Dear Kindergarten Parents,

          It is hard to believe we are now half-way through our Kindergarten year together. We are off to a great start in 2017 and we look forward to watching all of our Kindergarten friends bloom and grow as we finish our year strong!

          As you know, our school has been implementing the PBIS Behavior System, which focuses on encouraging positive behavior. As a part of rewarding student behavior, we are going to provide a Positive Behavior Party at the end of the 3^rd and 4^th Nine Weeks grading periods. Our 3^rd Nine Weeks party will be a picnic or lunch with the teacher in the classroom and our 4^th Nine Weeks party will be an ice cream social. We are very excited about rewarding our students who consistently show that they are responsible, respectful and safe! All Kindergarten students who have not moved their clips more than 5 times will receive the student reward for the nine weeks period. (This nine weeks period began on January 4, 2017.) We are emphasizing our rules of the PBIS program and maintaining high expectations of our students as we finish our year together.

          We are very excited to reward our students for exhibiting great behavior! We are expecting to see many of students having a great lunch with their teachers and a great time at our Kindergarten Ice Cream Social!

                                                                                                Sincerely,

                                                                                      The Kindergarten Teachers

Sight Words for the Week of January 9-13
find
from
this
came
Review from last week:  was, good, no

Good afternoon, Parents

        We are off to a great start to 2017 and it is hard to believe we are already in our third nine weeks of school. We have some exciting things coming this month and I would like to make sure you know we were are heading academically this nine weeks. 

        One of the more difficult things we are working on our sight words. As we enter our third nine weeks, students will be required to identify by sight 75 of our 109 words to receive an S for the nine weeks grading period. Our words are getting hard and it is very important for you to review our weekly words as frequently as you can. To keep you better up-dated, we are going to have a Friday sight word quiz where we check the students on the words from the previous week and the words from the current week. This will give you a better idea of what words your child needs to practice. We will also be doing several activities every week with our sight words to help students learn their words. In particular, we are reviewing number words which seem to be difficult for several students. Another way to practice is to read the sight word books we do in class every Thursday. Those books are great for our pre-readers and they LOVE to read to someone. We will also begin sending home short passages with homework to practice reading sight words and sounding out CVC words. It is an exciting time in our class as our students continue to bloom and grow!

        We will continue to work on writing 5 Star Sentences using our sight words and word banks from the seasons or holidays. Just to refresh your memory a 5 Star Sentence has the following characteristics.

1.   My sentence begins with a capital letter.

2.   My sentence makes sense.

3.   My sentence is written with my best handwriting! (We are working hard on this!)

4.   My sentence has spaces between my words.

5.   My sentence ends with proper punctuation. (This is also a bit hard to remember, so we give reminders! J)

Since we are working on sight words and 5 Star Sentences, a new addition to homework will be using our sight words in a sentence. Please remember that we are beginning to write so short sentences are fine. J

        In math, we will continue working on addition and subtraction fluency, counting to 100 by both tens and ones, and identifying both 2D and 3D shapes. We will also be celebrating the 100^th Day of School on January 25^th, which is an exciting time in our classroom and school!

        One final note for snacks! Thank you all for making our snack system flow very smoothly. We have a couple of children who are watching their sugar intake, so if you can, we would like to ask you to send in snacks that are limited in sugar. Crackers, Goldfish, chips, etc. are great choices for snack for us. We appreciate your help in this matter. If your child has a particular snack that is a sweet treat, we are also fine with that. Sweet treats are good every now and then! Thank you so much! J

                                                                        Sincerely,

                                                                        Sharon Long

As always, please let me know if I can help you in any way! 

Here's What's Happening in Our Class for Christmas Week!

Monday and Tuesday – Kindergarten Rotations – Our students will visit each Kindergarten teacher in our pod to participate in fun and exciting Christmas activities. We will have rotations in the morning and have a regular schedule in the afternoons. This is always so fun and exciting for our students! J NO HOMEWORK THIS WEEK!

Wednesday – GRINCH DAY! We will be reading and watching “How the Grinch Stole Christmas!” It’s a great day to dress all in green and maybe even how your Grinch spirit with some Cindy-Lou-Whoooo! Hair! Wear your best Grinch outfit and come to school ready to have some good, ole Grinch FUN! It’s also Kindergarten Shopping Day at The Santa Shop! Please send in all money in an envelope clearly marked with the amount of money your child has to spend!

Thursday- Wear your warm and cozy pajamas and slippers and get ready to hop aboard The Polar Express with some hot chocolate and treats! It’s party day, so we will be having lots of fun together today!

