News From the Jungle

Today the children were able to participate in skeleton centers. I will be posting pictures of the activities soon! The centers were a success and will help the children understand party rules for future parties!

Upcoming Events

10/25 Pumpkin Patch — to volunteer with PTA for this event, click here

10/25 Bingo for Books – 6 pm (check PTA blog for more information

10/26 No School – Y5 and Kindergarten only

10/31 Costume Parade and PBIS celebration

Agenda for the Week

Reading and Writing: We learned the letters F and U and focused on the sound of each letter. The children brainstormed items that begin with each letter and completed activities which helped them find, identify, and write these letters.

The children practiced stretching letters and listening for the sounds within the word. The children are becoming more confident in their phonics abilities and writing words. I always tell them to simply write the sounds they hear and that they do not need to worry about writing the word correctly.

This is the video we use in class to help the children understand nouns and adjectives:

Here is a video which promotes letter recognition of uppercase and lowercase letters, as well as, letter sounds.

Please remember to watch the How-To videos which I have made to help your child at home with name practice, letter recognition, and letter sound acquisition.

If your child already has mastered these skills, feel free to watch the sight word video or reading comprehension video to help your child continue their academic growth.

Math: We continue to work through the math curriculum and the concept of addition by talking about groups of numbers and counting how many we have all together. We reached number 10 today and practiced writing it as well as different ways to make 10. The children are really getting good at talking about numbers and how they see and count numbers.

The children continued practicing graphing and tally marks this week!

For the tally marks we say, ” 1, 2, 3, 4, number 5 shuts the door. 6, 7, 8, 9, number 10 draws the line.” This helps the children to remember when to make the diagonal line.

At home, please practice writing numbers 1 – 20 with your child. They should be practicing how to recognize these numbers, as well as be able to write them. Counting objects with one-to-one correspondence is another skill you can work on at home. You may do this while you are giving your child a snack. If you give them grapes for a snack, have them count the grapes one at a time, while moving the grapes from one side of the plate to the other side of the plate.

Below are great videos on subitizing that we use in class:

Here are a few math videos to promote number sense at home:

Below are 2D and 3D shape videos:

Science: This week we began discussing the concept of positional words. These are words such as in, out, on, off, below, above, etc.

Housekeeping Items:

Headphones: If you have not yet sent in a pair of headphones for your child, please do so as soon as possible. We will be getting on the computers in our room each day, and I would like to set up some routines and procedures for the children to follow using their own headphones during technology time. We ask that you send in a pair of headphones because it is more sanitary for all the children and helps to decrease the occurrence of things such as lice, as well as other things.

Winter Apparel: Please work with your child at home on how to independently put on and take off their own fall and winter clothing items. Thank you!

Name Practice OR Letter Practice

If your child is struggling with writing their name and other letters, it is important that you work with them at home on this skill. We are spending time in class working on these skills, but will be moving on quickly and if your child is struggling to form letters, they will struggle to complete their work. Here is a great resource for handwriting practice: https://www.handwritingworksheets.com/flash/printdots/index.htm

Snack Time

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 and milk are not allowed in our classroom. Please do not send any kind of juice box or milk with your child for snack time. The children may have the juice or milk for lunch in the cafeteria.

ALLERGY ALERT: We have nut allergies in our room. Please make sure that you are not sending any snacks which contain any nuts. Our room is NUT FREE!

Folders

Please make sure to empty the folder 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. Please be sure to send the folder to school each day. It is a big part of our arrival and dismissal routines and the folders help the children keep all of their papers organized.

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.