Dear Families,

We have just finished up another busy week in Room #14. The students have been busy learning the letters J, E, and Y this week along with their beginning sounds. In reading, the children have been enjoying fictional stories about pumpkins. Our  main focus in reading has been recognizing that stories have a beginning, middle, and end. In math, we have been looking for patterns. The students have done a great job recognizing what comes next in a specific pattern. In science, we have been learning all about the life cycle of a pumpkin.

Last week the students were introduced to our morning tubs. When the students arrive each morning they are able to work with a partner using a tub that contains activities that help to promote fine motor skills and creative thinking. The students are enjoying using our new morning tubs. Please enjoy these pictures of the students working with these new tubs.

Reminders for next week:

Monday- 10/28  1/2 day dismissal for students at 11:00  Join us from 8:00-9:30 for our STEAM DAY I am still in need of parent volunteers to help make our STEAM DAY a success!

Tuesday- 10/ 29   Crazy Hair or Hat Day  Join us for Book or Treat from 6:00-8:00 pm. Students can wear their Halloween costumes and leave with a free books.

Wednesday-10/30  Crazy Sock Day  Big Blast Fundraiser Bounce Party

Thursday- 10/31  Wear Orange for Positively Pumpkin Day

Friday-11/1 Pajama Day

WHAT WE ARE LEARNING ABOUT NEXT WEEK:

Language Arts: K.8e Retelling with Beginning, Middle, and End

Poem: 5 Little Acorns

Words: little, on

Letters:  Z, Q, U

Essential Questions: 

What’s happening at the beginning of the story?

What happened in the middle of the story?

What happened at the end of the story?

Math:  Patterns

SOL: K.13  The student will identify, describe, extend, create, and transfer repeating patterns.

Vocabulary: 

core, extend, create, transfer, repeating, pattern, next, compare

Essential question:

• What is a pattern?
• How can we identify and describe the core of a repeating pattern?
• Patterns exist in many forms (common objects, sounds, movements, and pictures).  How can we create patterns in different forms?
• How do we use the part of a pattern that repeats (the core) to extend the pattern?
• How can we compare and contrast patterns?
• How can we transfer a repeating pattern from one representation to another?

Science/Social Studies: Patriotism

K.11  The student will develop an understanding of how communities express patriotism through events and symbols by:
a)       recognizing the American flag;
b)       recognizing the Pledge of Allegiance; and
c)       knowing that the president is the leader of the United States. 

Essential Questions

• Which colors and shapes are used on the American flag?

• Recognize the words to the Pledge of Allegiance when spoken by an adult.
• What title is given to the top leader of government in the United States?

Vocabulary

• patriotism: feeling of respect for and love of country and state

respect: a feeling of admiring someone or something that is good, valuable, or important

Parent conferences are being scheduled for Monday, November 4th. Please click on the link below if you haven’t already signed up. I still have several spots available. I would love to meet with all of you. 

https://www.signupgenius.com/go/20f0548aaab2ea4f58-november

Also, I am checking to see if students know their red rainbow words. Please review these words that were sent home at the beginning of October. If your child knows these words, please send in your child’s red word list so I can quiz them. If they know all of the words, I will give them the orange sight word list. Helping your child learn these sight words is a great way to help them be successful readers. Thanks so much for your help. 

Here are the sight words on the red list just in case you have misplaced them:

I hope everyone has a fabulous weekend.

Mrs. Smith 🙂

Dear Families,

What a great week we have had. We began the week on Tuesday with a visit from the Richmond Ballet. The students enjoyed watching the ballet company’s version of Swan Lake.

In science, we have been learning all about fall. Luckily the weather has finally cooperated to truly feel like fall.

In math, the students have been learning how to count to 20. We have also been learning how to identify and write the numbers 1-10. Ask your child how high they can count.

In reading, the students have been learning to identify the beginning, middle and end of a story. We are also continuing to learn letters, sounds, and sight words. A great website for learning sight words is https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hCphZr-iwSk  The children love singing these songs in class. Just google this website and change the sight word to a word that your child is learning. Music is a great way for young children to learn.

We finished up our week with our trip to the Hanover Vegetable Farm. The students had a wonderful time. I would like to thank all of the parents and grandparents who showed up to help chaperone our trip. I could not have managed without you. My daughter, Taylor, came all the way from North Carolina to help us out.

Please enjoy these pictures from our trip:

Next week:

Language Arts: Retelling with Beginning, Middle, and End

Poem: I Am a Pumpkin

Words: be, for

Letters:  J, E, Y

Essential Questions: 

What happening at the beginning of the story?

What happened in the middle of the story?

