Weekly News & Homework: August 20th-24th

Weekly News: August 20-24

What a great first full week of school! I am the luckiest teacher to have such a great group of students with me and I am excited about our year together. We are having so much fun getting to know one another and adjusting to this crazy little thing called kindergarten :) 

There is always a LOT of information at the beginning of the year. Thank you so much for taking the time to read through our entire post. 

It was wonderful meeting so many of our parents at Back to School Night!  It is so nice to see we have an enthusiastic and very supportive group of parents!  This year will be amazing!! If you were unable to make Back to School Night, I put all of the papers in your child's cubby so that you do not miss the important information that was discussed. 

Friday Morning Prep Volunteers will begin THIS week (on August 24th). Thank you SO much to Ashley Pettit, Christine Correa, and Janis Coleman for signing up to help with our prep work. I will have a bucket marked "To Do" on our long table near my desk in the classroom on Friday morning. You are welcome to come grab it and take it to the office, use the round table in the hallway, or use that long table in the classroom to "prep" at! 

Our Classroom Volunteers for Monday-Thursday and our Friday Center helpers will not begin until the following week (August 27th-31st).  Thank you to the parents who signed up to help each week!!!

At Back to School Night, I sent home a Sight Word CD with most of our sight word songs. This is a fun way to learn our sight words and reinforce letter identification too. Have your child point to each letter on their flashcards as they sing the letter name and have fun singing! 

On Monday your child will take his/her first spelling sentence assessment.  Please take some time to go over the spelling sentence with your student and reinforce any errors your child may have made.  We will have a spelling sentence assessment each Friday that will include our current and often previous spelling words.  We are looking for correct spelling, capitalization, neat penmanship, and punctuation as well as appropriate spacing between words.  We understand this will take time, but with reinforcement and practice they will all achieve this standard.  Your students are off to a great start!!

Save the Date for our Parent Workshop on Thursday, September 13th from 6:00-7:00. We will meet in our classroom and go over all of our kindergarten standards/goals for the year, exactly what they mean, and strategies for how you can help your child with these goals at home. 

There is no school on Monday, September 3rd due to the Labor Day holiday. Enjoy the time off with your families!

What Are We Learning This Week?:

Sight Words: is, the, me, or.

Letters:i, t, h, m, o, r, p

Letter Team: th (we are learning that TH has two different sounds - a hard sound, like in THE and THAT, and a soft sound, like in THUMB and WITH). 

Word Family: ap (cap, tap, rap, etc.)

Reading: We are learning the vowels! Ask your child about our special vowel song and what sounds the vowels can make! We are learning that each vowel can make 2 sounds - short and long. We are also learning the parts of a book, including title, author, illustrator, and title page. You can help at home by having your child point to each part of the book before you read. We are writing a new class book this week titled, "More Shapes". We will learn various shapes and colors as we practice reading our sight words of the week. Students will continue pointing to the words as they read, looking at the pictures to help them with the words, and we will learn a new reading strategy:"Get your mouth ready for the first sound".

Writing: We are learning how to write using complete sentences and complete thoughts. We are learning that our ABC Sound Chart (which also came home on Back-to-School Night) helps us to identify sounds/letters in words. This week, we are also practicing writing our name with an uppercase ONLY at the beginning. Please reinforce this at home.

Math: We will practice number identification, number writing, days of the week, months of the year, and shapes. 

Leadership: This past week we have been learning our class rules, what it means to be a "Prepared Student", and that we always keep trying, even when something feels hard! We even wrote a Class Promise together that we will read every morning: 

Fact 1: We are smart! 

Fact 2: We can get it!

Fact 3: We belong here! 

And 4: We won't forget it!

PLEASE SCROLL DOWN TO READ THE ENTIRE HOMEWORK POST BELOW!!!! 

Homework: August 20-24

As I said at Back to School Night, our Homework Program in Kindergarten is a little different. Instead of giving out packets, I ask that you work with your child at home at their level on what they need. I want to load you with lots of ideas and tips each week. Nothing needs to be turned in. Please take a moment to read each section of homework. I understand this can be very overwhelming, so please feel free to email me if you have any questions or concerns. Please plan on attending our Parent Workshop in September for even more strategies and tips!

Flashcards: Please make flashcards for our sight words (is, the, me, or), letters of the week (i, t, h, m, o, r, p) our letter team of the week (th) and our word family (ap - cap, tap, rap, etc.) Study these flashcards every day. Have your child read the word, spell the word, read the word. I would suggest making a little flashcard box that you can add to throughout the year and reading through those flashcards a few times a day. Make a game of it. Put the sight word CD on and sing and dance to the sight words.  We will have a Sentence Test on our sight words every Friday. A sentence test means we will be asking your child to write a sentence that we give them using our sight words of the week. We will not only be looking for correct spelling of our sight words, but also for an uppercase at the beginning, spaces between words, a proper punctuation at the end. An example of a sentence is, "We can see a man." It may be a good idea to have a practice Sentence Test with your child on Thursday night.

Phonemic Awareness: Please work with your child on the following Phonemic Awareness skills: rhyming, blending, segmenting, syllables, beginning/middle/ending sounds, and adding, changing and deleting sounds in words.  Please see our Phonemic Awareness tab for ideas and tips. 

Reading: Reading at home is SO IMPORTANT! In a few short weeks, your child will be bringing home little books that we have been reading in class to read at home for YOU! These books can go into the amazing book box that your child has created! Reading to your child is also important. Children need to hear frequent fluent reading to become a reader themselves. This week, we are learning Parts of a Book - when reading with your child, have them point out the front cover, back cover, spine, title, author, illustrator, and title page. Part of reading homework is also Smarty Ants. Have your child play Smarty Ants every day on your computer or tablet. A paper was sent home at Back to School Night with log-in instructions. Our class username is: bbobrink@inlandleaders.com and our password is: read.

Writing: Our writing homework will change throughout the year and may look different for each student since each student may be at a different place developmentally. I would like all students to practice writing your name with an uppercase only at the beginning. Practice writing your ABC's both uppercase and lowercase. Take a look at the ABC Writing Assessment that came home so you can see what your child needs to practice. You can also practice writing your sight words of the week in a short sentence. We are learning to start our letters at the TOP! 

Math: Practice counting 1-30 or higher. Make number flashcards and have your child identify numbers out of order. Practice number writing - take a look at your child's number writing assessment that came home on Back-to-School Night so you can see what needs to be practiced! Practice drawing shapes, identifying shapes, or even creating shapes out of play-dough and sticks. Ask your child to name different attributes of shapes. For example, "What shape has three sides?" or "How many vertices does a rectangle have?" Your child will also be bringing home "Daily Math" practice pages that we do every morning in class, starting THIS MONDAY!!! Please take a moment to go over these practice pages to see if there is anything specific your child needs to work on. Math homework every week also includes Dreambox. Have your child play Dreambox on your computer or tablet every day. A paper was sent home at Back to School Night with log-in instructions.  Our school code is X2we/inlandlcs

QR Codes: Mrs. Stanley has created many QR code activities for all of our kindergarten students to scan and work on at home. Each week, these will be uploaded on ParentSquare. You can print these pages for your child to work on at home each week. One great idea is to put these pages in sheet protectors and add these pages into a binder for your child to refer to all year long.