News from the Jungle

**Please help me in the future by sending in exact change!!! I spent most of my morning trying to make change for the field trip and for picture day rather than spending my time with the children. I do not have money in the classroom to make change for you. Field trip money must be turned in as exact change in cash. Picture money must be exact change. The photography company will not make change for you. Please keep these things in mind for future pictures and field trips. Thank you for your help! **

We finished our NWEA MAP testing! Now we can all relax and enjoy our learning time together!

We have library check-out on Mondays. Please remember to send your child’s library book to school with them, if you have not done so already!

**** Due to a peanut allergy in our room, please do not send in any snacks that contain nuts.*****

As you know, we will be going on a field trip to the Apple Orchard in Plymouth on October 3rd. Permission slips and money are due on September 29th. If you have not turned in your permission slip and money, please do so as soon as possible.

When you send money in for lunches, field trips, etc. please place it in a bag or an envelope and label it with your child’s name. Thank you!

Upcoming Events

10/2 PBIS Celebration (Float, Fly & Glide — Dress for the weather – Children will be outside for 45 minutes for this activity!)

10/2 – 10/5 School Popcorn Sale

10/3 Field trip to the Apple Orchard

10/6 NO SCHOOL for Kindergarten students

10/6 Outdoor Movie Night 6:00pm

10/6 Popcorn orders come home

10/12 Kindergarten Parent Meeting 8:00 – 8:30 (more information to come)

10/13 Half Day – dismissal 11:40

10/17 Costume Bingo for Books by PTA (cafeteria)

10/18 Late Start – arrival 9:35am

10/24 PBIS Celebration (school-wide bingo)

10/26 Pumpkin Patch (Thank you PTA)

10/27 Costume Parade

Agenda for the Week

Reading and Writing:  We worked on recognizing and writing the letter C and the letter X. We learned the sound of each letter and practiced identifying objects that begin with each letter sound. Please continue to help your child correctly hold a pencil and form each letter.

We have been practicing our Daily 5 routine and procedures. The children have learned how to do the “Read to Self” rotation and learned that there are three ways to read a book – Read the pictures, Read the words, Retell a familiar story. We also practiced independently doing the rotation of “Word Work.” During this rotation children work on letters, letter sounds, and eventually spelling sight words. We also began writing! This is an exciting time in kindergarten where the students practice using letter sounds to do “inventive spelling.” Your child’s writing might look like this, “I L V LFNT.” This translates to “I like the elephant.” We are working on hearing the beginning sound in each word we write. If your child can hear more sounds in the word, I encourage them to write all the sounds they hear. You can begin practicing sounding out words with your child at home! I tell the children to pretend they are holding an invisible rubber band and to stretch the rubber band as they slowly say the word. This helps them to isolate the sounds each letter is making.

Here are a few pictures of our class working during Daily 5:

Word Work

Read to Self

We also completed our first RAN strategy. This is when we talk about what we think we know about a topic (apples) and then we read a nonfiction text about the topic and confirm the things we thought we know and write down new facts we learned. The children were amazing and 100% engaged in this activity. Afterwards, we completed a graphic organizer (thinking map is what we call it in class) about what apples are, what apples have, and what we can make with apples. The children also completed a cut and glue activity to learn the parts of an apple. Here is a picture of our activities:

If your child is still struggling with writing their name, please practice at home! If you would like name tracers for your child, visit the website below:

https://www.handwritingworksheets.com/flash/printdots/singleword/index.html

Directions: Scroll down until you see a gray rectangle which says, “Step 1: Enter student name, then type your child’s name in the first box and the second one which says, “word.” Choose the size you would like, size 2 or size 3 are best. Then click print.

Here are some videos we use in class to help with letter recognition and letter sound identification:

Math: We practiced recognizing, writing and representing numbers 7 and 8. We learned about shapes and focused on characteristics of ovals and diamonds. We have been working on place value through counting the days of the year and learning that numbers in the teens start with a one. In addition, we continued practicing our routines and procedures for math centers. We continue to learn about counting by ones and continue to talk about skip counting by 10’s. Here are a few videos we use in class:

Science: We finished up learning about our five senses! This week we focused on taste and touch. The children were able to learn about graphing and taste tested apple juice and applesauce to see which one they liked better. It was very cute watching the children ask their friends which was their favorite.

Here are a few pictures from this activity:

We will continue to talk more about apples next week to go along with our field trip to the apple orchard!

Social Studies: We are still learning our routines and procedures, especially for new groups and activities we participate with during math workshop/center time, cleaning up the room at the end of the day and much more! We will continue working on citizenship throughout the rest of the month.

Housekeeping Items:

I know these items have been repeated for a few weeks, but I still need your help in implementing the items below:

Snack Time

**** Due to a peanut allergy in our room, please do not send in any snacks that contain nuts.*****

Please be sure to put the snack in a separate place from their lunch. Please show your child where you will put their snack each day in order to foster independence for them. Sometimes, when the snack is packed inside the lunchbox, the children try to eat their whole lunch at snack time. Thank you for your assistance in separating your child’s snack and lunch.

Snacks should be healthy to provide the children with energy for their day. Please send a simple snack such as fruit, vegetables, cheese, and crackers. Please do not send candy as a snack. Juice is not allowed in our classroom. Please do not send any kind of juice box with your child for snack time. The children may have the juice for lunch in the cafeteria.

Folders

Please make sure to empty the green folders each night! It is very difficult and time consuming to locate homework or important notes when the folder is full of papers from the day before. Remember to initial the communication log and feel free to add any notes to me!

Change of clothes

Please send in a change of clothes (pants, shirt, underwear, socks) in a gallon bag with their name clearly written on the baggie. My most frequent call home is to ask for parents to bring a change of clothes to school. Even the most disciplined children have accidents at school sometimes. We have so much fun during the day that sometimes the children do not want to stop to use the bathroom when needed. Not only do bathroom accidents happen, but sometimes the playground equipment is wet or the ground is muddy. Having a change of clothes at school makes it easy for me and for you to help your child feel clean and comfortable in the quickest way possible. We will leave the baggie of clothes in their locker at school.