Happy Holidays!

Dear Parents and Guardians,
We will be starting a unit on December holidays this week.  We will take a look at Christmas, Hanukkah and Kwanza.  The Kindergarteners will also get a chance to write letters to Santa Claus.

We just started our guided reading program a few weeks ago.  Your children should be coming home with a book at least once a week from now on until the end of the year.  Each time your child comes home with a book, we will be focusing on a reading strategy.  This strategy may be the same for a few weeks until the strategy is mastered.  So far, the students have learned about Eagle Eye.  Eagle Eye taught the students to use the pictures to figure out tricky words in the book.  As the students learn more reading strategies, you should start to see your child using all of these strategies to read the book.

In math we are working hard to be able to count to 100 by tens and ones.  We are also working on being able to recognize, name, and write numbers.  We have been trying to remember what our numbers begin with to help us (teen numbers start with a one, 20's with a two, 30's with a three, 40's with a four, 50's with a five etc.)

The Kindergarteners have been working very hard during music.  This week on December 5th the students will be participating in the Winter Music Concert.  I hope to see everyone there!
Sincerely,
Miss Knauer

Hello November!

Dear Parents and Guardians,
I hope everyone is getting back to their normal routines after the storm.  I missed coming to school and seeing your Kindergarteners' smiling faces.

So far we have learned the letter sounds for Bb, Mm, and Tt.  Next week we will learn the sound for the letter Ss.  We will continue to work on listening for rhyming words, clapping out syllables, and separating sounds in words.

In our writing workshop, our young authors and illustrators are working on adding words to go along with their pictures.  We will practice counting the words in sentences that we want to write and saying the words slowly to make sure we record the sounds we hear.  

In math we will begin learning how to write the numbers 0-9.  We will continue working on recognizing numbers 1-20 and counting by ones and tens to 100.

Next week we will be starting a unit on communities.  We will be looking at a map of Oxford to see how most of the Kindergarteners are part of the Oxford community.  We will also look at how the Kindergarteners who are "School Choice" students live in a different community.

Thank you so much for coming to conferences this past week.  I truly enjoyed updating you on your child's progress as a Kindergarten student.  Take care for now!

Sincerely,
Miss Knauer

October is here!

Dear Parents and Guardians, 
Your Kindergarteners have been working so hard.  We will finish learning how to form all of the letters of the alphabet this week.  Soon we will be working on the sounds of the letters.  We will do a letter sound a week.  

We have also been working on learning sight words (a, the, I, & you).  This coming week, we will introduce two new sight words (big & little) as we read a book about big and little.  

This past week we wrapped up our unit on feelings and solving problems with our "Problem-Solving Wheel of Choice."  In Kindergarten, we will continue to work on this throughout the year.

This week we will start a new unit learning about how the weather changes with the seasons.  

I hope everyone enjoys their long weekend.  I am excited to see the Kindergartener's Halloween costumes.  

Sincerely,
Miss Knauer 

Welcome to Kindergarten!

Dear Parents and Guardians, 

I have thoroughly enjoyed getting to know your Kindergarteners during our past few days of school.  I am so excited to watch them grow over the year.  

Our goals for the month of September are to be able to identify all of the ABC's and to write all of the ABC's.  So far, we have learned how to write the letters, A,B,C & D.  We will do a letter each day until we finish!  You will see the completed ABC papers coming home in your child's take home folder.    

We also started our writer's workshop.  The Kindergarteners have been working on telling stories with their pictures.

Last week, the Kindergarteners developed our classroom rules.  They came up with all sorts of rules, but we generalized them all under three main rules: (1) I take care of myself, (2) I take care of my friends, and (3) I take care of my space.  

This week we have been talking about our feelings.  So far, we have talked about being sad, scared and angry.  We talked about how to help themselves feel better and how to help friends feel better when they have these feelings.      

During the week we have been going to our specials.  On Monday we have Art; on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday we have gym and on Thursday we have music, library and computers.  On days that the Kindergarteners have gym it is best if the students come to school in sneakers.

School pictures will be on September 24th.  

I can't wait to meet you at back to school night on  September 18th.  I hope to see everyone there! 

Sincerely,

Miss Knauer        

   

Is It May Already?

The end of the year is approaching so quickly!  This week we are working on completing our end of the year Kindergarten assessment.  This is a chance for the Kindergarteners to show off all of the skills they have learned in Kindergarten this year.  The results of these assessments will come home with the students' report cards.  We have also been learning all about ponds and the creatures that live in and near them.  The Kindergarteners have been working hard to decorate our room in preparation for Ocean Night.  They cannot wait to show off their work!  I am looking forward to seeing you at Ocean Night this Thursday!

April!!

April has flown by faster than I thought it would!  The kindergarteners have been growing stronger everyday!  

We have finished all of the sounds of the alphabet!  We are really working hard to practice our short vowel sounds and any other sounds that can be a little tricky.

We have such great authors in our classroom.  The kindergarten experts are working on writing information books right now to teach their readers about something they know a lot about.

We just completed a unit on animals.  The kindergarteners learned all about the different categories of animals such as mammals, amphibians, reptiles, birds and fish.  To go along with this unit we are taking a class trip to Space Farms!  Our class trip will be next week on May 2nd!  I am so excited to go to Space Farms with the kindergarteners.  I hope they are excited too!    

March is Here!

We have been working so hard in Kindergarten.  We are just about to finish writing our small moment stories.  I can not wait until we can share them!  The students are becoming better readers each day!  I can see they have been reading at home too!  


I started letting the students bring home books from our classroom each day so they have something to read at night.  Later during the week when they feel comfortable reading their book they are able to read their book to a partner in our classroom.  Please make sure the books come back to school so we can practice them in school too!  These books are coming home in addition to their guided reading books.


The students are also coming along in math!  Since the 100th day of school has passed we are working on reading bigger numbers.  All of the kindergarteners are working hard to read and write numbers.  


This week, we have been preparing for Dr. Seuss's birthday.  We made hats and bow-ties from The Cat in the Hat.  We also made ourselves into "things" for our bulletin board outside our classroom.  We have been reading Dr. Seuss books whenever we get a chance! 

February!!

In February we are looking forward to the 100th day of school and Valentine's day!  On the 100th day of school we will have some activities that are focused on the number 100.  On Valentine's day we will have a small classroom celebration where the students can pass out cards to their classmates.  


The students are really improving with their reading and writing!  Keep up the reading!  

Hello January!

Happy New Year to everyone!  The Kindergartners are learning so much!  It is so exciting to watch all of this.  Since we have learned so many sounds, we are really coming along with putting together words.  


In the guided reading bags that come home every week I have added another bag full of flashcards.  The flashcards include all of the word wall words and letter sounds that we have learned.  We are using those letter sounds to put together words!  It is really great that you have been reading at home with your kindergartners.  


This week we are having our classroom spelling bee.  We will have two kindergartners move on from our classroom into the larger tournament!