Ms. Nancy's Kindergarten

12/11/09
This is a busy time of the year!  With a snow day and the craziness of the holidays I still need to hear from all of you about report card conferences.  I have lots of time to meet on Monday the 14th and Tuesday the 15th.  If you can contact me that would be great! 

We have been studying the letter Jj this week.  It makes a fat pushed air sound.  Your lips become fat and you push out a puff of air.  This is opposite to last week letters (S and Z) where your lips became skinny.  The brother to J is Ch.  We will not be studying the Ch combination till the end of the year.  Next week we will be studying the letter Mm. 

We have touched on our study of the moon.   We will continue learning about the moon next week also.  Take a few moments and look up at the sky and discuss the moon with your child.  You would be amazed at what they already know....I was.

We will start our study of Customs of Many Cultures about mid week.  On Monday, I will be sending home a paper for you to fill out with your child discussing the traditions that your family has with the upcoming holidays.  Please fill it out and have them back to me by the end of the week.   We will use the papers as part of our discussions on traditions.  If you have an unique custom/tradition and you would like to share with the class, please let me know.

We have been studying the AT word family.  We can read bat, cat, sat, pat, hat, mat and fat.  A good resource for parents is the website www.starfall.com.  If you go to the Learn to Read Section, your child can read the AT family book.  This is a great site because your child can click on a word that they don't know and the computer will sound out the word for them...great for those independent learners.  Also if they click on the picture it will move for them.  It is a different way to get them to read.

We did not go outside today.  The wind made it too cold.  We will try again next week.  Today was a great "dress" rehearsal.  Please practice with your child putting all their stuff on and off.  Also, some people need to ask Santa for a bigger backpack.  Next year they will need to bring their winter clothing each day! 



12/4/09
We have been having a lot of fun learning about Big Beautiful Bears.  We focused on hibernantion this week.  Ask you child which animals hibernate, what does an animal do to prepare for hibernation and which season does hibernation start at and which season does hibernation end? 
We will continue our study of bears. We will focus on the story of Goldilocks and the Three Bears and learning about the moon.

We will focus on the letter J this week.  I will be sending home another sight word book on Tuesday.  Be sure to put it in your shoebox library and keep reading the other books I have sent home.  The title of the book is called I Can See.  There are color words in the book.  Our morning poems for the past four weeks have had color words in them.  Please have your child continue practicing recognizing their color words.  The colors words are:  red, green, black, blue, brown, orange, yellow, pink, purple, and white.

In Math we have been graphing our favorite color, the color of our backpack and the color of our house.  Ask your child which color most of the houses in our classroom are!  We have also been practicing writing and recognizing our teen numbers.  They are doing great!  Finally, we have been rote counting by 1's up to the number 50.  Some of us are getting stuck at 39 and 49.  Please have your child count for you at least once a day to 50.  Challenge:  Count up to 100!  It is a fun activity to do in the car.

Great news!  We reached our goal of  100 cans of food for the food drive.  Thank you to all who donated.  If your still want to donate you can bring in your cans/boxes on Tuesday.  They will be making a final pick up of the cans/boxes on Tuesday. 

11/30/09
We are back from break and we are ready to go!  I sent home a book today for your child to read to you.  It is called School.  It should be placed in your shoe box library.  I will be sending a book home each week.  Please have your child read it to you and other people in your house...even little brothers and sisters!  The books will contain sight words that your child needs to learn.  These are words that they can not sound out.  We are working on I, see, a, the, this, and is.  Please point these words out to your child when you are reading to them.  Challenge:  Stop reading and have them tell you the sight word! 

We studied the letter S last week.  The brother is Z.  These are called skinny air.  The S is the quiet one and Z is the noisy one.  The letters are called skinny air because you make a small opening with your lips and you spread your lips outward to make them skinny.  The fat air sounds is the sh sound.   Your children are great at naming words that start with the letters.  If you are stuck....look at a dictionary.  Great place for ideas for the word list! 

We are also studying Bears for the next two weeks.  We will discuss hibernation, the winter season, and the moon. 

