Mrs Sarafa's Class Blog

What We Did During Our Week:

This week we learned about the letters K,L, M, N and O! This means we are officially done with the alphabet! With the alphabet done, we are now going to start writing more and more. We start word families next week, which means weekly spelling tests done on Friday. We will work on these words throughout the week, but please be sure to practice at home as well. This week we introduced different types of text. By now, they can identify the parts of the books, so now we are working on genre identification. This week we talked about fiction, non-fiction and introduced poetry. We discussed what each genre means, and how to tell if a book is one or the other. We also wrote about our star student, Julia!

Next week’s spelling words:

The, I, a, cat, bat, rat, mat, sat, fat, hat

If you have not already connected to your child’s  “Seesaw” account, I highly encourage it! They are doing a lot of great work on here when we are at Daily 5. 🙂

We have finished our shape module, and this week they took their shape test. Next week we move onto math module 3 – Comparison of Length, Weight, Capacity, and Numbers to 10

New December math centers have also rolled out – see below!

Other:

Friday we met with big buddies and introduced them to Seesaw! Others in the building have been so impressed with the skills of our kindergartners, the kindergartners actually got to teach their big buddies! They had fun with the role reversal this week.

All of our kids also enjoyed Turkey Bowling PBIS today!

If you have not turned in your permission slip and money for the tinkerbell field trip, please do so by Monday. Any later, and your child cannot attend. The money is due to the theatre next week. Thank you!

Upcoming Events:

Friday, Dec. 7th – 1st spelling test!

Wednesday, Dec. 12 – Late Start

Friday, Dec. 14 – No School for Kindergarten

We had a great short week with tumblebus and our Thanksgiving feast! THANK YOU FOR ALL OF YOUR HELP!! 🙂 We had a blast together as a family for our feast. 🙂 Enjoy the pictures below!

Over break please remember to do some reading in your green book bags, and enjoy time together as a family. 🙂

What We Did During Our Week:

This week we learned about the letters J, Q and P! We did some work with syllables and rhymes. This week we sorted our names into columns of 1,2 or 3 syllables. We also spent some time talking about the difference between letters and words. When they are writing we talk about having spaces between words and that these spaces help us know that it is a new word. This is another skill to practice at home. Write a sentence and have them count the amount of words and then the amount of letters. We also wrote about our star student, Zayn!

A note on book bags….

There may only be a small handful of books in their bag, but they can never be read too many times! The repetitiveness is good for them. 🙂 When I meet with them in small group, we don’t always get new books. We reread familiar books, practice building words with magnets, work on rhyming, syllables, and we also write about our books. So, if you do get tired of reading the books try writing about them one night! Think of something to say about a certain book and have them try sounding out the words and then they write the sentence too.

We have introduced an online program called, “Seesaw”. With us living in a world surrounded around technology, I am trying to get kindergartners as used to using it as possible. On this site, I can post assignments for the kids to do, they do the work, take a picture of their work, and then record themselves talking about their work. For example, this week they simply drew a picture of themselves, took a picture of their picture, and then recorded themselves talking about it! I have sent home a sheet to connect to your child’s seesaw account. You will be able to see their posts on here. 🙂 Seesaw also has an app on the phone! We are still getting used to this website, so please do not expect a lot of work to be done on here right away. Haha it will be a work in progress throughout the year! But we are excited about seesaw!

We have started our new math module on shapes, this week we talked about….

• What a straight line is versus a curved line
• Triangles and all the properties of a triangle
• Rectangles and all the properties of a rectangle
• Circles and hexagons and the properties of each
• Positional words

Other:

Friday we met with big buddies and completed a thankful turkey. They told their big buddies what they are thankful for, and big buddies wrote it down for them.

Reminder for feast – please drop off all donated food in the office by noon on Tuesday the 20th for our feast! Thank you for all the help!

Parent teacher conferences are finished, it was so great to see all of you and talk about the amazing progress from each and every child. 🙂

With snow upon please – make sure to go over changing shoes with your child. They should be able to get in and out of their boots and regular shoes on their own. We still need them to be in gym shoes on Tuesday and Friday if they want to participate.

