Kindergarten News!

As we come to the end of our first month of Kindergarten, we are excited to see the community that’s being built each day in our classroom.  We are really getting to know each other and beginning to form the foundation of a strong classroom community. We continue to learn and practice routines in the classroom, as well as other places in the school. Our year in academics has gotten off to a great start!  

Reading

We are learning that there are many ways that people read and even if you are not yet ready to read the words in a book, there is still a lot of reading work you can do.  We have talked a lot about looking closely and thinking about what you see to help you read. We also learned that we can be mindful of what our bodies need to do our best during reading time.  Students are enjoying the many stories we read aloud and love to join in when we read big books in the classroom.

Writing

We are putting lots of our ideas on the paper by making a picture in our mind. Kindergarten writing can range from having a simple picture to some words or even sentences.  Students are encouraged to do their personal best to show the picture in their mind. We generated some writing ideas by thinking about people that we know, places we have been and things we love.  We also began talking about ways to add labels to our writing. Encourage your child to draw and label pictures at home about experiences s/he might have.

Math

We have been working on learning the big ideas of counting by trying to figure out how many students are in the class. As we share different strategies, we learn that it is okay to make a mistake and encourage students to try out their ideas.  While doing this, we are creating a list of important things to remember when you count. Students have also been working in math stations. During this time, they are able to choose what station they want to work at and when they feel finished, they can clean up and choose another station.  Ask your child about his/her favorite math materials and/or station.

Special Activity

We are learning to share from our friend “The Rainbow Fish.”  In this story, when Rainbow Fish doesn’t want to share his beautiful, shiny scales with the other fish, his friends don’t want to play with him.  He doesn’t understand why he feels so unhappy even though he still has all his beautiful shiny scales. When he decides to share just one, he feels happier and starts giving lots of his scales away.  He learns that when you share, others want to be your friend. We each got 2 shiny sequins (scales) and shared one with a friend. Then we decorated our own Rainbow Fish using tissue paper and our shiny scale.  Next we will write about ways we can share with others.

Our children are growing and learning so much and it’s only been 14 days!

Have a wonderful weekend!