Kindergarten

December 2009

Dear Kindergarten Parents,

We hope you all enjoyed a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday with family and friends.  It’s hard to believe December is already here.

November proved to be another busy month for us here in kindergarten.

READING:  The children continue to learn and progress each at his/her own pace in the areas of phonics, phonemic awareness, fluency, comprehension and vocabulary.  We teachers continue to differentiate our program according to each student’s strengths and needs.  The Social Studies theme in literacy was “Transportation,” which included “Getting Around Town,” “Traveling Far and Near,” and “Wheels All Around.”  In line with that theme, we took a field trip to the school district’s Bus Barn to learn all about the care and maintenance of our school buses, and meet the mechanics.  We have just begun the theme of “Food.” 

MATH:  Despite the short notice, we hope some of you were able to attend the informational meeting at SPE this past Tuesday evening to learn about our new math program, “Everyday Math.” We are all very happy with it. In our classrooms over the past couple of weeks, the children have been introduced to the basic language of probability, learned different methods of weight and measurement, have played games to reinforce number relationships and number recognition, and have participated in activities to develop an understanding of addition and subtraction using concrete materials. Lot of concepts!

SCIENCE:  Our science agenda focused on “simple machines” and this week we just began studying Heart Health, with an emphasis on healthy eating and exercise.

NOTES:

Please remember to dress your child for cold, wet weather.  The SCE rule is that when there is snow on the ground, children must have snowpants, boots, and gloves in order to play on the playground during recess. This ensures that they remain warm and DRY. The playground equipment is often wet. If students are without the appropriate clothing, they are required to remain on the blacktop.  Also, it would be very helpful if you would please label your child’s clothing with his or her name, as items are constantly being misplaced.

Save the Date:

All kindergarten families are invited to a holiday potluck dinner on the evening of December 15^th from 6-7:30 in the cafeteria.  Your detailed invitations will be coming home soon.

Other Dates: Our Winter Break is from December 21 through January 3.

November 1, 2009

Dear Parents,

October was a busy month.  We would like to bring you up to date on what has been happening.

READING:  We continue to teach reading skills in whole group, small group and individually.  This way we can tailor instruction to meet the needs of each child.  All students are working at their level of fluency, comprehension, phonics, phonemic awareness and vocabulary.  The most current unit in our reading series had the theme of friendship.  This topic brought about rich discussions that are very important in the kindergarten classroom.  This also tied in with our SOCIAL STUDIES unit on cultural diversity and friends.

MATH:  Students and teachers alike are  loving our new math series.  This month we have been working on estimation, story problems, “tricky teens,” money, counting, patterns, shapes and all of the essential skills that are reinforced during our daily math routines.

SCIENCE:  Our science lessons have revolved around characteristics of living things.  We have also been studying animal habitats.  We had a terrific field trip to Ms Sharon’s house where we were able to discover many hidden habitats.

HANDWRITING:  We have been practicing the correct formation of capital letters.  Ask your child to sing the song “Where do we start our letters?”

DATES TO REMEMBER:

November 11^th and 12^th  Parent Teacher Conferences

November 13^th  No School

November 25^th 26^th and 27^th  Thanksgiving Break

Thanks for all of your help, and for your wonderful children!

Ms. Beth, Ms. Sharon, Ms. Suzanne and Mr. Turner

November 1, 2009

Dear Parents,

October was a busy month.  We would like to bring you up to date on what has been happening.

READING:  We continue to teach reading skills in whole group, small group and individually.  This way we can tailor instruction to meet the needs of each child.  All students are working at their level of fluency, comprehension, phonics, phonemic awareness and vocabulary.  The most current unit in our reading series had the theme of friendship.  This topic brought about rich discussions that are very important in the kindergarten classroom.  This also tied in with our SOCIAL STUDIES unit on cultural diversity and friends.

MATH:  Students and teachers alike are  loving our new math series.  This month we have been working on estimation, story problems, “tricky teens,” money, counting, patterns, shapes and all of the essential skills that are reinforced during our daily math routines.

SCIENCE:  Our science lessons have revolved around characteristics of living things.  We have also been studying animal habitats.  We had a terrific field trip to Ms Sharon’s house where we were able to discover many hidden habitats.

