January 5th

Happy New Years! I hope everyone had a great Christmas, and is ready to come back to school! Sorry about not posting over our break. I was enjoying it a little too much=)

Starting on the 5^th there will be a little schedule change. We have weaned out our rest time in the afternoon. Most students did great today, and were a little happy about it=). They may be a little more tired for a while but I will make sure to have calm down times throughout the day. Instead of rest time we will be starting our writing period, which I am very excited about!

Notes

-         Please make sure to practice sight words every night, or at least most nights. I am very persistent on this because I know how much it helps in reading. So please, please practice!

-         Report cards are coming up in a few weeks. I will be meeting with any new students and anyone else who would like a conference. I will be sending out an email soon about this. I enjoy meeting with parents, so even if there are no problems please feel free to still request a conference!

    Mrs. Strickland is sending out an email tomorrow to see if any parents have good video or pictures from the play, so keep  your eyes out for that, and hopefully we will have some to post!

Literacy-

In Daily 5 we are working on blending sounds and hearing the final sound in a word. We are also continuing to work on our letters and new sight words each week.

-K.RF.2c- I can put together word parts. I can take apart word parts.

-K. RF.1d-I know and can name all of the letters of the alphabet.

K.RF.2d- I can read CVC words. I can say each sound in a word.

- K.RF.3c- I can read sight words.

Writing-

I am so excited about the writing unit we have started. This month students will be working on personal narratives by making their own books. Their goals are to generate a topic on their own, use pictures and/or words to tell a story, forms recognizable letters, and can hear and record most consonant letter sounds. I will be sending home their work and a rubric of how they did at the end of the month.

K.L.1a- I can print upper and lowercase letters

K.L.2- I can write sentences.

W.K.3-  Use pictures and words to write a story.

Math-

This week we are beginning a new chapter on number bonds. Ask your child if they know what this means=) I hope most of them know by now, we do it in calendar every day. Number bonds are when you put 2 numbers together to make a new number. Right now they understand it with manipulatives, but with pictures they get confused.

This would be a great thing to practice at home. Saying 2 gold fish and 2 gold fish make 4 gold fish. This is a big part of our addition and subtraction later on.

K.OA.3- I can show different ways to make a number that is less than or equal to 10.

Social Studies-

We are beginning our Seasons/ Weather unit. Look for some fun pictures to come!

Thanks!

Mrs. Lee

12/14/14

I hope everyone is enjoying their weekend! I can’t believe there are 4 more days until Christmas break! This next week will be a pretty light week for the students, though they still may come home tired from the excitement=)

All next week we will be practicing our dress rehearsal for the program. For parents who can’t come we are going to try to video tape it. We will also be finishing our presents for you, and learning a little more about Christmas around the world.

On Thursday, the program will begin at 9:00 and end probably a little before 10:00. Parents can take their child home if they would like. Though, after the program they will have recess, and a little party. We will be eating snacks/treats. If you can bring something that would be great. We will be opening presents (you are not required to buy anything! We will normally get something small for the kiddos), and doing our ornament exchange. After the exchange, hopefully there will be enough time because we would like to build our gingerbread houses. If you leave before that it is okay, if you would like to stay and help that would be great as well!

Also, on the day of the program students should wear black clothes, the kinders will be dressed as animals. They can bring a change of clothes if they would like. If the outfits change I will email everyone.

That was kind of long=) so here is what you should remember.

1.   Bring an ornament for the ornament exchange.

2.  If you would like, bring a treat (cookies, cake, crackers, juice, ect...) for our after program get together.

3.  If students are staying after the program, bring candy, grahams, or icing for gingerbread house.

4.  Please bring students at the normal time on Thursday!

5.  If you would like to help with dressing students on Thursday, let me know. 

Thank you! 

Mrs. Lee

12-6-14

It seems like the weeks are going faster as we get close to Christmas. Last week our students did a lot of practicing for their program. We will keep practicing every day until the program. I know not everyone can make it because of work, but we will make sure to video tape it for everyone=)

You may have noticed that I took out the Bible verses from the folders. Mrs. Strickland said I can shorten the verses for the students. I will retype them and send them home on Monday. We are practicing these everyday with signs as well.

_{What are we learning?}

Parents, one of my new goals this year is to better communicate what we are learning and the standards that go with it. I don’t only teach to the standards or to the book, but I do think they are important and I want to communicate them more with you. In my blogs I am going to try harder at addressing which standards I am working on, how we are meeting them, and sometimes what you can do at home to help=)

If you are still unsure about what the standards are, here is an awesome video that explains it easily. Also here is the website for our standards. If you have any questions about the standards please let me know!

Video- http://vimeo.com/51933492

Common Core homepage- http://www.corestandards.org/

*The K in the standards just means kindergarten. The R is for reading and the W means writing.

Literacy-

Phonological awareness- Students are learning how to hear beginning sounds, middle sounds, and ending sounds in CVC (consonant, Vowel, Consonant) words. RF.K.2b

Phonics- We are continuing to work on our sight words through our poems, flashcards, and emergent readers. RF.K.3c/ RF.K.4

Writing-

In writing we will be focusing on opinion writing. Would they rather be an elf or reindeer? Would they rather build a snowman or go sledding? Why? W.K.1

Math-

In math our main objective is counting to 100, and writing our numbers up to 20.However, we are also working on patterns, adding more to make another number, and counting on. Counting and Cardinality (cc) K.cc.1/K.cc.3

Pictures!

