Kindergarten News May 11, 2012
Kindergarten News
May 11, 2012
Happy Friday! It’s hard to believe, but we have only two more Mondays left in the school year. Where has the time gone? This week has been a busy one! On Wednesday, the students took their final DIBELS tests. I was thrilled with the progress made this year. I will send home the results early next week. The students also took their final writing assessment. I will make copies of your child’s work and send that home next week as well. Give your child a great big hug…he/she certainly deserves it!
I would like to thank everyone who attended our Mother’s Day Spa on Thursday! The kiddos were so excited about the event. Thanks for making the day so memorable for your child. I wish you all a wonderful Mother’s Day on Sunday! I will post pictures this weekend on our webpage.
Here are some important dates to remember…
May 11 – All library books due…there will be no more check-out for the remainder of the year.
May 17 – Field Day. The fun will begin at 8:30. We will rotate through games and relays throughout the day. If you would like to volunteer to help with the games, please let me know. Coach Randolph will assign a relay/game for you to help with. If you would just like to come and watch our class participate, we would love for you to join us!
May 22 – Kindergarten Celebration. The celebration will begin at 12:30 in the gym. Kindergarten certificates will be handed out following a short program. We ask that you allow your child to wear his/her “Sunday’s Best”.
May 23 – PAWS Celebration. This nine week’s celebration will be “Water Day” fun! The students who have shown super PAWS behavior this nine weeks will get to play in water stations. Please send in an extra set of clothes on this day…students who do not have a set of dry clothes will not be permitted to get wet. More information about this fun-filled day will be sent home next week. If you have any questions, please let me know.
May 25 – No School.
May 26 – Report Cards. You may pick up your child’s report card from 8:00-10:00.
Have a great weekend!
Kindergarten News May 3, 2012
Kindergarten News
May 3, 2012
Happy Thursday! We have had a very exciting week. On Tuesday, our chicks began to hatch! What an exciting day for the kiddos. We have a total of 7 chicks in our big tub. Today we held the chicks and made birth certificates. I will post pictures of the chicks on the website this weekend. Please check them out!
Our popcorn words next week will be: nineteen and twenty. Those are the final sight words of the year. Please take time every night to review all of the words. I will be testing students on the words in the next two weeks.
On Wednesday, the students took their final Children’s Progress Tests of the year. I will print off the results and send them home at the beginning of next week. I am proud of everyone’s progress!
Next week we will take our final DIBELS tests on Wednesday. Students will be tested on letter identification, nonsense words, phoneme segmentation (sounding out words) and word use fluency (using words in sentences). We have practiced very hard in class and I know you have been working at home as well. I can’t wait to see the results of those assessments. I will send home the results as soon as I get them!
The students will also take their last writing progress monitoring test next week. At the beginning of this week, the students wrote about their trip to the zoo. Next week I will conference with the students about their writing and they will again write about that topic. Sounding like a broken record…I will send home their scores when I get them.
I have had a great response for the Mother’s Day Spa next Thursday! Please plan to come in and be pampered by your child. We will be set up to give massages, manicures and pedicures. Students will serve you a snack (fruit and cheese) and will read you a special Mother’s Day book they have been making all week. Everyone is so excited about this special day! Spa day will begin at 9:30 and will last until 11:00 (our lunch time). You are more than welcome to join your child for lunch as well.
No school tomorrow!
Have a great weekend!
Kindergarten News April 22, 2012
Kindergarten News
April 27, 2012
Happy Friday! We have had a busy week. Due to TCAP tests, we did not go to our special classes. We were, however, able to work on Successmaker all week. We used this week as a review week. We focused on nonsense words and alphabetical order. We also worked on writing sentences. Our writing progress monitoring assessment is scheduled for the week after next. We are really focusing on writing sentences with the following: finger spaces, capitalization, and punctuation. Students may score a total of 12 points on the prompt. Nine points are given for writing and three for the illustration. I am proud to say that this group loves to write and as a whole they have made much progress! Keep practicing at home!
Our popcorn words for next week will be: fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, and eighteen. We are almost done! Please keep practicing at home!!!