HANDWRITING:  We have been practicing the correct formation of capital letters.  Ask your child to sing the song “Where do we start our letters?”

DATES TO REMEMBER:

November 11^th and 12^th  Parent Teacher Conferences

November 13^th  No School

November 25^th 26^th and 27^th  Thanksgiving Break

Thanks for all of your help, and for your wonderful children!

Ms. Beth, Ms. Sharon, Ms. Suzanne and Mr. Turner

Welcome from the Soda Creek Kindergarten team,

Thank you to all the parents who attended our Parent Information Night.  Hopefully we clarified some things and did not overwhelm you!

We have had some busy weeks of school. The first two weeks we spent a great deal of time learning routines and expectations. The Kindergarteners know our school motto: Do the Right Thing.  They also know our four behavior expectations: Be safe, be kind, be respectful, be ready.

Students have learned and will continue to practice letters and letter sounds. We have started to blend sound together, both orally and with letter association. At this time we are working on blending two sounds together ( example: /a/ and /m/ makes “am”). Soon we will be  working with three sounds in a consonant/ vowel/consonant pattern.  The students are in literacy groups, so we can work with children at their own levels.

In Math, we are using our new program, Every Day Math.  Students have learned many daily math routines, such as graphing the weather; tracking the daily temperature; counting the number of days of school; and reading a calendar. They have practiced a lot of counting forward and backwards; number recognition to 10; patterning; graphing; and one-to-one correspondence. We will soon begin our next unit.  It covers more counting; number writing; more difficult patterns; shapes and their attributes; recognition of teens; estimation; symmetry; and number stories.

In Social Studies, students have shared about themselves and their families. As part of our All About Me unit, we are collecting data about ourselves and putting them into a time capsule/treasure chest.  The “treasure chest” will be buried on the school grounds and each month students will receive clues for finding the treasure chest. Next we will talk about friendships and how to be a better friend.

In Science, students have learned about matter – everything is matter, and that matter has properties.  We use our five senses to identify and describe matter.  They learned this week that matter can be divided into two categories – living and nonliving.  They will be learning about the characteristics of living things for the next several weeks.

Students are also working hard in our handwriting program.

While we  strive to set high expectations for your children, we also try to make the day fun.  We sing songs, dance around, play games and provide adequate social time.

Thanks for all your support.

Ms. Susanne * Ms. Sharon * Ms. Beth * Mr. Turner

Greetings Kindergarten Families,

Hello and we hope you all had a pleasant Spring Break!

Past
In April our thematic unit focused on plants and trees. There was an emphasis on the ecology of how useful and essential these natural resources are to our survival.

We read many books, both fiction and non-fiction about different types of plants and trees. We focused on the sounds and letter formation of Kk, Uu, ck, Gg, Ww. Our new sight words were said, here, was and she. Certainly there was a lot of quality writing about plants and trees in many ways. In math many concepts were covered; money, time, combining sets and working on problem-solving questions. During our science lessons we focused on tree identification, the ways we use trees, and we even germinated seeds!  

We had two police safety officers come and reinforce the ways for children to be safe at home, and when riding their bikes on the streets with an adult.   

Present
In May our thematic unit is varied. We start with insects, then move to oceans for a week and then spend two weeks learning about dinosaurs – this is all part of the larger theme of amazing creatures.

We will read a variety of literature to support the many topics we will be discussing. We will focus on the sounds and letter formation of Xx, Vv, Jj, Qq, Qu. Our new sight words will be has, look, with, me. We will be writing about all of the subjects in many forms, like fiction, non-fiction, procedural, writing to inform, and poetry. In math, we will be reviewing time and money, then more 10 frames, addition and subtraction facts and with an introduction to fractions. Our science and social studies reading and writing will surround the thematic unit concepts discussed above.

Future
Wow it came fast! The future looks short for the rest of the kindergarten year as we are in our last full month of school, and we end after the first week in June!

Our last week of school will be filled with fun activities!

 Please let us know if you have any questions or comments.
Thank you for taking the time to read our monthly newsletter!

The SCE Kindergarten Team
Mrs. Sharon       Ms. Suzanne       Mr. Turner