Hello everyone!

I hope you all have been enjoying this long weekend full of snow! Students received 1 or 2 sheets of homework focused on Martin Luther King, Jr. They also received a packet just in case of school being cancelled tomorrow. This packet does NOT need to be completed unless school Tuesday is cancelled. If it is not cancelled, please just send the packet back in with your student because that is the work we will be completing during the day.

We have been talking about Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and his accomplishments this whole week. This provided many different opportunities for important and difficult conversations. We have overlapped this with our reading lessons by using the multiple books we have read about him to also recognize sight words and practice decoding some short simple words. We also did some practicing with ABC Order and learning new words like “dream”.

This past week we did DIBELS testing for the middle of the year. Students were tested on letter sounds, letter naming, and their ability to isolate each sound in a word. One of the big goals for Kindergarten in the next couple of months is to get better at isolating every single sound in a word. We call it tapping out a word and we have students tap different fingers when doing the beginning, middle, and ending sound. At the moment we are working on three sound words but at home feel free to challenge your student with four sound words like “stop”, “skip”, “frog”, etc.

We were able to do a lot of differentiated reading groups this week, and it has been great to have students practice reading more and more. At home, have students read with you by echoing what you read and following along with their finger.

In Math we continued to work on numbers 11-20. We had students do plenty of hands on activity with just counting over and over all the way up to 20. Some students still need to be practicing this at home because many keep skipping numbers and messing up those counts. One of the phone ways we practiced this was giving students puzzles and making them count the pieces and then writing down the number on a white board before they were allowed to put the puzzle together. This helps me check their counting and their ability to write two-digit numbers correctly — many students have trouble with flipping two-digit numbers (this is called transpositioning). This is something we will be practicing this whole year.

Students had Ms. Byron visited this week to practice more social-emotional skills.

At the end of the week students had some structured “extra recess” as a prize won by one of the students, and one of the fun activities they got to do was use their stamps and ink pads for the first time. They loved getting a chance to be creative and make pictures with the stamps!

This upcoming week will be a short one, as we do not have school today and we won’t have any on Friday.

Next week on the 27th will be parent-teacher conferences. I have decided to make them all virtual in order to be safe with the rising number of cases of Covid-19. I’m going to do something a little different with conferences this time around and I will send out a sign up sheet for times and you can go ahead and fill in the time that you would like to have. You can manually fill your child’s name into a time slot onto the Google Sheet. It will be first come, first serve. If any of the times do not match up your schedule please let me know so we can schedule another time.

Thank you and let me know if you have any questions you have!

Love,

Ms. V 🙂

Hello everyone!

Happy New Year! I hope everyone had a lovely holiday vacation. I know that I needed this break and have come back feeling recharged, and I hope that the students feel the same!

We had a shortened week due to our surprise day off on Friday. Please make sure to have your student complete the flexible instruction day packet that was sent home so that they can be considered present for January 7th!

On Monday students were with Ms. Kelly due to my absence. Most of the day was spent doing play-based instruction and reacclimating students back into the classroom and the routine. After being going for so long, it can take some time to get back into the swing of things!

On Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday students were lucky enough to have some work with centers and small groups due to having a few students absent this week and having Ms. Kelly in our room in the mornings. It was helpful for students to be able to split into two groups and have some more individual working time. It also gave the chance for some differentiation of the work so that it could be better tailored to students’ needs. We were able to use our tablets for the first time as well, which students were very excited about!

In ELA we went over the letters Ii, Mm, Ss, and Tt (in their F.I.D. packet). We reviewed listening to the beginning sound in a word but also listening for middle and ending sounds in words. For middle sounds we use the concept of stretching out the word to really emphasize the vowel in the middle. We have also started talking about long vowel sounds and short vowel sounds when discussing middle sounds in a word. We use our bodies to demonstrate the short sound by taking a short step when we make it, and a big long step while making the long vowel sound. We also say that the long vowel sound is when the letter is “saying it’s own name”.

We also added the word “my” to our word wall. We practiced finding sight words in our morning message more than once this week and even played a game where students had to look between two similar looking sight words and figure out which one I was asking for.

This week we hit hard with practicing numbers 11-20. We had a competition between students split into teams to see who could most accurately build a tower with the correct number of blocks. Concepts of counting higher numbers are quite simple to reinforce at home. In the coming weeks we will be pushing students to count all the way to one hundred so have them practice as much as they can.

