Due to flash flood warnings our field trip has been canceled for today.

We have been reassigned a bus for October 11, 2016.

We are sorry for any inconvenience.

The Kindergarten Team

DON’T FORGET!

FIELD TRIP TOMORROW

Please send a completely disposable sack lunch and drink in a brown bag with your child’s name on it to school tomorrow. All items will be thrown away after lunch.

Please check the weather and have your child dress appropriately. We will be outside most of the day! Due to busing and scheduling we are unable to reschedule the date.

Thank you!

Kindergarten Team

Dear Parents,

If you need any translation assistance you may contact:

https://iblog.dearbornschools.org/translation/

News from Mrs. Vensko’s Classroom

We had a wonderful week! The class is really starting to learn how to follow all the routines and procedures! I keep telling them that they are making me “one happy teacher!”

Upcoming Events

9/29 Field Trip to Plymouth Orchard (Permission slip coming home Monday)

10/7 Outdoor Movie Night (Green Flier came home today with more information)

Agenda for the Week

Letters: This week we focused on the letters Bb and Yy. We talked about the sounds they make, brainstormed things that begin with each letter, and spent time practicing the proper formation of each letter. These letters will show up on next week’s homework for a handwriting review.

Reading/Writing: This week we focused on the difference between a letter and a word. The children had an opportunity to practice writing. The children were given a big sheet of paper and were allowed to draw a picture and try to write about it. Many of the children drew wonderful pictures and were able to at least write the first sound of the word they wanted to write to describe their picture.

Math: We continue to work on representing quantities with dots inside a ten frame. We learned how to properly form the numbers 4, 5, and 6. We reviewed our procedures for math workshop and our number talks.

We have also been learning about shapes. This week we focused on rectangles and triangles. Some new vocabulary we learned were the words, corner and sides. We counted the sides of each shape and found where the corners were on each shape. The children are loving our shape song video that we watch! Check it out on youtube, just search “Shape Song 2” by KidsTV123.

Social Studies: We continue to read books about being a good friend and following the rules. The children are really starting to get a handle on our routines and procedures.

We also talked about fire safety this week. Today was our first fire drill. All the children did a good job getting in line and out the door quickly.

Science: We talked about positional words this week and met with the other kindergarten classes to have a “Fun Friday” activity. We all got together and watched a video about positional words and played a game to reinforce the concept. Positional words are words that tell the location of something (on, off, above, below, in, out, between).

Housekeeping Items:

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.

Library books are due back to school today.

Field trip money and your signed permission slip is due today.

News from Mrs. Vensko’s Room

Thank you to all who came to Open House. It was nice to have time to get to know each of you a little bit more.

If you were unable to make it to Open House or forgot to sign up for a conference day, please see me at arrival/dismissal to sign up for a date and time. I will have a clipboard with the sign-up sheet with me, until we get everyone a conference time.

Upcoming Events

9/22 Scholastic Book Order DUE!!!

9/29 Field Trip to Plymouth Orchard (Permission slip coming home Monday)

Agenda for the Week

Letters: This week we focused on the letters Aa and Zz. We talked about the sounds they make, brainstormed things that begin with each letter, and spent time practicing the proper formation of each letter. These letters will show up on next week’s homework for a handwriting review.

Reading/Writing: This week we learned more about the concepts of print. We talked more about the parts of the book, front cover, back cover, spine, what the spine of the book does, title, author, illustrator, characters, title page, etc. We began learning about text-to-self and text-to-world connections through our read aloud stories this week.

Math: We focused on representing quantities with dots inside a ten frame. We will use ten frames all year, so it is important for the children to begin using them now. We learned how to properly form the numbers 1, 2, and 3. The children also learned our procedures for math workshop and our number talks. Number talks help us talk about numbers and become better at mental math. Number talks take place for 5 – 10 minutes each day. Ask your child to show you what hand gesture they do when they get an answer, what hand gesture they use when they have the same answer as someone else (we say, “me too”), and the most important thing during number talk is giving our friends “time to think.”

Social Studies: We continued to talk about being a good citizen and friend. We reviewed our rules and talked about ways we can help others to follow the rules. We have been using our read aloud stories to discuss what it means to be a good friend and student. The children are working hard at following the rules and procedures in class, and trying to make good choices.

We also talked about fire safety this week. Today was our first fire drill. All the children did a good job getting in line and out the door quickly.

Science: We discussed what germs are and how to stay healthy in class. We talked about washing our hands and sneezing/coughing into our elbow.  The children watched a short video and song about germs. After watching the video, they all wanted to go wash their hands!

Housekeeping Items:

Many of the children are confusing their snack with their lunch items. Please help your child understand what you have packed for their snack and where to find it (whether it is in their lunch box or their backpack).

Please let your student know if they are buying or packing lunch each morning before you drop them off.

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.

News from Mrs. Vensko’s Kindergarten

We had a great first week of school! The half days during our soft start really worked well for the children, especially with the extreme heat.

Upcoming Events

9/12 No School!  *Hope everyone that will be celebrating, has a safe and happy Eid!

9/15 Open House 6:00 – 7:30pm

9/16 “Proud Like a Lion”  (send children to school in Detroit Lions apparel/colors)

9/22 Scholastic Book Order DUE!!!  More info coming on the iblog by 9-13-16

Agenda for the Week

Introduction to school rules and procedures.

We focused on learning the rules of the classroom and school. We also spent a lot of time learning different procedures such as how to walk in the hallway, how to transition from tables to carpet, how to signal for the bathroom during instruction time, and much more! The children are hard at work trying to be the best class in the school by following directions and setting good examples for others.

We learned a few fun song and a few educational ones that we will do every day during our morning meeting time. Two songs that we learned focus on the letters and letter sounds, another song about the days of the week, and another about the months of the year. In a few weeks, ask your child to sing the months of the year song for you, there are fun hand movements we do with this song!

We read several different books this week all about starting school and kindergarten. We read The Kissing Hand by Audrey Penn,  Froggy Goes to School byJonathan London, and My first day of School by P.K. Hallinan.  We began to talk about the parts of the book, front cover, back cover, spine, what the spine of the book does, title, author, illustrator, characters, etc.

The children learned the rules of the playground and had opportunities to make new friends while playing on the kindergarten playground. We also had some time for play inside the classroom. The children learned how to play with our toys and how to properly put them away.

Housekeeping Items:

Please remember to send your child to school each day with a healthy snack. Our lunch time is not until 12:40. It is a long time to wait from breakfast all the way to our lunch. As a reminder, please do not send juice to school as part of their snack.

Green “home” folders will be coming home starting next week. 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.

Homework packets will start next week. Packets will come home the first day of the week we are in attendance and are due back the last day of the week that we are in attendance. I will always have a front cover to the homework explaining the instructions for each page and stating on which day the packet is due. As stated in the welcome packet which came home the first day (this can also be found on the classroom blog under the tab “Class Info”) homework is due the last day of the week. Late homework will be accepted the following Monday, but no later.

My name is Dorene Vensko and I have been teaching Kindergarten in Dearborn for 25 years.  I am looking forward to working with you and your student to have a successful and fun year!!!