Hi everyone!

I hope your weekend is going smoothly. Let’s recap what happened during this short week in Kindergarten!

Students got to do a lot of independent work this week due to having so many assessments still going on. I’m proud of the way they have been getting better at focusing even when I am not leading them, and trying their best before relying on me for guidance. They also have been great at watching out for each other and keeping each other in check, which is equal parts adorable and helpful!

In Reading this week we have been working on the letter Ii vowel sounds, both long and short! We had to rush things a little bit due to having an unexpected day off this week, but they handled it like pros! We did some more assessments for ELA called Skill Inventories. We will keep focusing on isolating ending and middle sounds in words, but they have been doing great with blending sounds to figure out what a short word is after sounding it out. Please keep having them practice reading on their own any books you have at home! Even just reading to them, pointing to each word as you read it, helps them catch on to many phonics concepts. Students are working on refreshing their memory of word wall words and using them in sentences! Be sure to also keep practicing have them name individual letters at home, and then saying the sound. We don’t want them to lose any skills while they learn new ones!

Here’s a song to listen to/dance to/learn to at home:

In Math we focused on breaking apart numbers 8, 9, and 10! Students are definitely starting to get the hang of this, with the help of some handy dandy counting cubes! We had our DIBELS Math assessment this week. Most students did great, and this is tricky because each part of the assessment is only one minute long. Some things students can work on at home, regarding their Math skills, are working on counting on from numbers other than 1 (have them start at 5 or 12!) and work on recognizing numbers 20 and higher! Double digit numbers can be very confusing, so the more practice the better. I’m excited to start doing some more small group work with them in Math so make sure everyone is on the same page. Math centers are some of my favorites!

     

In Religion we are still continuing our lessons about how we are all made perfectly in God’s image, and to illustrate that we did self-portraits of ourselves! Students had to follow step by step instructions in order to make sure the portrait was large enough to be seen well on the paper and that the coloring was done correctly. They all turned out so beautiful, it was wonderful to see students make positive observations about themselves! These will be hung up in our hallway alongside the flowers they made.

In Science this week, we read the story What Do You Do With A Tail Like This? which shows different body parts of different animals and explains why that part is unique and important to that animal. We had fun picking out the mammals featured in the book!

If you haven’t heard, Kindergarten has been FASCINATED by the ice on the playground! They love to pick up big chunks and watch it melt due to their body heat. They also love to try and break the chunks of ice by stepping on them. We’ve had many scientific conversations about the weather, temperature, states of matter, and more just based on them playing outside. It’s so enriching when their learning comes from natural experiences!

We are so close to filling up our classroom behavior jar and earning another class-wide prize!! Students have submitted some ideas as possible prizes, and once they are approved by Mrs. Michael we will vote on one of the prizes. Keep an eye out for what that may be!

Here are some silly pictures that made me laugh this week. Kindergarten is exhausting, but they always keep the days interesting!

 

I also just want to say that I am so, so thankful for this wonderful and amazing group of kids. Every day they make me smile and laugh, and show me so much love. Getting to be their teacher makes the hard times so much easier. So thank YOU parents, for raising such incredible little people! Keep up the good work!

Love,

Ms. V 🙂