Almost December!

                                                                         

 November 30, 2012

Focus on Curriculum

Jolly Phonics: This week I explained the letter combinations of ee, and or.  We also learned the letter Z and move are arms as if we were a bee buzzing around.  Now we know the sounds of the letters and letter combinations: s, a, t, i, p, n, c, k, e, r, h, m, d, g, o, u, l, f, b, j, oa, oa, ie, ee, or, and z. Please try and practice with your letter cards at home.  Please ask your child to say the letter names and sounds. All students have a bag of cards with letters, pictures, and words. They should try to match the letters, pictures, and words. You may choose to make it a game like Memory, Rummy or Go Fish. Use your imagination!  Keep the cards in a special place at home so they can use them again and again.  The cards can stay at home.

Reading:   We continued our theme friends together.  We learned about cause and effect and predicting and making inferences.  We read The Lion and the Mouse and My Dad and I.  In The Lion and the Mouse the students first made predictions about what the story was going to be about based on the pictures.  After the story the students concluded it was a make believe story because animals do not talk like humans, but the students did learn a real life lesson that friends help friends out in time of need.  In My Dad and I the father and son in the story are best friends and it tells about all the things they do together.  We talked about our own Dad’s, Mom’s, sisters and brothers being our best friends and the things we do with them.  During the week we also talked about verbs and that verbs are words used to describe actions.

Math:   We continued working on writing and tracing our numbers.  We are also working on matching like quantities and are able to tell, if given a number one through ten, which is bigger.

Popcorn Words: This week we added three words to our popcorn bag: to, too, and do.

Writing:  We used the words to and too in a sentence describing something that each student likes to do.  After each student wrote what they like to do they each found a friend in the room that likes the same thing and had that friend sign their name and write what they like to do too.

ART:  The student’s festive pines look great on display in our hallways.  I am so proud of all the students and all the hard work they have put into decorating their projects.

 REMEMBER:

WEAR YOUR GYM SHOES THURSDAY AND FRIDAY

BRING YOUR LIBRARY BOOKS ON WEDNESDAY

Happy Thanksgiving!

November 16, 2012

Focus on Curriculum

Jolly Phonics: This week I introduced that the letters oa together make the long vowel o sound and ie makes the long I sound.  Now we know the sounds of the letters: s, a, t, i, p, n, c, k, e, r, h, m, d, g, o, u, l, f, b, and j.  We also know that when two vowels go walking together the first one does the talking and the second one stays quiet.  We now know the vowel pairs ai, oa, and ie.  Please try and practice with your letter cards at home.  Please ask your child to say the letter names and sounds. All students have a bag of cards with letters, pictures, and words. They should try to match the letters, pictures, and words. You may choose to make it a game like Memory, Rummy or Go Fish. Use your imagination!  Keep the cards in a special place at home so they can use them again and again.  The cards can stay at home.

Reading: This week we added more popcorn words to our list. The new words this week are am, not, did  and next week they will be is, but, and can. .  We now have 20 words and they are: I, a, it, in, see, big, my, like, up, run, on, at, we, me, am, not, did, is, but and can .  Please practice the popcorn words with your child at home.  Try making simple sentences with the popcorn words.  We started are Friends Together theme and read Aaron and Gayla’s Alphabet Book and Friends at School.  We talked about things friends do together and how we are good friends to one another.  We also read and illustrated The Tale of a Turkey.  The children really enjoyed this activity and liked to point out all the popcorn words in the book.  Next week we are going to read Thanksgiving themed books.

Math:   We continued our numbers unit working with numbers one through five.  It is easier to trace numbers than write them on our own.  The students practiced writing numbers on the whiteboards. We can play fun math games that help us learn our numbers such as go fish with playing cards.

Social Studies:  We read our Weekly Reader focusing on Thanksgiving.  We talked about the pilgrims and what we all have to be thankful for.

Art:  We traced our hands to make turkeys and have a nice poem to accompany our turkeys.  I know parents will keep these fun holiday projects for years to come as the children grow older.

Have a Wonderful and Happy Thanksgiving!