I will be sending home report cards on December 4th.  Please sign the envelope and return the envelope to me.  The report card is for you to keep.  I will also appreciate you contacting me as to when a good time to meet for conferences.  I am available right after school and some nights.  Let me know what is best for your schedule.  You can call or email me. 

We have collected over 50 cans/boxes for the food drive.  More items were brought in later in the day.  Remember the food drive ends on Friday December 4th.  Please help if you can.  Our goal is 100 items. 

Remember that tomorrow is GYM.  We need to wear sneakers. 



11/23/09
Just thought I would touch base before the holiday weekend to give you some reminders.

1. PALS sheets are due December 3.  You will receive your next PALS on December 1st....look in your child's folder.

2. We will be having GYM on Tuesdays starting after Thanksgiving.   We had too many conflicts with Thursday.    Be sure to wear sneakers on Tuesdays and Fridays. 

3.  Your children have decided that as a class they were going to collect 100 cans/boxes of food for the food pantry.  Some of you have already donated.  We have 16 items.  The food drive is from now till December 5th.  We are graphing the results in the classroom.  Please donate if you can.  If you have already donated to the big boxes in front of the school please let me know how much.

4. Report cards will be send home December 3.  I will be sending information about conferences home with the report card. 

Have a great weekend.  Don't eat too much!


11/20/09

WOW!  We are famous.  The children did an OUTSTANDING job at the Community Meeting today.  I know there were some people who took videos so if you had to miss the performance because of work...just check with a fellow parent and they might have the video.  We received compliments from the entire school.  Your children did great with having to wait for the music, having a light in their face and then standing in front of the entire school...over 550 people!  They were so brave and responsible.  I am not sure what we can do to top it!  Thanks for supporting your child today.  This will be a great memory.

 

 

11/16/09

We have hit a big milestone!  We had the 50th day of school on Friday!  When we hit 100 days we will do a BIG celebration.  

We will study the letter Ss this week.  Keep sending in items on Wednesday and Thursday for our word list.  The students are doing great with thinking up words each week. 

 

We are continuing to study Native Americans and Pilgrims.   We will be making some art projects this week that are related to Native American crafts.  On Friday we will play some Pilgrim Games at outdoor play time.  Ask your child what Pilgrim children did for fun.

 

We will be introducing the TEEN numbers this week.  To help you can practice identifying, counting and writing them at home.  Use your calendar to help with identification.   Count crayons, markers or those little toys as you clean them up for the night.  Writing will take time.  Tell them the one is silent.  We don't say one six....we say sixteen.  This is a hard concept...so lots and lots of practice is needed. 

 

DON'T FORGET!!!!!  This Thursday November 19th at 9am your child will be performing at the Community Meeting.  If you have never been to one of these they are GREAT!  Come enjoy and you can bring siblings too! 

 

Finally, after Thanksgiving we will be changing our gym day.  We will have gym on Tuesday and not Thursday.  So remember sneakers on Tuesday and Fridays after the holiday. 

 

 

 

11/09/09

Hope you are enjoying this beautiful Indian Summer!  We are busy once again.  We are studying the letter Vv this week.  Remember it is a lip cooler and it is the noisy one!  See how long you can hold the sound.  

We will continue our study of numbers.  We are reviewing how to print our numbers 2-9 this week.  It is always a good idea to practice....especially the numbers 2,3,5,6 and 9.  There tend to be a lot of reversals with these numbers.  Next week we will study the tricky teens!  Writing these numbers are tricky because we don't say the first number.  We say thirteen not one three. 

We will be discussing the Pilgrims and Native Americans this week along with the Thanksgiving story.  

We are also practicing very hard for our part in the community meeting.  We hope you can attend.  Your children are really trying hard.  A lot of effort!  

Finally, NBCS is holding its annual food drive.  It runs from November 9-20.  Please send in nonperishable items to school.  A specific list will be coming home shortly from the PTA. 

 

 

 

11/3/09

Last week was  a lot of fun.  Thank you to all the parents that helped with the Halloween Party.  The students really enjoyed it! 

Exciting news!!!!!  We will be performing in the Community Meeting on Thursday Novemver 19th at 9am.  It will take place in the gym.  You don't want to miss it!  I suggest getting here around 8:30 ish to get a good seat.  Come see what your children have learned.  