Upcoming Events:

Monday, Nov. 19 – Tumblebus – dress appropriately (the bus is heated)

Nov. 21-23 – No School for Thanksgiving Break

Friday, Dec. 7th – 1st spelling test! (more information to follow)

Wednesday, Dec. 12 – Late Start

Friday, Dec. 14 – No School for Kindergarten

Below is the link to a google sheet – if you would like to donate food to our Thanksgiving feast please click here

What We Did During Our Week:

This week we learned about the letters I and R! With me being out on Monday, no school on Tuesday, we took this week to review things we have been talking about and continued to talk about how to self-assess ourselves during Daily 5. After assessment of letters and letter sounds we are going to start moving faster with the alphabet – trying to do a letter a day so that we can get to writing a little quicker! Please be sure to be practicing letter sounds with your child. This we started star student – we wrote about our star student, Jaafer! 

We are published authors! “Our Halloween Spooktacular Dream” has arrived and they were so excited! We will publish one more book at the end of the year so that we can see our progress. 🙂

We took our end of module 1 math test this week, as I tested students one-on-one, everyone else engaged in our new November math centers. For Novembers math centers they….

• Count the room
• Complete number turkeys (representing number 1-10 in many ways)
• Shape animal mats
• Find the missing caterpillar number
• Clip cards – How Many?

We have started a new science unit for the month – we will be discussing all types of weather!

Other:

Friday we met with big buddies and complete turkey hats with representing numbers in more than one way.

Parent teacher conferences finish up next week – see you soon!

With snow upon please – make sure to go over changing shoes with your child. They should be able to get in and out of their boots and regular shoes on their own. We still need them to be in gym shoes on Tuesday and Friday if they want to participate.

Upcoming Events:

Monday, Nov. 19 – Tumblebus – dress appropriately

Nov. 21-23 – No School for Thanksgiving Break

Haigh is participating in two drives over the next month, please see links below for more information:

Battle Against Hunger

Annual Toy Drive

What We Did During Our Week:

This week we learned about the letters H and S! Now for Daily 5 I am encouraging the kids to self-assess their work ethic and think about how to become better/smarter learners. So, after each round they circle a smiley face, straight face, or sad face to assess how they did! They ask themselves…”Did I stay in 1 spot? Did I get started right away? Did I work the whole time? Did I keep my eyes on my own work?” They have quickly noticed their work habits and are making adjustments and then seeing how proud they are when they get to circle that smiley face. 🙂

We have finished Math Module 1! Next week they will be taking their end of unit math test and then we will begin Module 2.

Other:

We had so much fun on Halloween! For our party they got to….

• Make a pumpkin craft
• Play BINGO
• Decorate and eat a cookie
• Play Witch’s ring toss
• Decorate a mask

In the afternoon they enjoyed cider and donuts for PBIS, followed by a dance party and then the whole school parade. We also got together with big buddies to share our costumes with.

A note came home about our “tumblebus” field trip. Please fill out and complete with exact cash. This is an in-house field trip so no chaperones are needed.

Parent teacher conferences are the next 2 weeks, a reminder will come home with your time.

Book fair is Monday at noon! You may send your child with money in a labeled bag/envelope or you may accompany them to the book fair at noon on Monday. 🙂 If you attend, please check in at the office and meet us in the media center. Or, Family night will be on Thursday, Nov. 8th. The book fair will be open from 3:35-7:00pm for after school shopping.

Thank you,

~Mrs. Sarafa

Upcoming Events:

Monday, Nov. 5th – Book Fair (12pm)

Friday, Nov. 9th – Hat Day!

Tuesday, Nov. 6 – No School

Nov. 21-23 – No School for Thanksgiving Break

What We Did During Our Week:

REMINDER: NO SCHOOL TOMORROW FOR KINDERGARTEN!!

This week we learned about the letters G and T! We started to talk about syllables. We use a drum to hear the chunks in the word, we pat on our laps, and we use our hand under our chin to see how many syllables in a word. This is something else you can practice at home! Book bags came home this week, along with a note about them. Please read these books everyday – they seem easy and repetitive (which they are) – the goal is to be pointing under each word as they read. Making sure to not rush and just run their finger as they read. Bring these bags home and back to school everyday! They will get more books added as time goes on. 🙂

I tested every single kid on their alphabet, letter sounds, sight words, and reading level. This information will be shared out in conferences in just a few short weeks.