An amazing thing happened on Wednesday! When I came in, one of our chicks had hatched (on day 11). Not sure how that happened, but the kiddos were over the top excited! Our hatch date should be on or close to next Wednesday. Before leaving for the day, I took the chick from the incubator to show the class. We were able to see the egg tooth which is a small bump on the end of the chick’s beak. The students also noticed that the chick is covered in down. They are not born with feathers, they will come later. Pretty cool! Needless to say, everyone is so excited about meeting the rest of the chicks next week. I do allow the students to hold the chicks (with gloves, of course) as long as they are gentle and follow the chick handling rules. They are most excited about that! Please plan to come in and take a ‘peek’ at the little guys next week.
I would like to thank all of the parents who chaperoned our zoo field trip today. We had a wonderful time! I will post pictures on our classroom webpage this weekend. Please check them out. I also posted lots of pictures last week if you haven’t checked lately.
Forms to purchase field day t-shirts are in agenda books today. If you would like to purchase a t-shirt, money will be due on Monday, May 7th.
Important Dates…
May 9 – DIBELS testing
May 11 – ALL library books due…no more check out for the remainder of the year
May 17 – Field Day
May 18 – Sam Houston Has Talent – student talent show
May 22 – Kindergarten Celebration
May 23 – PAWS celebration – LUAU
May 25 – No school
May 26 – Report cards (8-10)
Wow…hard to believe the year is just about over…where did the time go?
Have a great weekend…see you on Monday!
Kindergarten News April 20, 2012
Kindergarten News
April 20, 2012
Happy Friday! We have had a busy week. In math we have been working on subtraction. So far, so good! Next week we will continue with more subtraction and we will review addition toward the end of the week. Please practice both addition and subtraction at home with your child. In writing this week we have focused on chicks. We completed a bubble map, a tree map, and a brace map. Next week we will focus on zoo animals and will create maps to help with our writing. We have reviewed many skills this week during small group. We have been clapping syllables, writing sentences, reviewing sight words and reviewing digraphs (ch, ph, th, wh, sh) and blends. We also began working on putting words in ABC order. A great way to reinforce this at home is to take 5 or 6 of our popcorn words, mix them up and then ask your child to put the words in order. They are catching on quickly in the classroom!
We have also been working each day on nonsense words. This week I added some new nonsense words to the mix. These words have 4-5 letters. The words are a mixture of blends, digraphs and vowel combinations (ou, ee, ea). Some words look like this: chiz, blash, smeet, etc. I am thrilled with how well the students can read these words. Many of the students can read the whole word without sounding out each individual sound or chunk. Way to go! Please continue to work on the nonsense word DIBELS homework each week. The goal for the last benchmark test is 28. Our goal is for students to read the word or say each sound and then blend them together to say the word. Thanks for all of your help at home!
Next week our popcorn words will be: eleven, twelve, thirteen, and fourteen.
As of today, our chicken eggs have been incubating for seven days. Our “Official Chick Turners” for the day have been checking the temperature and turning the eggs twice a day. Our anticipated hatch date will be May 3rd. You are welcome to come in any time to check out our incubator and eggs!
I have received many permission forms and money for our zoo field trip next Friday. Your child may not go on the trip unless the form is filled out completely. Permission forms and money are due no later than Tuesday, April 23rd. If you plan on meeting us at the zoo and have not let me know, please do so. This will allow me to assign you a small group of students to chaperone for the day. Thanks!
Next week is TCAP week! Our schedule will be a little wacky. We will not go to special classes for the entire week. We do plan on having KSmart each day. There is a good chance that we may have KSmart outside on a couple of those days. You may want to send in a light jacket or sweater for your child, as it may be a bit chilly outside so early in the morning.
Here are some important dates coming up…
May 1-3 – Children’s Progress testing…I will let you know our exact day when I find out
May 9 – DIBELS testing
May 11 – ALL library books due…no more check out for the remainder of the year
May 17 – Field Day…more information coming at a later date
May 18 – Sam Houston Has school-wide talent show
May 22 – Kindergarten Celebration…In lieu of our fourth nine weeks Tiger Awards, we would like to invite you to our Kindergarten Celebration. The kindergarten students will perform songs we have learned this year. More information to come…
May 23 – PAWS Celebration – LUAU!
May 25 – Teacher work day…no students
May 26 – Report cards (8-10)
Have a great weekend!!!