 REMEMBER:

No School November 21^st, 22^nd, and 23^rd Thanksgiving Holiday

Scholastic Book orders are due November 23, 2012

WEAR YOUR GYM SHOES THURSDAY AND FRIDAY

BRING YOUR LIBRARY BOOKS ON WEDNESDAY

Fall Leaves

November 9, 2012

Focus on Curriculum

Jolly Phonics: This week I introduced that the letters ai together make the long vowel a sound.  We put our hand by our ear and say ai.  Now we know the sounds of the letters: s, a, t, i, p, n, c, k, e, r, h, m, d, g, o, u, l, f, b, and j.  We also know that when two vowels go walking together the first one does the talking and the second one stays quiet.  Please try and practice with your letter cards at home.  Please ask your child to say the letter names and sounds. All students have a bag of cards with letters, pictures, and words. They should try to match the letters, pictures, and words. You may choose to make it a game like Memory, Rummy or Go Fish. Use your imagination!  Keep the cards in a special place at home so they can use them again and again.  The cards can stay at home.

Reading: This week we added more popcorn words to our list. The new words are we and me.  We now have fourteen words and they are: I, a, it, in, see, big, my, like, up, run, on, at, we and me.  Please practice the popcorn words with your child at home.  We then talked about and wrote how we are kind students who care about each other.  We also had a mixed up Thanksgiving sentence about a turkey chasing us.  We had a chance to unscramble the sentence and when in was complete it read A turkey is chasing me!  We reinforced that a sentence begins with a capital and ends with a punctuation mark.  In this case it was an exclamation mark.  We then had a chance to color our picture and share it with our classmates on the elmo projector in our classroom.

Math:   We continued our numbers unit working with numbers one through five.  It is easier to trace numbers than write them on our own.  The students need practice writing numbers on their own.  We also were introduced to the Starfall math program, in which we can play fun math games that help us learn our numbers.

Social Studies:  We talked about the Presidential election and who was elected the President of the United States.  We also talked about Veterans Day this upcoming Monday and how it is in honor of those who have served our country.

 REMEMBER:

No School Monday November 12^th- Veterans Day

Scholastic Book orders are due November 23, 2012

WEAR YOUR GYM SHOES THURSDAY AND FRIDAY

BRING YOUR LIBRARY BOOKS ON WEDNESDAY

November is Here!

November 2, 2012

Focus on Curriculum

Jolly Phonics: This week I introduced the letters b and j.  For the letter b we pretend we are hitting a baseball with a bath and the letter j we wiggle like a bowl of jello.  Now we know the sounds of the letters: s, a, t, i, p, n, c, k, e, r, h, m, d, g, o, u, l, f, b, and j.  Please try and practice with your letter cards at home.  Please ask your child to say the letter names and sounds. All students have a bag of cards with letters, pictures, and words. They should try to match the letters, pictures, and words. You may choose to make it a game like Memory, Rummy or Go Fish. Use your imagination!  Keep the cards in a special place at home so they can use them again and again.  The cards can stay at home.

Reading:   We read the story Clifford’s Halloween, Winnie the Pooh’s Halloween, and The Night Before Halloween.  It begins “ Twas the night before Halloween and all through the house all the creatures were stirring, except for the mouse.  The monsters had gathered to plan and prepare, for the trick-or-treaters who soon would be there.”

Math:   We started our numbers unit working with numbers one through five.  It is easier to trace numbers than write them on our own.  The students need practice writing numbers on their own.

Popcorn Words: This week we add the words on and at.  We now have twelve words and they are: I, a, it, in, see, big, my, like, up, run, on and at..  Please practice the popcorn words with your child at home.

Writing:  We wrote about what we saw looking at us on Halloween.  We also wrote at the Halloween party I was a _____________.

Social Studies:  We read our weekly reader on the Presidential Election that is coming up on November 6^th.  The children learned who the two candidates are and that at the age of 18 they will get the opportunity to vote for the President of the United States.  The children also learned that the President serves for four years.  The students also had the chance to vote for the President and the results will be posted in our school library shortly.  For voting the students received a vote sticker and Patriotic pencil.  All of the students were very interest in talking about the President and election.

 REMEMBER:

A special thank you to the parents who took time out of their busy schedules to volunteer and plan our Halloween party.  All the children were talking about what fun they had on Thursday when they came to school

Picture retakes will be Thursday November 8^th from 9:00 A.M. until noon.  Afternoon kindergarten parents need to bring your child in between those times if you wish to have their picture retaken.

No School Monday November 5^th- Parent/ Teacher Conferences

No School Tuesday November 6^th- Teacher Institute

No School Monday November 12^th- Veterans Day

WEAR YOUR GYM SHOES THURSDAY AND FRIDAY

BRING YOUR LIBRARY BOOKS ON WEDNESDAY