From the desk of the Kindergarten Teachers:

How to build your child’s language skills in Kindergarten…

Children build vocabulary and oral language skills doing many of the things they love to do: drawing, playing with dolls and stuffed animals, playing with cars, building with blocks, dressing up, and playing pretend in a kitchen or home center. The language and conversation kids use during these play times provide a strong literacy base for a child entering kindergarten. The type of dialog that children use while playing in a home center will be very different from the language they use while building with blocks, so having a variety of activities for your child to choose from will encourage a broad range of vocabulary words incorporated into their daily play. As you are playing with your child, or observing their play, use language and vocabulary that will help them grow. Identify and explain the uses for different objects in the kitchen and use interesting language when playing with stuffed animals and dolls. Young children are like sponges, ready to soak up the language around them!

Spending time engaged in conversation during your shared experiences will also help build vocabulary and oral language. Taking walks, going for bike rides, heading to the park, flying a kite, cooking together, visiting a farm or petting zoo, and even raising pets at home can all be terrific experiences for kids and give you lots to talk about. Be sure to talk to your child throughout these day-to-day experiences, using language that helps them grow in their vocabulary development. Too often parents, teachers, and caregivers will use simple words with kids. While it’s important to explain things to your child, using words within their developmental level, it’s also important to remember that kids can handle a lot more than we give them credit for. When you’re cooking with your child, ask them to get the measuring cup instead of calling it a scooper. They may have never heard that term before, but suddenly it becomes part of their vocabulary. Let’s continue to make literacy our #1 priority as language is the foundation to educational success!!!

Have a great Winter Break, remember to read each and every day with your children!!! Please finish the reading logs that are attached to the Winter Packet!!!

Heart,

Ms. Wentland

Good Morning,

If your child is wearing their boots to school, please make sure you send their gym shoes in their back pack.  They need to wear gym shoes in school every day.  They can change out of their boots when they get to our classroom.  This lets us leave wet, snowy boots in the hallway and keeps our classroom safe by not getting our floors all wet and slippery.  The kids feet also get very hot and sweaty when they are in heavy, winter boots all day!  I will have them put their boots back on before they leave for the day!  Thank you for your help and cooperation!

Holiday Coloring Book Exchange

In our classroom this holiday season, we will be doing a class “coloring book” exchange. Each student can bring in a new coloring book wrapped in their favorite holiday wrapping (with a tag to indicate who it is from only) to exchange with another student. It should be WRAPPED. Please do not write any of the student’s names from the classroom on it only your child’s name.

Send in the wrapped coloring book by Wednesday, December 20th.  We will also be having a pizza/cookie decoration celebration on Friday, December 22^nd!!! Please donate $3 for the pizza, drink, and cookies!!! Thank you! A Holiday Winter Homework Packet will also be sent home with your child for the 2 week vacation.

As always, thank you so much for your support,

Ms. Wentland & Happy Holidays

• What are ways that students can address bullying?
• What can you do in a cyberbullying situation?
• How does language affect how differences are perceived?
• What can someone who sees bullying do?
• What can students do within their school to help prevent bullying?
• What options does someone who is being bullied have?

Good Morning,

Dear Parents,

A student in your child’s classroom has been diagnosed with Strep Throat, and your child may have been exposed.  Wayne County Health Department has provided the following information about Strep Throat:

If your child develops these symptoms, please take them to your Primary Healthcare Provider for treatment.  

In accordance to Wayne County Health Department’s recommendations, we are asking that all children with Strep Throat remain at home for a full 24 hours after the start of microbial therapy (oral antibiotic).  Any student coming back to school from any illness with the symptom of a fever needs to be fever-free without the use of fever-reducing meds for a full 24 hours.

Thank you so much for your help and support!

Biane Bazzy, RN

School Nurse

From the desk of the Kindergarten Teachers-Kindergarten is for Language Development

It is familiarity with the English language that precedes and underlies excellent phonemic awareness instruction.  It is this familiarity that allows a child’s decoding to be error-free and their reading to be fluent.  We must skillfully accelerate language learning – both thinking and oral communication – if we are to take a proactive approach to bridge the achievement gap and prevent later reading difficulties.  That is why we encourage our children to hear grammatically correct English through their daily instruction and the literature they listen to.

As Kindergarten teachers, we must provide experiences that make language come alive, dramatically articulating and fluently modeling the sounds of language.  We invite kindergartners to rehearse language as singers, signers, and storytellers.  Lively discussion about quality fiction and nonfiction allows us to connect books with children’s lives and provide the vehicle for explicit teaching of comprehension strategies.

We memorize, recite, and perform language.  We differentiate instruction, honoring children’s initial “magical memory reading” and skillfully transitioning them to guided and independent reading.  We are conscious that listening comprehension comes before reading comprehension.  Our curriculum invites children to communicate and interact.  Developing the child’s capacity for language and thought underlies everything we do in kindergarten.   Please remember to read to your child (in whatever language you are native to) and continue to help our students become proficient in the English language!!!