Happy New Year 2017!

I hope you enjoyed a restful and fun winter break as I did!

Important Upcoming Dates:

• Kindergarten Parent Meeting – Tuesday, January 10th: 8:00am – 9:00am
• Family Morning – Friday, January 27th: 8:30am – 9:15am

Kindergarteners have returned to school eager to learn more and do more.

In writing, we are learning to write true stories across several pages just like real authors do.  We practiced telling stories to a partner and then thinking about the beginning, middle and end when we write them down.  We learned that including who is in your story, where it took place and what happened there are important for the reader to know what your story is about. This week we will practice adding dialogue and action to our stories. 

In math, we are finishing up our geometry unit.  In this unit, we learned about different 2 Dimensional and 3 Dimensional shapes and explored where we can find them in our world. We learned many different vocabulary words used to describe and compare shapes. We also learned that shapes can be put together to make other shapes. We also used different materials in the classroom to create our own shapes.  Here are just a few:

Over the course of the past few weeks, I met with each student individually to read and placed everyone on their independent reading level.  Students read a book to me and I take note of the strategies they are using to decode words as well as their fluency and expression.  I then ask students to retell the story and I ask some questions so I can assess their comprehension. There are some books in our library that are leveled by difficulty, beginning at level A and moving up. Beginning on Monday, students will shop for books on their independent level and place them in their book baggie.  This baggie will travel between home and school each day.  The books will be changed weekly. Look out for an important letter in your child’s take home folder for more information on Monday afternoon.