Weekly News & Homework: August 26th-30th

Weekly News: August 26-30 

News: 

We had a great second week of kindergarten! 

This is our first week of electives. I will have a list of all our students staying for electives and they will receive little stickers saying what elective they are attending. If your child is staying for electives, they will have lunch on the playground from 12:45-1:15. Electives are from 1:15-1:50 then they will be dismissed on the ramp from their elective teacher. If your child is not staying for an elective, but would still like to stay for lunch, they can join friends on the playground for lunch from 12:45-1:15 and will be dismissed on the ramp at 1:15 by a member of our yard duty staff. 

Save the Date for our Parent Workshop on Thursday, September 5th from 6:00-7:00. We will meet in our classroom next door 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 2nd due to the Labor Day holiday. Enjoy the time off with your families!

We will begin Reading Bags THIS week! Be sure to scroll down to the homework section to learn more about what that means.

What Are We Learning This Week?:

Sight Words: I, like, my. 

Letters and sounds: l, k, y, x, and the long and short vowel sounds a, e, i, o, u, y (the vowel sounds e or i)

Letter Team: sh (like in "she" and "push") and er (like in "her" and "mother") - ask your child to tell you about Mr. er - he is one crazy driver!!!

Word Family: ip - like in dip, chip, rip, sip, tip, etc.

Reading: We will continue to learn that vowels make 2 sounds - a short sound and a long sound. Ask your child to sing you the vowel songs! We are reading and writing a new class book this week titled, "My Five Senses". We will learn all about our five senses as we practice reading and writing our sight words of the week. We will also introduce non-fiction text and begin reading Scholastic News magazines each week. 

Writing: This week, we are learning how to choose a writing topic. We will learn that good writers write about what they know and what they love. We can write about a person, a thing, an event, or a place. We are continuing to use an uppercase at the beginning of a sentence, finger spaces between our words, and a period at the end. We are also learning to use our sight words in our sentences and to listen for the sounds in all unknown words using our sound chart.

Math:  We are working hard on counting to 30, 50, and 100 and on writing numbers to 20. Have your child practice counting and writing numbers at home! We are also discussing shapes in class. We are learning 2D flat shapes (circle, square, triangle, rectangle, etc.). We will learn that we can name shapes, draw shapes, build shapes, and identify the attributes of shapes. When I ask "What are the attributes of a triangle?" I want to hear, "A triangle is a flat 2D shape that has 3 sides and 3 vertices." You can help at home by asking your child shape names and attributes! 

Leadership: We have been having so much fun discussing Growth Mindset and learning about our circle of control/no control.

This week, we read a book, "Giraffe's Can't Dance" and then we made a poster of all the things that we can't do YET. I am so proud of all of my students for having a growth mindset and telling me, "I can't count to 100... YET! But I'm going to keep trying!" What an awesome class of leaders! 

PLEASE SCROLL DOWN TO THE HOMEWORK POST TO SEE ALL OF THE HOMEWORK FOR THE WEEK.

Homework: August 26-30 

Flashcards: Please make flashcards for our sight words (I, like, my), letters/sounds of the week (l, k, y, x, long and short vowels a, e, i, o, u, y) our letter teams of the week (sh and er) and our word family (ip - tip, lip, chip, etc.) Study these flashcards every day. 

Phonemic Awareness: We have been playing a few phonemic awareness games in class every morning that I'd like for you to also try at home. The beginning sound game: I give the students a word (dog), and have them shout out the first sound they hear (D-D-D!). The blending game: I give the students three sounds very slowly (SSSSS-UUUU-NNNN) and they shout out the word it makes (SUN!). The rhyming game: we are trying to make real-word rhymes AND identify the part of the word that rhymes. I will say the word CAT and the students answer (BAT, RAT, FAT - the rhyming part is AT!) 

Reading: Reading at home is SO IMPORTANT! THIS WEEK, we will begin taking home Reading Bags!!! This will be a big plastic bag in your child's backpack with our week's "fluency passage". They will get their fluency passage and bag on Monday. Please have your child practice reading this fluency passage everyday at home while POINTING to the words as they read, using the picture to help them, and using our sight words to help. This bag will need to go home AND BACK TO SCHOOL everyday! (Have them always keep them in their backpack, except for when they are practicing it.) On Friday, I will have each child read their fluency passage to me. If they can read the whole thing, they will get a special sticker. We will be getting a new one each week. Later on we will be adding books, our little paper books we make in class, flashcards, etc. to these reading bags. :)

 Within the next few 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. Another part of reading homework can be RAZ-KIDS. 

Writing: Practice writing your name. Practice writing ABCs (both uppercase and lowercase). Practice writing sight words of the week. Practice writing a short sentence. A good idea is to keep an at-home journal and just practice writing something every day. We learn to write by writing, writing, writing! 

Math: Practice counting 1-30 or higher. Make number flashcards and have your child identify numbers out of order. Practice number writing 0-30. Have your child identify shapes and practice drawing shapes or building shapes out of sticks. Review our "Daily Math" pages coming home. 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. You can also find the link for Dreambox on the right side tab of our website. Our school code is X2we/inlandlcs and our class code is 33599.

QR Codes: Each week, these papers 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.