Math we are finishing up our module – working with numbers in 10 and now knowing what is ‘1 more’. Below is a game we played that can be played at home – make a number strip – use something to cover a number and take turns figuring out what the mystery number is. 🙂 Note if they need to count up starting at 1 or if they can look at the surrounding numbers to figure it out. 

Other:

Thursday we picked out pumpkins in the morning and then cut them open, cleaned them out, and decorated them in the afternoon!

Next week is Halloween – if you would like to send your child in with a bucket for Halloween you may do so in order to collect treats. Just please make sure their name is somewhere on it in case we have duplicates. 🙂

Upcoming Events:

Wednesday, October 31st – School-wide Halloween Parade (parents may attend at 2:30pm)

Friday, Nov. 2nd – Half day

Monday, Nov. 5th – Our Book Fair Day!!

Tuesday, Nov. 6 – No School

Nov. 21-23 – No School for Thanksgiving Break

What We Did During Our Week:

This week we learned about the letters F and U! We also worked identifying how many words are in a sentence. This a fun game to play at home – come up with a silly sentence and have your child tell you how many words were in that sentence! Our Halloween story has been shipped – Scholastic says we should have our ordered copies back to us within 20 days. 🙂 Next Monday I will be testing alphabet letter recognition, sounds, as well as reading levels. Book bags will be coming home within the next week – please be on the lookout for more information!

We continue to practice counting up to 10, but also from 10 to 0. We are close to finishing module 1, and we will be moving onto shapes within the month of November!

Science we talked all about pumpkins! We learned that pumpkins grow from a blossom, and actually start out green and then turn orange. After we read about pumpkins we painted our pumpkin hats!

Other:

Please, please, please work on putting on and zipping up coats independently at home. With colder weather upon us we still have many kids that cannot get their coats on once they have been taken off, and they cannot zip them. This is a skill that kindergartners should be able to do independently. Thank you! 🙂 Also, if you are talking to other parents – remind them to sign up for this blog! 🙂

Thursday we will be outside all afternoon in order to do a pumpkin activity – please be sure to send your child in the appropriate clothing for the weather this day – thank you!

Friday we met with big buddies and did a few fun activities! We got to make pumpkin hats, as well as math some math candy corn.

IMG_2700

Upcoming Events:

Friday, October 26th – No School for Kindergarten Only

Wednesday, October 31st – School-wide Halloween Parade (parents may attend at 2:30pm)

What We Did During Our Week:

This week we learned about the letters E and V! We continue to work on rhyming – they are starting to get the hang of it! Our labeling for pictures has gotten much better and I’m starting to see some kids stretch out their words when writing rather than letter stringing. We continue to work on crisp pointing – which means that we point right under the word, not 3 inches below. This is a skill that will continue throughout majority of the year. We have also been finishing up our spooky Halloween story! Each child has added their illustrations to their pages. We will be shipping our work to Scholastic next week in order for it to get made into a book!

Here is one of our friends modeling some excellent crisp pointing while reading! 🙂

IMG_2644 (3)

(hopefully the link works)

We finished math testing and have moved onto the second half of module 1. We are talking about numbers 5-10 now. Students should be able to write their numbers to at least 7 independently. We play a lot of fun math games, such as “fast counting” and “groups of 5”. The kids love these, and these are great games you can play at home – just ask them how to play! 🙂

Science for the month of October is Push and Pull. We will be doing some small experiments throughout the month as we learn about force, and pushing and pulling.

Other:

Tuesday we had a choir concert from Dearborn High students. They loved it!

Thursday we met with big buddies – they read a poem together, “Five Little Pumpkins” and colored together.

Also, THANK YOU for reminding me of your conference times! I promise I’m usually organized! Haha 🙂

Upcoming Events:

Wednesday, October 17th – Late Start

Friday, October 26th – No School for Kindergarten Only

Wednesday, October 31st – School-wide Halloween Parade (parents may attend at 2:30pm)