Kindergarten News

Dear Parents,

I hope that everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving. We certainly have many blessings! This letter has some activities to help your child gain a better understanding of numbers.

Sincerely,
Deborah Black

At school we give your child many experiences to develop meanings of numbers, but more practice is needed. Here are ways you can help:

1. Associate number names with objects – one apple, two shoes, two socks, five fingers, five toes, four spoons, four plates, three potatoes, etc.
2. Bounce balls and jump rope while counting.
   Make up other games that involve three turns, ten tosses, etc.
3. Give your child some counters – beans, checkers, pebbles. Together arrange them in a variety of ways. If you have five counters arrange them in combinations of:
   • 4 and 1
   • 3 and 2
   • 2 and 2 and 1
   • 1 and 1 and 3

   Arrange six counters as:
   • 1 and 5
   • 2 and 4
   • 3 and 3
   • 2 and 2 and 2
   • 1 and 2 and 3
   • 1 and 1 and 4

   Make number games with materials on hand.

4. Sing counting songs and say counting rhymes. Many library books will have counting rhymes and songs children enjoy. Some suggestions:
   • Counting Rhymes by June Pierce
   • One, Two, Three, Four by Ruby Schuler and Kate Considine
   • Four Threes are Twelve by H.R. Wright

Rhymes to Say Together

Kindergarten News

Thanksgiving Break

Thanksgiving Break is November 19th – November 23rd, 2012.
School will resume on Monday, November 26th, 2012.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Kindergarten News

Dear Parents and Kids,

During the month of November, we have been studying about Pilgrims, Native Americans, and the celebration of Thanksgiving. During activities for language arts and math, students made several different books including The Turkey Counting Book, The Indian Counting Book, Indian Bunny, The Indian Bunny Book, and Long Ago.

During history/social studies, we learned about the lifestyles of the Pilgrims and Native Americans. We studied several books on these topics, including Sarah Morton’s Day, Samuel Eaton’s Day, The Legend of Blue Bonnet and The Thanksgiving Story.

For math, we focused on learning the numerals 0-20. We learned how to write the numerals and we learned their values. We also learned about “more” and “fewer”. We focused on making patterns. Students made Thanksgiving placemats with an ABAB pattern.

We made hats like those worn by the people participating in the first Thanksgiving feast.

Our October “Citizen of the Month” was Mia!  Mrs. Hernandez presented her with a certificate at the Palmer Way citizenship assembly. Congratulations Mia! I’ll be looking for the November “Citizen of the Month”, so remember to follow the rules of the classroom and be on your best behavior in the cafeteria and outside at recess. Another BIG CONGRATULATIONS to Samantha, Kaela, Wills, and Ryan for finishing the “Reading Readiness” program on the computer. They have started the “Initial Reading” program on Success Maker! Now our class has 4 students in the “Initial Reading” program! Way to go Kids! I couldn’t be prouder!

I will not be giving any homework assignments during the week of Thanksgiving Break. I do want to tell you that I am thankful for all my wonderful students and their families! I hope that you all have a wonderful holiday! May your home be filled with many blessings!

Sincerely,
Mrs. Black

Kindergarten News

Dear Parents,

This has been another great week! We studied the human skeleton:

• 206 bones make up the human skeleton.
• We learned how to make them grow strong.
• We read: The Skeleton Inside You, My Body and Me, and Skeletons.

We learned about spiders:

• We learned about spider  habits and habitats.
• We studied about orb, triangle, and hammock webs.
• We made our own spider webs!
• We read The Very Busy Spider, Spiders, Be Nice to Spiders, The Story of Spiders, and  Spider Silk.

The children had fun acting the nursery rhyme – Little Miss Muffett.  We met the “Itsy Bitsy Spider”. They illustrated and read their books about “Little Miss Muffett” and “The Itsy Bitsy Spider”. I hope they enjoyed reading their books to you!

Sincerely,
Mrs. Black

Kindergarten News

Dear Parents,

Try some of these activites with your child.

Assisting Your Child When Learning to Read

• When your child comes to a word they don’t know, wait. (Count to 15) then ask them to get their mouth ready to say the beginning sound of the word.
• When your child reads the incorrect word, ask, “Does what you read make sense?”
• When your child comes to a word they don’t know, and if the picture has that word in it, ask “Did you check the picture for help?”
• When your child comes to a word they don’t know, ask, “Do you know a word that ends or begins like that word?” (if the word is fan they may know ran or fun.)
• Alternate reading pages with your child.
• Ask your child to retell the story after they finish.
• Ask your child to draw a pictures about the book and ask them to write a sentence or some words to go with the pictures. Accept any spelling as this helps your child to apply phonics.
• Take your child to the library frequently to select books for you to read to them and for them to read to you.