This upcoming week we will practice reading some more short decodable stories and working on isolating more middle and ending sounds. I’m excited to have our friends back in the classroom and I hope everyone is staying safe and healthy!

Warmly,

Ms. V 🙂

Hello parents!!

Thank you all for your patience and understanding with the newsletters. November is the busiest month of the year in a lot of ways! So let’s recap.

In reading we have been learning letter sounds! We are about halfway through the alphabet again. We took a break to review and reinforce the letters we had already learned and to strengthen other skills like rhyming, identifying story elements, and more. We’ve also been doing a lot of decoding together as a class, trying to identify all of the sounds in short words and then blend the sounds back together to figure out what the word is.

One special day in November we got a visit from the Reading Is Fundamental group, who read a story to Kindergarten and did some fun activities with them. Then students got to pick their own book to take home! They were so excited they couldn’t even wait to get into the classroom to read their books!

In Math, we have finished talking about tally marks and numbers 1-10 and lately have been talking about 2D shapes and higher numbers like 11-20. These topics in Math are really fun to teach because there are so many fun hands on activities to incorporate. It’s interesting to let students play with tools and see what they do with no direction. With the shapes, many students made animals or robots but some of them began sorting them on their own volition.

We wrapped up Science this month with making a diagram of a flower! Students enjoyed making their flowers unique and we discussed what each part of the flower is for. Their beautiful diagrams are all hanging out in the hallway.

Also in the hallway is a collection of turkeys that students made for Thanksgiving! We watched a video about turkeys so that they could see what they look like in real life, and then students were given options on what colors to use for their turkey. Everyone’s turkey is so unique and they look great all together. We also gave every student a chance to share what they were thankful for, and they gave the sweetest responses.

We also have been talking a lot about our feelings lately. Taking the time to stop and figure out what we need to do in order to calm our body down is an important part of learning how to deal with our emotions. Our school counselors have been a big help in our room as well!

Students have received, and will continue to receive differentiated homework based on what each student needs to be working on and to also give you all a good idea of what kind of academic reinforcement is needed at home! As Thanksgiving break is coming up please don’t forget to utilize the time off to read as much as you can with your student! I hope you all have a safe time with family over the holiday!

Love,
Ms. V 🙂

Hello!

I hope you all have been enjoying all the Halloween festivities this long weekend. Here is a recap of the past two weeks in Kindergarten!

In Reading we have really been diving into doing our letter sounds. We wrapped up the alphabet and then began it all over, this time around focusing on the sounds the letters make and what words start with those letters. We worked on letters Pp, Nn, Cc, Bb, Rr, and Dd. We have been making charts with a list of words that have that letter in the beginning. We also have been working in our reading books to also practice writing these letters and words.

We also have been working on more sight words and finding them independently. In their Flexible Instruction packet they received a list of sight words to practice at home. I will be sending out some more words as the year goes on.

Math puzzles have been a regular practice to practice number recognition and sequencing.

We have still been reviewing numbers 0-10, on how to write them correctly.

We recently started learning about tally marks, and we did a tally mark scavenger hunt where students had to find the Halloween pictures in the classroom and count the tally marks. They loved the challenge of having to search for the answer independently.

Hello everyone!

Thank you for being patient with these! Let’s recap these past two weeks.

Kindergarten has been doing a lot of centers work the past two weeks. With Ms. Kelly’s help, students have been doing some small group work to practice some reading and math skills. They’ve been working on having the responsibility of working in a small group and working as a team to complete a task.

Ms. Byron, one of the school guidance counselors, came to our classroom to help work on some listening skills. Students will get visits from her a few times this year.

In Science we have started talking about how living things survive and grow. We talked about the things that we need to survive as humans and then we talked about how plants need very similar things. We made some KWL charts about plants — what students already Know and what they are Wondering. When we are done we will make a what I Learned about chart. It’s interesting to see what students have already learned so that we can see where to start and what they are interested in! We went on a nature walk earlier this past week, in which students used their five senses to make observations about the plants around our school. We smelled lots of flowers and saw tomatoes growing in the garden. We even got gifted some tomatoes and tasted them during snack time! We also read a story about grass growing, and it had a another message about how we all are unique and grow in our own ways.

Students have also been practicing their puzzles! They’ve even started working together as a team to complete some bigger floor puzzles together.

In Math, students have been working on putting numbers in counting order and forming them correctly. We have been using play-doh to practice making them. We also did a class vote on student’s favorite special in order to introduce tally marks, which we will be working on along with learning vocabulary words like ‘less than’ and ‘greater than’.

