Category: Blogs

Here is a video we used in class today to help us learn our word family spelling words. This video helps the children to understand the rhyming pattern and to learn how to segment and blend the words by seeing them broken apart and then blended together.

I thought this would be a helpful video to share in preparation for our first spelling test on Friday.

Thank you for working with your child at home!

This morning worked really well with our class coming in through Mrs. Vensko’s door. She has several runners in her classroom to absorb all of the snow, mud, and water. We will continue to have our class come through Mrs. Vensko’s door for the rest of the season. This helps our classroom stay dry for the children to be able to sit on the carpet without sitting in mud or water.

When the weather begins to dry out, we will enter through our own classroom door again. Until then, please continue to send your child through Mrs. Vensko’s door in the morning.

As always, we will continue to dismiss at the end of the day from our own classroom door.

Thank you for being so flexible!

Just a reminder —

If you plan to order any books from our December book order, the orders must be placed by tomorrow, Tuesday, December 12th.

If any of you are looking to give books as gifts, I can hold back the books for you. In the past, I have had parents send in a bag for the books and when the order comes in, I place the books inside the bag and leave the bag in the office for you to pick up at your convenience. If any of you are interested in doing something like this, please let me know! I am happy to help!

Books should be delivered by Tuesday or Wednesday of next week!

Thank you for building a love for reading in our class!

Just an update on the sight word test:

We did complete our sight word test today! The children did well. Thank you for working on these words at home with your child. The results will come home on Monday.

Thank you for your patience!

Homework packets will be changing with the start of spelling tests. I put together this video to explain a variety of sheets that you may see come home in the packet, over the course of the year. Please review the video for directions on how to complete homework pages with your child moving forward for the rest of the year.

Thank you for working with your child at home and partnering with me in order to help them be successful at school!

The cold weather is upon us and so comes the days of hats, mittens, scarves, boots, and maybe even snow pants. Many of these items can easily become lost throughout the day with them being taken on and off for arrival, recess, lunch, dismissal, etc. Please label your child’s belongings in order to help these items find their way back home in the event that any should be misplaced.

Also, it would be a huge help if you could practice zipping and unzipping coats, putting on and taking off hats, scarves, mittens/gloves, snow boots, shoes, and snow pants. Please consider the time it takes you to get one child ready for the cold weather and multiply that by 24!!!! Help me foster independence in your children by practicing all these skills at home in order to make them self-sufficient at school. 

Additionally, Mr. Short has asked that no parents enter the building unless they have signed in at the office. This means that your child will need to enter the building without you and independently unpack and take off their winter accessories by themselves. This will help your child get ready for First grade! We want to send big, independent children to First grade!

Thank you for all of your help and assistance in helping the children become more independent!

PLEASE PUT YOUR CHILD ON READING EGGS AND MATH SEEDS EACH NIGHT!!!!

If you misplaced your child’s login and need the information again, please email me at dimitrm@dearbornschools.org

Upcoming Events

12/11 – 12/14 PTA Popcorn Sales (Popcorn delivered on 12/15)

12/12 Family STEM Night from 6-8pm (Ann Arbor Hands-On Museum comes to Haigh)

12/12 Scholastic Book Orders Due (will be delivered before winter break)

12/13 Ugly Sweater Bingo for Books (PTA event 6 -7pm)

12/14 Haigh School Store open during lunchtime

12/15– Spelling Test

12/15 Spelling Test

12/15 Science Test (seasons)

12/15 Math Quiz +0

12/18 – 12/20 Candy Gram Sales

12/20 Late Start

12/20 Polar Express and Pajama Day (more information coming home soon)

12/21 Winter Party

12/22 PBIS Celebration – Movie Theater (at Haigh)

12/25 – 1/5 Winter Break – No School!!!!

Agenda for the Week

Spelling Words for our first spelling test on 12/15: 

I, a, see, cat, bat, mat, rat, hat, sat.

Plus a bonus word which will be one of the following words: flat, chat, fat, or that.

The purpose of the bonus word is to assess whether the children understand the word family pattern of each word ending in the same two letters -at.

These words will be in the homework which will come home on Monday.

Reading and Writing: Please continue to work with your child on our sight words. I will tested list three today. I also went back and tested any words that may have been missed on list one and list two. The children are having fun learning these words in class and love playing our game of “bubble” to help them learn the words. List four will not be assessed at this time, but will appear on future spelling tests. Please continue to review all of these sight words as they show up frequently in our books that we read during reading groups.

Only one more week of letters! We worked on recognizing and writing the letter L and the letter O. 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.

This week we have been working on text connections. We discussed text-to-text connections, and text-to-self connections. We really focused on text-to-text when we read many different versions of the three little pigs. The children loved comparing the stories and identifying things that were the same from story to story and things that were different. We read versions of The Three Little Pigs where the pigs beat the wolf and lived in a large brick house, we read versions where the Big Bad Wolf ate two of the pigs and the last pig ate the wolf, we read a version told from the wolf’s perspective, we read versions where the pigs were ninjas, we even read a version of this story where the pigs were not pigs at all, but rather they were aliens and the wolf was not a wolf but was the Big Bad Robot. It was exciting to see how involved the children became with learning about different versions of the story rather than all about the same old story they were used to hearing.