We finished studying the letter G last week.  We found that the lowercase g looks funny sometimes.  It doesn't always look like the way we print it.  Look for it when reading books, signs and cereal boxes.

We will study the letter F this week.  It is a lip cooler.  Lick your lips and then make the F sound.  It cools your lips.  It is also the quiet one.  We will study V next week.  The noisy one.  We also found out that we can hold the F sound for a long time!  Try it.  It makes a stream of air out of our mouths.  Not a puff like our other letters.  

We have also begun our study of Native Americans and Pilgrims.  We are first looking at what changes we see in November.  Some animals leave and go south, some find food here and stay while others find a good sleeping place and hibernate for the winter.  We also discovered that people share food and gather together at this time of the year.  We will also learn about the Thanksgiving story.  We will even have a feast!  More on that later.

I am happy to see that we received all but a few September PALS sheets.  If you didn't send yours in please do so soon.  

Some dates to let you know about:

November 11: No School

November 18:  PTA meeting 7pm Library

November 19: Community Meeting 9am

November 26 & 27 No school

 

 

 

10/28/09

Boy...it has been a busy week!  We have been learning about our 5 senses and our bodies.  We have done some activities in the classroom with hearing and sight.  We will do taste smell and touch tomorrow and of course we will explore all our senses at our Halloween Party!

The Halloween Party is on Friday.  Be sure to send your child with his/her costume.  We DID NOT make costumes at school.  Your child can wear the costume that you made/bought for them.  Please no weapons or blood.  Contact me if you have any questions or concerns. 

 

We had a great time on Monday with the firefighters.  We learned to stop, drop and roll.  We learned to leave a house or building if the smoke detector is going off and not to go back in....even if we want our teddy bear or a family member.  That is the firefighters job.  Your kids were so smart!  They knew all about smoke detectors and a lot of the firefighters' equipment.   We even got a ride in a modified firetruck!  We had a lot fun learning about fire safety.  

We have been learning about the letter G.  It is a tongue scrapper, like K, but G is the noisy one!  Be careful when making the G sound.  I am hearing some Js.  Be sure you are using the back of your tongue and are scraping it on the top of you mouth.  The G sound that you hear when you say goat....not giraffe.

 

You have received your next PALS homework sheet.  I didn't want them to get lost on Friday so I sent them home early.  Remember that your October PALS is due November 3rd.  Please call or write with any questions.  

Finally, picture retake day is November 3rd, we have NO SCHOOL on November 11th (Veteran's Day) and we have NO SCHOOL on November 26th and 27th for Thanksgiving holiday.  We have a normal school day on the 25th.  The rest of the school will be dismissed at noon for an early release day.

Stay dry!

   

 

10/23/09  

We will have Fire Prevention Week next week.  We will be visiting the fire trucks on Monday morning.  These will be outside the front of the school.  Please be aware that there will be limited parking next week in the front of the school.  Our pick up will be the same. 

Also please check out the News Flash page!  You can sign up on the page to receive email alerts as to when I update the website.  This is great because you don't have to check the website every night!  Just trying to make your life easier.   Have a great weekend. 

 

10/22/09

Wow...we just had a great time in the gym!  We were able to go through a spider obstacle course.  We are lucky that Mrs. Moulton, the physical education teacher, invited us to try our luck in the obstacle course.  We went under, over, through and around spiders.  I think the spiders nipped a few toes but everyone made it out safely. 

We have been studying the letter K this week.  We learned that it is a tongue scrapper.  It is the quiet one and that next week the letter G will be the noisy one.  We use the back of our tongue to make the sound.  We also learned that we don't say AAAAAAHHHHH.... at the end of the letter sound.  We are not at the doctor's office.  Be sure that your child is not adding an extra sound to the letter.  

We also found out that K words are hard to find.  We heard a lot of K sounds but we found out that they are spelled with the letter C.  Very tricky!  We also had two words that are spelled with a K but we don't hear the K sound.  The K is silent!  (knee and knot)  We are discovering a lot about words.  

