FIRST Weekly News & Homework: August 12-16
First Weekly News
We had a great first two days of school! It has been so nice to meet all of you and your awesome kiddos! I have a wonderful group of students and I am truly looking forward to a fantastic school year!
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.
Thank you for ALL of your generous donations! Don't forget to send personal headphones to school with your child (with their name marked on them). These will be their headphones that they use in class all year long. We are beginning to use our iPads this week!
We are excited for our first full week of school - we will be learning sight words, reading books, learning math, starting centers, beginning to share our ideas through pictures and writing, and even starting homework! (see below)
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!!
Thank you so much to our parents who signed up to volunteer in the classroom!
Friday Morning Prep "Parties" will begin THIS week. Thank you to Addy Lopez, Sarah Worsey, and Joleen York for signing up to help with our prep work. I will have a basket marked "To Do" in our volunteer corner in the classroom on Friday morning. You are welcome to come grab it and take it to the office. Miss Ronica will show you where you can do this prep work.
Our Friday Center helpers will ALSO begin THIS FRIDAY on our first ever "Fun Friday"! Thank you to the parents who signed up to help each week: Stephanie Green, Sarah Quaresimin, Joleen York, and Ryan Burgess.
ALL OTHER HELPERS for centers Monday-Thursday will begin the following week, starting August 19th. THANK YOU SO MUCH!!!
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!
Also, be sure to find our class on instagram! I will be sending home an instagram "permission slip" on Monday, so be on the look out for that! The username is @bobrinkskinders
This will be a PRIVATE account that ONLY parents of the kids in THIS class will have access to, and at the end of the year the account will be deleted.
What Are We Learning This Week?:
Sight Words: WE, CAN, SEE, A.
Letters: w, e, c, a, n, s
Letter Team: EE (like in SEE and BEE).
Reading: We are reading many books about beginning school! We are reading books about our shapes and finding/highlighting our sight words as we read. This year, we are learning many reading strategies to become better readers. This week, we will focus on: Make Your Finger Match the Word and Look at the Pictures.
Writing: We are learning to neatly write the alphabet using correct letter formation. This week we are learning that a sentence starts with an uppercase letter and ends with a period. We are working on putting finger spaces in between our words. We are learning that our ABC Sound Chart helps us to identify sounds/letters in words. I will be sending one for you to keep at home this week.
Leadership: At ILCS this year, we are ROARING. The acronym ROAR stands for Respect self, others, and property, Own your actions, Act safely, and Rise to servant leadership. For the next several weeks, we will be discussing the first R in class - RESPECT. We will talk about what it means to respect, as well as what it looks like. Our goal is to have students take ownership of their own behavior as we all strive to be leaders in our classroom and school.
First Week of Homework
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. 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 (we, can, see, a), letters of the week (w, e, c, a, n, s) our letter team of the week (ee) and our word family (an - can, tan, ran, 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 also 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! 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. Another part of reading homework can be RAZ-KIDS.
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 is coming home this week 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 will come home this week 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. 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 and our class code is 33599.
QR Codes: Our class uses a LOT of QR codes in our learning. 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.
Monthly Turn-in Project: Our first turn-in project is to make a Book Box! This book box can be made from a shoebox, Amazon box, plastic container - whatever you want! Decorate it with paper, stickers, ribbons - be as creative as you want! Your child will bring this book box into class ANY DAY this week to share with the class, then take it home as this will be your special book box to live at home with you. When your child starts bringing home little paper books, these little paper books can live in that book box. Make this a fun family project and a special place for your child to keep all the books we are learning how to read. Please bring your book box in ANY day this week! HAVE FUN! :)
Monthly Turn-in Project: Our first turn-in project is to make a Book Box! This book box can be made from a shoebox, Amazon box, plastic container - whatever you want! Decorate it with paper, stickers, ribbons - be as creative as you want! Your child will bring this book box into class ANY DAY this week to share with the class, then take it home as this will be your special book box to live at home with you. When your child starts bringing home little paper books, these little paper books can live in that book box. Make this a fun family project and a special place for your child to keep all the books we are learning how to read. Please bring your book box in ANY day this week! HAVE FUN! :)
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