In social studies we are learning about Christmas around the World. In the Netherlands they put shoes out for Saint Nicholas to fill. They were so excited to see their shoes the next day with candy, and ornaments in it! 

Practicing our Daily 5 again. Reading to Self

Students writing together. They loved it!

Practicing our program

Cute little elves we made and hung in the room

Have a great weekend!

Mrs. Lee

11-29-14

I will keep this post short but I do have a lot of pictures:)

Notes
- Please bring book bags back on Fridays.  I will add new books.
- On Monday, I will be testing students on sight words.  I noticed that the last had the wrong date!

Thanksgiving program

Students Making their Indian Vests

Tuesday, Mrs. Warner read the story Stone Soup as the students put their vegetables in the pot

We made our own butter! It was delicious!

All of our little Indians together. They look so cute:)

Our Thanksgiving feast

I hope everyone has enjoyed their weekend and thanksgiving! 

Mrs. Lee

11-21-14

Happy Friday!

Literacy

In literacy we are continuing to blend sounds and break sounds apart. The students are doing great with this!  In writing we have been working on descriptive sentences. Ask your students if they can tell you what this is=) We talked about our five senses and how we can use them to describe things.

Math

In math, I retested students on chapter 2 because I felt the first test was a little hard. Their tests were sent home this week. We are continuing to work on numbers 11-20. I have found this to be a little tricky for students. This would be a great chapter to finish the homework in=) Extra practice at home will really help!

Social studies

We are finishing up our unit on Thanksgiving. We have been working on a thanksgiving book that I am hoping students can bring home next week. They have been working very hard on it! Next week we are finishing our unit with a feast on Tuesday. We will also be playing games and making crafts in the afternoon. I sent home a letter telling each child what to bring for the feast. Please bring food on Monday so we can prepare our soup.

Bible

Next week we will begin learning about the Christmas story. The last day before Christmas break begins we will be doing a play with songs. More information will be going out soon.

Last reminder, this Sunday at 11am is our harvest dinner if your family can make it! We hope to see everyone.

A few pictures of the week

Music Class

Look into Daily 5. It is so calming=)

Art from the week. Class project

Thank you, Mrs. Lee

11/15/14

I hope everyone is having a great start to their weekends!

Notes

• ·        This Friday I sent home student’s book bags. These are different from library books. I hope it is not too confusing. These bags are filled with books at your child’s reading level. There are a lot of paper books in the bags that have their sight words in them. These are great to help learn sight words and to help with reading fluently. Please have your child pick two or three books to read to you each night. I promise, taking 15 minutes each night will help them become great readers! These book bags are due back each Friday and I will put new books in there for them. Please be gentle will these books. They are from my own library, which are books I bought with my own money. Thank you!
• ·        Please send students with an extra pair of gloves and a hat to leave at school for this winter. It gets soooo cold out there. If it is not raining, we always go out. If you have extra gloves to donate for students who don’t have any, we would be very grateful=)
• ·        Next week’s Bible verse is much longer than normal. This Bible verse is for our Harvest Dinner for students who can attend. We will practice for 1.5 weeks on this.
• ·        Just a reminder, if you have a student who has a fever or is throwing up, they have to stay home for 24 hours without the symptom(s) before they can return. Many students have been out sick and we are trying our best not to continue to spread it!

Literacy

In reading we have started to work on blending sounds and breaking sounds apart. I am very happy with how fast they are picking it up! We are also starting to sound out CVC (Consonant, Vowel, Consonant) words (dog, cat, hat, pig). Most students know the sounds but are learning how to blend them together. Whenever you see these small words, help your child sound them out=)

Math

In math we are working on counting and writing to 20. I have started “testing” them each day. The tests get harder and harder as they go until they can write their numbers to 20! Practice is key!

New homework was sent home on Friday. Again this is optional. Many students like to do it because they get a prize though=) This will be due on November 26th to receive credit, right before Thanksgiving break.

I hope everyone has a great weekend!

Mrs. Lee

11/9/14

I hope everyone had a great weekend! This next week will be a little weird with Tuesday off. Extra breaks are always welcome though=)

Literacy

Last week in reading, we started our second Unit. One of our focuses is blending sounds together. For example, I will ask the students what word is /c/, at. They have to blend these sounds together to make the word cat. This will help them as they begin to read and sound out their own words. We started a new set of sight words. Please practice these every night with your child.

Math

On Friday we finished out chapter 2 test. I will admit this test was slightly difficult because all of the counting they had to do on the first page. Counting with ordinal numbers is also very hard. This is their first exposure to it. Tomorrow I think I will give them another version of the test and average their scores. If anything to make sure they understand the math! Then on to chapter 3!

Social Studies

We have started our Thanksgiving unit, which we will do for 3 more weeks. They learn about why the pilgrims left England, what happened on the Mayflower, and how the first Thanksgiving came about.

Bible

Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.

-Hebrew 13:8

Notes

  - Last year we did a Thanksgiving party the week of Thanksgiving. The students made crafts and had treats. I am not sure if I will this year. If some parents would like to volunteer I would definitely get something started=) Let me know if you would like to!

-No School Tuesday.

- Harvest Dinner is Sunday November 23^rd for family who can make it.

Thank you,

Mrs. Lee