I will be calling each and everyone of you to give you a brief academic update on your child.  This will just let you know some areas that we are concerned with and that need a little extra attention at home.  We do appreciate all the work that you do at home....especially completing your PALS worksheet.  Remember that the OCTOBER PALS is due November 3.  We will be sending home the November PALS worksheet the week of  November 2. 

It was great seeing all of you at Open House.  Please feel free to come and visit any time.  We enjoy visitors.

Finally, tomorrow is the Michaelmas Fair.  You are welcomed to spend your money after pickup tomorrow.  All proceeds help fund the third grade whale watch trip. We will not be attending as a class.   

Enjoy your weekend.

 

 

10/16/09

Just thought I would let you know what we did this week.  We have learned about the letter Dd.  We know its sound and how to write it.  I will be sending home a practice writing sheet on Monday.  Remember to start with a MAGIC C for lower case d and start at the top for uppercase D.  Just follow the arrows.  The pencil does not come off the paper when making the lowercase d.

If you child is getting confuse with writing lowercase Bs and Ds...remind them that lower case Bs start at the top...make a big line down...then they swim up and over to the side....and a lowercase D starts with a magic c and then goes up into the sky and then back to the ground.  

 

We have finished our study of Community Helpers.  We sang..."Who are the People in Your Neighborhood".....an old Sesame Street favorite of mine...and identified the community helpers.   We learned to write the number 7 also.  We will work on 8 next week. 

We will study body parts next week and the five senses the following week.  Halloween is a great time to explore all your senses!  Especially taste!   We will study the letter K and learn about sequencing in math also next week. 

I hope to see you at OPEN HOUSE on October 20th at 6:30 pm.

 

 

10/15/09

Hi all.  Just thought I would update you all on a few items.  First the school's bookfair starts today and will continue through October 23rd.  We will NOT be going down during school time.  Your are welcome to visit the Bookfair after pick up or during Open House.  There are other times that the bookfair will be open...check the school's website for more information. (PTA section)  There will also be a Michaelmas Fair on October 23rd.  The third grade sells crafts to raise money for their field trips.  We will NOT being going as a class, but you are welcome to attend after pick up.  Finally, we will have our HALLOWEEN PARTY on Friday October 30th.  The party is all set.  Please send your child to school with their costume in another bag.  We will put on costumes at school.  Please no weapons of bloody items.  If you have any questions please contact me.  Have a great weekend!

 

 

10/13/09 

Hope you are finding something to do on this rainy day.  The kids loved making their community helper hats this morning.  They very proudly wore them marching down the hall.  It was a sight! 

They had some papers that they completed at school today.  Two were on patterning (drawing what comes next) and the other was on community helpers.  Some did not finish the community helper page and we will complete them tomorrow.  Time just seems to disappear in our room...especially when we are working hard!  To practice patterning you can have your child draw what comes next....use shapes to cover two skills at once. 

They also brought home a book today called I Can Be.  We have read it in class.  Please concentrate on the sight words... I, can and a.  Your shoe box library is growing!

We have also been focusing on the sight words this and is.  We have poem that we read in the morning that contains these two words.

This is pumpkin happy.

This is pumpkin sad.

Now you see him sleepy.

Now you see him mad.

This is pumpkin in pieces small.

But in a pie his is best of all!

 

We will study the letter Dd this week.  This is the noisy tapper.  Be sure to tap the top of you mouth.   (Tt was the quiet tapper)

 

Reminder:  Open House September 20th from 6:30pm to 7:30 pm.  See you there! 

 

 

10/7/09

Our first rain day at school.  Hope everyone is now enjoying the sunny weather.  I sent home a paper on writing the lowercase letter p.  It is for practice and I wrote what you can say to your child as they write the letter on the bottom.  They should know this as we have said it many times in class.  Please return the paper tomorrow or as soon as possible.  

We learned the sound for the letter Tt.  We know that our tongue will tap the top of our mouths when we make this sound.  It is a quiet tapper.  We learned that it's brother is Dd and it is a noisy tapper.  Another way to tell a noisy sound from a loud sound is to put your hands over your ears.  Quiet sounds should not be heard in your head.