Friday – Early Dismissal Day! We will dismiss at 11:30. PLEASE, NO BOOKBAGS TODAY! Everything will be sent home for the holidays on Thursday! All hands on deck for getting our room ready to be cleaned during our break! Merry Christmas! And Happy 2017!

Easter Egg Hunt

We will be having our Easter Egg Hunt on Friday, March 25. This is a really fun and exciting activity for our students and we are looking forward to a special time with our students. We are asking each child to bring in 12 plastic, candy-filled eggs for our egg hunt. (Please do not put chocolate candy in them as we will be doing our egg hunt outside and chocolate does melt!) You do not need to send in baskets as we have already purchased buckets for the children to use. We will be mixing up all the eggs and writing each child’s name on 12 eggs or more….. J The children will hunt the eggs with their names’ written on them! We have a great time and this makes our egg hunt last just a bit longer! J (We will put names on eggs, so please do not do that at home!) You may begin sending in your eggs when you would like, but we need to have all eggs in by Wednesday, March 23, so we have time to get names on all eggs! Thank you so much and we appreciate your cooperation in making our eggs-travaganza a huge success.

Thank you!

Sharon Long

**This is not a party day. We will not be having a party. We will be having a special snack on that day! J

Here's What's Happening in March 2016

Language Arts

 

Phonics:

Review Oo, Xx, Jj, Ee, Hh, Kk

The Long and Short Sounds of Uu

Letters Ll, Ww, Vv, Zz, Yy, Qq

Review of all long and short vowel sounds

 

Sight Words:

March 1-4 away, must, by there, he, no
March 7-10 do, little, just, have
March 15-18 down,went, only, look
March 21-25help, every, ask, walk,
March 28-April 1 out, very, their, saw, put

 

 

Math:

Composing and Decomposing Numbers to 10.

Decomposing Numbers 11-19

 

Science:

March 7-18 - The World Around Us (Matter)

March 21-30 Animal A-Z: How they grow and change, what are they  like and where they live.

 

 

Important Dates to Remember

February 29 - March 4 Read Across America and the Book Fair

March 2 - Spring pictures

March 9 - End of the 3rd Nine Weeks

March 11-14 -Spring Holiday

March 17 - Happy St. Patrick's Day! Report Card Day!

March 25 - Easter Egg Hunt and Special Spring Snack

April 4-8 - Spring Break

 

Keep practicing those sight words, addition and subtraction facts and reading fluency! I am so very proud of our students' progress this year! :)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 







Fabulous February 2016

February is full of fun and exciting learning here in our classroom! Here's what's coming up for our Kindergarten friends!


WEEK OF FEBRUARY 1-5;

Unit 4 Review in reading
Review letters Ii, Gg, Dd, Rr
New sight words:
them, play, said, al
Review: is, how, of, so, many where, this, find, from, came, but, on, will, be into, that, your, who, go, for, here, they, soon, up

Math - Analyzing, Composing and Comparing Shapes

Science - On the Move - Motion and Gravity
February 2 - All about Groundhog's Day!

WEEK OF FEBRUARY 8-12

Progress Reports - February 9

Lesson 21 - The Long and Short sounds of Oo
New Sight Words- give, say, new, he
Review: was, make, play, them

Math - Sorting, Classifying, and Categorizing
Unit 3 Assessment

Social Studies - President's Day
February 12 - Valentine's Day Snacks and Valentine Exchange

WEEK OF FEBRUARY 16-19

February 15 - Presidents' Day Holiday

Lesson 22 - Letters Xx and Jj
New sight words - then, ate, could, she
Review words - was, said, good

Math - Composing and Decomposing Numbers to 10

Social Studies - American Symbols
Star-Spangled Banner, Bald Eagle, Statue of Liberty, Pledge of Allegiance, White House, Lincoln and Washington Memorials

WEEK OF FEBRUARY 22- 26

Lesson 23 - The Long and Short Sounds of Ee
New sight words - over, her, when, some
Review - she all

Math - Composing and Decomposing Numbers to 10

Social Studies - American Symbols
Star-Spangled Banner, Bald Eagle, Statue of Liberty, Pledge of Allegiance, White House, Lincoln and Washington Memorials

WEEK OF FEBRUARY 29-MARCH 4

Unit 24- Hh and Kk
New Sight Words - away, must, by, there
Review: he, no

Math - Composing and Decomposing Numbers to 10

Social Studies - Read Across America


And March will come in like a lion (Maybe?) and leave us like a lamb, ready for a beautiful Spring together in our class as we move into the end of our year together!