What happened at the end of the story?

Math:  Patterns

The student will identify, describe, extend, create, and transfer repeating patterns.

Vocabulary:

core, extend, create, transfer, repeating, pattern, next, compare

Science/Social Studies:  Pumpkin Life Cycle

The student will investigate and understand that there are simple repeating patterns in his/her daily life.

Dates to remember:

• October 22 – Mix It Up Day
• October 23 – Unity Day, Wear Orange
• October 24 – final day to order a Papa John’s pizza for Book or Treat. Order here: www.pjcheese.com/mtes
•  October 25. Sign up here. Breakfast with the Principal
• October 28-Half day of school. Steam day for students
• October 29- Book or Treat-6:00-8:00

Reminders:

Homework will be sent home on Monday! Remember to play the games sent home, fill out the reading log, and practice rainbow words. I will check Red words Monday and pass out Orange words if your child masters the Red ones. Please continue to read at home with your child.

We are in need of treasures for our treasure chest. If you would like to donate, please send in bouncy balls, bubbles, any small toys, or McDonald toys. Also I will be putting in tickets that the students may pick from. Some examples are: Stinky feet (take your shoes off in the classroom!), Bring a stuffed animal to school day! 10 minutes of extra computer time!   I know the class is going to love these choices when they go to the treasure chest! Also thanks for your donations! 

I hope everyone has a great weekend!

Mrs. Smith

Dear Families,

We started off our week with a Marvelous Monday full of STEAM!  Our students had an action packed morning filled with activities based around the story, “Chicka Chicka Boom Boom”.  We engineered our own “trees” using blocks, Popsicle sticks and magnetic letters.  We crafted our own trees adding coconuts with the letters in our names.  We went on a letter hunt through magazines to find EVERY letter in the alphabet.  And we used our 5 senses to explore a REAL coconut!  We had so much fun and we could not have done it without our AMAZING parent volunteers!  Thanks so much for taking time to come help out, we appreciate you!

We also had an APPLE-tastic time in kindergarten!  In Reading, we listened to fictional stories about apples and paused to make a prediction.  Our poem this week was “Way Up High in the Apple Tree”.  We learned about the letters /b/ /k/ and /o/, as well as the sight words “and” “the” and “in”.  In Math, we finished our unit on sorting objects by more than one attribute.  And in Science, we learned all about the life cycle of an apple tree!  We also sorted the apples that we brought from home and we made a recipe and cooked our own applesauce!

Next week, we will begin a unit on Community Helpers.  We would like to invite students to dress like their favorite community helper on Wednesday.  I can’t wait to see all of our helpers in action!

Today, our kindergartners brought home their first “Homework Activities” in their yellow daily folder.  The 3 components of our homework this year will include: an academic game, a reading log, and rainbow sight words. We encourage you to interact with your child and helping them learn through play.  Studies also show that reading to your child each night has clear cognitive benefits but it also strengthens children’s social, emotional, and character development. Learning high-frequency sight words is very important to your child’s ability to read fluently. Some words cannot be decoded easily, and your child should know them by sight – we call them sight words. This year we will refer to these words as our Rainbow Words. We encourage you to complete these activities with your child, to reinforce the learning that we do in class.  Let me know if you have any questions.

>>NEXT WEEK

READING/WRITING: K.9
– Comprehension Focus & Genre Study: Making Predictions (Scarecrow Stories)
– Phonemic awareness: /i/  /l/  /h/
– Sight Words: (student names) he, can, go
– Writing first & last name and upper + lower case letters
* Questions to ask when reading with your child: How can you use the pictures to help your understanding? What is a prediction? How can I use the story to guess what will happen next?

MATH: K.1
– Count orally to tell how many are in a given set containing 20 or fewer concrete objects, using one-to-one correspondence, and identify the corresponding numeral.
– Read, write, and represent numbers from 0-20.

SOCIAL STUDIES: K.6
– The student will match simple descriptions of work that people do with the names of those jobs.

Examples of Jobs

• Doctors are people who take care of other people when they are sick.
• Builders are people who build or construct houses and other buildings.
• Teachers are people who help students learn.
• Cooks are people who prepare meals.
• Farmers are people who grow crops and raise animals.
• Firefighters are people who put out fires in buildings.

Important Upcoming Dates/Events

Wednesday, 10/9: Dress Like a Community Helper
Thursday, 10/10: Picture Day  *This is a change*
Monday, 10/14: Student Holiday – NO SCHOOL
Friday, 10/18: Pumpkin Patch Field Trip

Please enjoy these pictures from our week:

I hope everyone has a chance to enjoy this beautiful fall weekend.

Mrs. Smith