January 9 – 13
Popcorn Words: This week the words “said” and “make” popped into our classroom. We learned that bossy e makes the a say its name but e is silent. In the word said we also noticed that the vowels ai work together and make the short e sound. We also learned to look for “talking” lines (quotation marks) to let us know that a character is talking. Identifying “said” helped making this task easier.
Writer’s Workshop: We continued working on writing small moment stories this week. We really are focused on deciding whether we’re writing a one time, one place story that zooms in on one thing and stretching the story out across 3 pages. We tell the story using transitional words, first, next, last…. We listened to some stories from my life and helped add things to make them complete! We talked about adding a feeling to our stories this week, many of us did great adding in more then one! I am so proud of my writers! Everyone is working on sustaining to write independently for about 15 min a day, stretching out their words as they go! We re-read our stories to a partner to make sure they were readable asking ourselves, does this make sense? I’m so impressed with them!!!
Reader’s Workshop: This week we continued working on our unit on “Revving Up To Read.” We practiced the skill of looking at the first letter of a word and then looking all the way through the word to figure it out. This strategy is also reinforced by our stretchy the snake reading strategy buddy. We also discovered that often times we may think that a picture is one word in our reading but can be called something different. For example, a dog can be called a puppy. So as readers we need to be mindful and look all the way through a word to figure it out so that our reading makes sense. The Kindergartners investigated and used this technique this week during our reader workshop time. It is so fun to see them become so engaged as readers!!
Math: We are continuing to work in Unit 3. This week we talked more about 5 and 10 groups and worked on counting on from a 5 or 10 to make a number! We also explored ways to sort things. In terms of shapes we can sort by shape type, color of shape, size of shape and even thick/thin. On Friday we explored our math concepts in some fun centers! We worked in 2 groups to take turns sorting and counting m&m’s by color and racing around a shape gameboard to review our shape names! Please review these concepts at home as well! Thanks for all the great job the students are doing with turning in their homework each Wednesday.
Split Lit.: The Kindergarteners have done a great job of working in our split lit. stations during this time of our day. They get to work with me everyday in a small group setting on skills specific to their needs. I am excited to see their progression and knowledge that they are building upon. I can’t get over how quickly the students are picking up their popcorn words! We’re reading the rainbow of words everyday working on a list of 6-7 words at a time of a certain color. Many are advancing to new word lists weekly! I am also enjoying doing book club groups with many of the students. We’re working on decoding and comprehension strategies to read aloud together. Have fun beginning take home books this week with your kinder!!
Handwriting: We’re continuing to work on our lowercase letter formation! We’re also working on writing our full names now on all our papers. We have our last name now on our name tags and were working on ONLY the first letter is capital and the rest of the letters are lower case. The kinders are able to write their full name but many of the letters are written incorrectly. There is a mix of upper and lower case letters within the first and last name. Please begin practicing this new skill at home. Thanks! 
***VALENTINE’S DAY: It is hard to believe that this holiday is fast approaching. If you’re interested in PLANNING OUR FINAL PARTY PLEASE E-MAIL ME ASAP! I would love to find a planner to come up with a craft or two, several games and a fun snack! From there I will create another sign up for station volunteers and donations. It will be Monday, Feb. 13th from 1:40-3pm. This will be our final party of the year. We will be passing out Valentines as well, a note with every child’s name in our class came home on Monday so your child can begin writing them out on your valentine cards! 🙂
Upcoming Dates:
*MON. JAN. 16–-ART; reading TAKE HOME BOOKS- Mrs. VanPernis and Mrs. Wiersma; Martin Luther King Jr. Day
*TUES. JAN 17–-STEAM; LIBRARY Please remember to return your child’s book.
*WED. JAN. 18––GYM; HOMEWORK DUE….math and literacy; AND TAKE HOME BOOKS- Mr. Weber, Mrs Archer and Mrs. Doorenbos
*THURS. JAN. 19–-MUSIC; reading TAKE HOME BOOKS- Mrs. Nelson and Mrs. Lozon
*FRI. JAN. 20—ART;
*FRI. FEB. 3—Fast Friday (Early Release)
*MON. FEB. 6—Winter Break Day
*WED. FEB. 8—Day 100 Celebration- INFO coming this week!
*MON. FEB. 13—Valentine’s Day Party 2:00-3:00pm- name list for valentines coming this week!
