the story Pumpkin,Pumpkin! They wrote the beginning of the sentence from the wall: I liked when- then with a yellow pen an adult wrote the rest of the words. Everyone started to write the star words in their sentences. Some students are starting to write their own sentences phonetically. We don't worry about spelling with the kids when they begin writing. We sit with them and count out the words in the sentence they want to write. In the beginning we draw a yellow line for each word and have the kids sound out the sounds they hear in the word. Again we are not worried about spelling. We still talk about capital letters and periods. The listening center responses are being hung up in the classroom and will be sent home in a book at the end of the year.
Orange Center: This is the most exciting center of the week! Computers! The kids learned to click on the icon of the activity and to really listen to the directions. A lot of the kids had a heard time remembering to listen to what the computer directed them to do. They used the Open Court computer program which goes along side our language arts program we use in the classroom. Mostly they worked on alphabet work and letter sounds.
Yellow Center: This was a parent run center discussing pumpkins from seed to jack-o-lantern. The final project was in the back pack. This center covered science, fine motor skills, and sequencing.
Green Center: A great art project and some fine motor practice was done by all. The kids made a black cat with a very curvy tail. Check out the windows in the next few weeks to see the final projects.
Red Center: The kids took a sail into history along the Nina, the Pinta, and the Santa Maria! The kids heard a story about Christopher Columbus, painted a sunset, and made one of his ships. They traced the poem- In 1492 Columbus sailed the ocean blue. The final project is hanging in the classroom.
Letter of the Week:
The letter of our week was Ee. A capital E was fairly simple. A straight line from the sky to the ground, and then three smaller lines- top, middle, bottom. The lowercase e proved and still proves to be more challenging. It's hard making a letter that starts below the dot dot line. The kids did lots of Ee practice on the worksheets and on the white boards. They wrote in their alphabet books and there sentence books. Our letter next week will be Oo.
Open Court:
More rhyming! We sang songs and made rhyming sentences. I encourage you to sing Down by the Bay with your child and have them make up the rhymes. Also have them pick out the rhyming words if you read rhyming stories or nursery rhymes. We worked on making complete sentences orally. We talked about how each sentence had to have a naming part (subject) and a telling part (predicate). We started a new unit in Open Court on Shadows. We read two stories about shadows and discussed what it took to make a shadow. Our letters of the day this week were Qq, Rr, Ss, and Tt. We should finish up the alphabet next week. On Monday you should have found the pre-decodable readers in the homework folder. Please keep these in a special place. They will be bringing home more books and they too should go into the bag. I will send them in groups of four. Our new star words this week were it and like. We also started the star word journal this week where as a class we write a sentence using the star words. They underline the star words and draw a picture.
Math:
We started a new unit this week having to do with spacial awareness, direction, and sorting. We have been doing a problem a day during the morning meeting. WE are working on identifying the numbers. Most of the kids can do the numbers 1-10 and count out ten objects. We are now working on identifying the numbers 1-20 out of order. Please practice this at home too. We have also been practicing the days of the week. We are still practicing writing the numbers and drawing that number of objects.
Book Orders:
I have changed the end date on the book orders on line so if you would like to order still you can. I decided that although this is a public blog all someone can do is order books so I am putting the password information on the blog.
Go to scholastic.com/bookclubs
user name: ranchok1am
password:kindergarten
Field Trip:
Permission slips for our October 23rd field trip to the pumpkin patch have been sent out. Please return those as soon as you can. If there is not written permission they can not attend. We will be riding buses and attending with all of the other kindergarten class. I already have four parent volunteers. Thank you in advance for your interest in volunteering. We have another field trip in the spring and I will ask for five new volunteers then. Please do not come in your private car to the field trip location. Having parents there that are not chaperones distracts and confuses the children. This a great place to go with your child on a weekend. I know you will all understand. Thank you!