Next week we will read many different versions of the gingerbread man and compare the stories similarities and differences. The children will also complete several gingerbread activities!

Math: We continued learning about simple addition and practiced identifying the plus sign and the equals sign, as well as what each symbol means. We learned a new video about subitizing, be sure to have your child sing along with the video and show you the hand motions and extra words, we created for the video. Here is the video:

Here are some addition videos:

We are starting math quizzes in a next week! These quizzes will help the children prepare for first grade and get used to taking tests (what the format looks like, how to follow testing procedures, etc). Each week we will have a math quiz, starting with +0, then +1, all the way to 10. Then, we will begin subtraction with -0, then -1, etc. Flash cards came home today for our  +0 math quiz on December 15th. Please cut these up and practice these math facts with your child to prepare them for the quiz. These flashcards are an example of how you could practice math facts each week with your child at home. For the next quiz, you could use counters (or food) for a visual representation of the math equation or make the flashcards (just like the example I sent home) for your child. You can also practice with your child by having them put the big number in their head and the small number on their hands and then count up. Try to make it fun! Thank you for supporting your child with their addition skills!

Science: We continue our unit about weather. Now we are learning about snowy weather and concentrating more on the four seasons. We used adjectives to describe each season and drew pictures to match what each season looks like.

Social Studies: We are learning about economic goods and services. This concept is a little difficult for the children to understand as most of them do not go out and pay for things themselves! We have discussed many places you could go and pay for a service such as a restaurant, nail salon, hair salon, etc. We have also discussed buying goods, which is a little easier for the children to understand paying for something and taking it home such as food from the grocery store, toys from the store, etc.

Housekeeping Items:

Parents need to sign in at the office if you want to enter the building with your child. This is for the safety of all children at Haigh Elementary and is a district policy.

Cold Weather: The cold weather is upon us and so comes the days of hats, mittens, scarves, boots, and maybe even snow pants. Many of these items can easily become lost throughout the day with them being taken on and off for arrival, recess, lunch, dismissal, etc. Please label your child’s belongings in order to help these items find their way back home in the event that any should be misplaced. Also, it would be a huge help if you could practice zipping and unzipping coats, putting on and taking off hats, scarves, mittens/gloves, snow boots, shoes, and snow pants. Please consider the time it takes you to get one child ready for the cold weather and multiply that by 24!!!! Help me foster independence in your children by practicing all these skills at home in order to make them self-sufficient at school. Thank you!

Snack Time

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

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!

We will be taking the NWEA MAP test on reading and math during the month of January. If you would like to give your child some extra practice at home, use the following links:

NWEA MAP Math Practice

For Numbers and operations click on “161-170” for the rest of the categories choose “below 171.” This is the final score range I am pushing the kids to achieve.  A score of 158 or above is considered on grade level for end of the year kindergarten.

NWEA MAP Math and Reading Practice

This link has several different activities for both reading and math. The reading is towards the bottom under “comprehension” and “word recognition.” Under each category, there are RIT scores. Our class should be practicing activities which fall under “RIT 161 – 170.”

NWEA MAP Test Warm-Up

This link explains how to take the test and provides some sample questions for practice.

**This practice test provides more directions than what are actually given during the test. This is great practice because it teaches them about the test features and actually how to take the test rather than just focusing on their skill set and ability to answer the questions.**

https://www.prepdog.org/

Prep Dog is a great practice test sight. Click the link above and then click on kindergarten and have your child practice answering the questions.

— These links would be great practice during winter break!!!

I hope you all have a wonderful break together and are able to enjoy lots of time with family and friends!

PLEASE PUT YOUR CHILD ON READING EGGS AND MATH SEEDS EACH NIGHT!!!!

If you misplaced your child’s login and need the information again, please email me at dimitrm@dearbornschools.org

Upcoming Events

11/22 – 11/26 NO SCHOOL – THANKSGIVING BREAK

11/30 PBIS Celebration – Turkey Bowling

Agenda for the Week

Reading and Writing:  We worked as authors and illustrators to create our own class story and draw the matching pictures. We hope you enjoy our class book! It is called “The Five Messy Pigs.”

Math: We reviewed tally marks and counting. Please practice counting to 100 by 1’s, 5’s, and 10’s with your child. Also, help them to recognize these numbers by sight.

Science: We continued our unit about weather. The children had the opportunity to participate in science centers on Monday with the entire Kindergarten grade level. The children rotated as a class to each teacher to learn about sun, rain, wind, or clouds and engage in a hands-on activity/experiment to go along with the topic. We read “Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs.” Next, we watched the movie! It was a great way to finish the week and bring all of the concepts about weather together that we have been learning. It was fun to see the children’s reactions when they thought about if it were to rain food down on us!

Social Studies: We continued talking about needs and wants this week. We also discussed Thanksgiving and talked more about things we are thankful for in our lives. Enjoy this break and we hope you all have a wonderful time with family and friends.

Due to a very short week this week there will be no communication log in the green folders, no book pouches coming home, and no homework packet.

Please continue to read with your child and have them complete lessons on reading eggs and math seeds. These two computer programs really do help the children become better readers and become better mathematicians!

I hope you all enjoy some time together with family and friends over the next several days!