We started our journals today.  For now they are drawing a picture.  Today we asked them which community helper they would like to be.  We got some great responses.  Before doing our journals we discussed how to draw a person and what should be in our picture.  We talked about what shapes to use to draw a person, and what colors to use.  Sorry...no purple hair today.

We will continue to study community helpers next week and the letter D. 

 

Remember there is NO SCHOOL on Monday October 12th.  

  

 

10/2/09

Wow...we are already in October.  Here is a recap on the week.  We learned the sound for B and we made a long list of  Bb words (29).  Some were getting confused with the B sound and the P sound.  Just remind them to put their hand on their throat to tell the quiet popper (P) from the noisy popper (B).  That seems to help them. 

They brought home a new book, Farm Friends.  We are focusing on a few sight words.  They are....I, see and a.  When you are reading to your child stop at those words in the book and have your child read them to you.  Practice makes perfect.  Remember sight words are words that you have to know by sight...you are not able to sound them out. 

I also sent home their Rainbow names.  This is how your child is expected to write their first name in class from now on.  Later in the year we will work on last names.  Since it is going to be  rainy weekend I sent home some coloring pages about the farm.  Enjoy!  Please have them practice staying in the lines and using real colors....no purple cows! 

For math we are still working on patterns, shapes and counting.  We are now learning how to count by 10s.  We clap as we say the numbers.  A good game to play in the car or while standing in line.  

Finally we will be studying the letter Tt and Community Helpers next week.  Have a great weekend.

 

9/30/09

We had a wonderful day to have our picture taken.  We were able to have our class picture done in the garden.  We all had big wonderful smiles.  I can't wait for you to see the results.  Be sure to check out the calendar section... I have updated the dates for October that you need to know about.  

This week we have been focusing on the letter Bb.  We have learned how to make the sound (noisy popper) and tomorrow we will practice writing it.  We always start our letters at the TOP.  We have also been finishing up our unit on the Farm.

Great job bringing in items that start with Bb.  We are thankful to Ben for the tattoos  of BUGS!  What a great item to share.  Don't forget that you can bring in more B items tomorrow!

We will be sending home tomorrow your first P.A.L.S. sheet.  This is a month of activities for you to do with your child.  It stands for Practice At Learning Skills.  We need you to help practice the skills that your children are learning in the classroom.  Coach always said "Practice makes perfect!"  We appreciate your help.  Any questions or concerns please contact me. 

Finally, I hope that you have your library set up at home.  I sent home another book this week.  The Apple Tree Book is a good way for you child to practice positional words.  You can extend this activity by having your child go under a table, around the lamp, over the book, stand next to the television or between Mom and Dad.  Make it a game!  Good way to practice following 2-3 step directions.  Have fun!

I keep forgetting to say THANK YOU to all of you who have dropped off supplies.  I keep finding the goodies and I am not sure who to thank...so THANK YOU!  We appreciate it.

 

9/25/09

We just had a wonderful assembly about Conflict Resolution.  We learned about the CAPS program for solving problems.  We learned how to make I statements.  I feel........ because.....and I want you to......    This is helpful when solving conflicts.  If you want more information on this program their website is www.sammysnail.com  This program was sponsored by the NBCS PTA.

 

We have been having fun learning the letter P.  We had great participation with bringing in items that start with the letter P.  Your children were great and were able to list 23 words on their P word list.  We will be placing three letter words that follow the rules on our word wall.  For example the word pan follows the rules while pie does not.  We have to hear all the letter sounds when we say the word in order for it to be included on the word wall.  Just remember that items can be brought in on Wednesday or Thursday.  We will return the items that day or the next.  

 

Next week we will be studying the letter Bb and we will be continuing learning about the Farm.  We will also learn how to write the number 5.  Whenever you see a number have your child identify the number.  If it is a larger number, for example 568, then have the child identify the individual digits...5,6,8...then tell them how we say the number...five hundred sixty eight and move your finger from left to right.

 

Remember that picture day is September 30th.  Have them bring their smiles and their order forms.  You can send in the order forms earlier if you want.  

 

Have a great weekend!