Kindergarten News April 13, 2012
Kindergarten News
April 13, 2012
Happy Friday! We have had a busy week. In math we have been learning about solid shapes. Next week we will begin subtraction. In writing we have been focusing on main idea and adding details. The students have been reading a short story, marking out sentences that do not belong and then adding sentences to the story. I have sent those pages home, so please check out their work!
Next week we will complete out last set of popcorn words from our kindergarten list. Whew!! For the remainder of the year, we will focus on number words eleven-twenty. Our words for next week will be: not, help, and saw.
On Wednesday, we began an ‘egg’citing adventure! We put 34 chicken eggs into our classroom incubator. The eggs will stay in the incubator for 21 days. If all goes as planned, our chicks should begin hatching on May 3rd. We are very excited about this awesome science project! We have begun a chick journal to show how the chick is growing inside the egg. The temperature inside the incubator must be 100 degrees and the eggs must be turned twice a day. Each day we will have two “Official Egg Turners” to turn the eggs and check the thermometer. The kiddos are very excited to be in charge of the eggs for the day. You are welcome to come in any time to check out our incubator and eggs.
I have received many permission forms for our zoo field trip. Your child may not go on the trip unless the form is filled out completely. Please return the permission forms and money to school no later than Tuesday, April 23rd. If you plan on meeting us at the zoo, please let me know. Thanks!
We are down to our last 4 boxes of tissues…we’ve had a lot of runny noses. If you have an extra box or two lying around your house, please send it in. It seems like we go through a box a week! Thanks so much!
We have many library books that never seem to make it back to the classroom. Please take time to locate your child’s book and return it to school. Library books must be turned in at the end of the year. You will not receive your child’s report card until the book is turned in or paid for. I know it is not the end of the year, yet, but it will be here before we know it!
Have a great weekend! Only 7 Mondays left in the school year!
Kindergarten News March 30, 2012
Kindergarten News
March 30, 2012
Happy Friday! We have had a busy week back at school. We have been busy reviewing language and math skills. In math we have been reviewing shapes. Next week we will learn about solid shapes. In writing we have been working on writing two sentences in our journals!
Next Thursday we will be having a “Candy Hunt”. The kiddos will race to pick up the candy, we will combine all the candy, and then we will estimate how much candy was collected. We will then divide the candy…and eat some! Please send in a bag of individually wrapped candy for our hunt. Please send in the bag of candy on or before Wednesday. Thanks so much for helping us out with our hunt!
We are planning a field trip to the zoo on Friday, April 27th. I will be sending home more information about the trip next week. We would love to have parents join us on the trip! Parents who plan on accompanying us will need to drive separately and pay your admission at the door. Again, I will send home more detailed information early next week.
There will be no school on Friday, April 6th in observance of Good Friday.
Kindergarten News March 4, 2012
Kindergarten News
March 5, 2012
Happy Monday! It’s hard to believe, but we are now beginning our last nine weeks of the school year. This will be a busy week! On Wednesday, report cards will go home. Please make sure to look over the report, sign and return it to school. I would like to have all of the report cards back before we get out for break. Tiger Awards will be on Thursday, March 8th at 12:45-1:30 in the gym. I will send home a list of the awardees with report cards. On Friday, we will have our nine-week PAWS party for good behavior. The theme for the party is “The 50′s”. How exciting! We will go to the gym for a sock hop and then names will be drawn to receive awards. We have a very busy week ahead of us!
Back in the classroom, we will continue to work on popcorn words, nonsense words, sentence writing, blends and sounds. In math we will be focusing on numbers 11-20.
Our popcorn words for next week will be: away, big, down, find
Our secret sack for this week will be a review of all the blends we have focused on. Your child will choose a blend, circle it, and then describe the item. This is such a fun way for us to review!
Our estimation jar has become a huge hit in the classroom! I would like to thank all of the parents who have helped to make this activity such a huge success. On Friday, when I told the kiddos that our schedule would be cut short for the day, their only concern was making sure that we would be estimating before we left. Rest assured, kids and parents, that everyone will have a chance to bring the jar home. Students who have the closest estimation and who have already taken the jar home get the choice to take it again, or, let someone who has not had a chance take it home. I am proud to announce that no one has taken it twice!
I will be sending home a spring break homework packet with the kiddos on Friday. This will give you something to work on each day during the break.
HAVE A GREAT WEEK!
masonj