During quiet time (when we have our mask break) this past Friday students made some jack-0-lanterns that will be hung up in the classroom. They cut up shapes to make the face and some students even got really creative with their faces!

In reading, students have been working on letters Ss, Ll, Rr, Vv, Oo, Zz, Cc, Jj, and Qq. They have also been adding a few words to their word wall and practice using them in sentences. We have been doing words like ‘like’ and ‘to’ and having students practice reading short sentences but also picking them out of passages. We also have been utilizing tools in our classroom like our white boards to play games. One has been that students have to write down the letter I say out loud and hide their letter until we all reveal them all at the same time and see who wrote down what. Students have also been placed in reading groups based on what skills they need to work on and we have started working on those skills during centers. We also learned about syllables or “clapping out” the beats of a word and students have picked up on it very nicely!

Students have also been using their tickets to earn different prizes. One of the big ones that has been popular now is the new flexible seating prize — students have options to use bouncy balls as chairs as well as “wobble” chairs, scoop chairs, and more! Some students have evens saved up enough tickets to have big prizes like sitting in the teacher chair for a whole day and having their shoes off in the classroom!

We will be diving into some more Halloween activities within the next week! Please reach out if you have any other questions about what has been going on in our classroom.

Have a great week!

Love,

Ms. V 🙂

Hello everyone! I hope you had a lovely weekend.

This week in Math we have been working on recognizing numbers 0-5 and practicing writing them. Students also got to practice doing some independent work and had to complete these assignments on their own and have me check it for them afterwards. Being able to count orally and being able to recognize the numbers (out of order) are two different skills, and the latter one is what most Kindergarten students need to work on right now. Next week, we will start working on numbers 6 through 10.

In Reading, students worked on letters Dd, Bb, Gg, Ww, and Ee this week. They made disco balls for the letter Dd that are now hanging on the door and they made waffle headbands, for the letter Ww. Students have had lots of practice this week reviewing letters that we have already learned.

Students also had their first Class Book Report! This is something that I try to do monthly with Kindergarten. This helps students with story concepts and understanding and remembering the sequence of events of a story. The first book report was on Wordy Birdy by Tammi Sauer. We read this so that we could also have a conversation about the importance of listening and how if we don’t listen, we miss out on important information.

In Science we are still working on learning about the four seasons. Students started this week with an art project in which students made trees for certain seasons. Students got to choose which season they did and they made the trunk of the tree with crayon. Students put their fingers in the ink and used their fingerprints to make leaves. The beautiful trees are now hanging in the hallway for everyone to see!

Students got some time to work on puzzles this week, and they have gradually been getting harder puzzles to work on to challenge them more and more. Challenging them in this way also helps build resiliency skills! They get such a thrill when they realize they accomplished something the didn’t think they could before!

Students did a great job listening for Mrs. Michael this week, when I was out sick one day this week. I’ve been proud of the way that some students have been growing with their behavior and getting better and better!

I’m looking forward to seeing how students do this week, and I am thankful for all of the wonderful communication I have had with all of you parents! Thank you for working with me to make sure your students grow and learn as much as they can in school.

As always, reach out to me with any questions you may have.

Love,

Ms. V 🙂

Hello everyone!

Thank you for being so understanding about this week’s newsletter being delayed. Let’s get into it!

Last week students learned about the color red. We will be doing a new color every week, working on recognizing the color word along with identifying the color (which should be a review for them).

In reading last week we learned the letters Yy, Ff, and Aa. We then took Thursday and Friday to review all of the letters we have previously learned! Students have been searching for letters throughout the room and practicing writing them. But they also had the chance to practice writing letters in the sand in a sensory activity we did during centers on Friday! Students loved this activity and all were on their best behavior so that they could take part in it.

They also reviewed the sight word ‘am’.

We also played ABC Bingo once again, and it’s wonderful to see progress already with the letters that students are able to recognize now versus the ones they recognized at the beginning of the year!

We also completed our DIBELS assessments for their reading skills, which will help us differentiate student’s reading needs throughout the year. I will be progress monitoring them throughout the year and doing this assessment two more times, at the middle and the end of the year.

In Math this week students wrapped up their chapter on sorting. They got to try using the SMART board while we checked our independent work together!

In Science, we got more in depth with the seasons. With Fall beginning, it was the perfect opportunity to start learning more and more about the differences between the seasons. We listened to two different songs about the seasons to help us learn about them. Here are the links to both:

Seasons

Then we did a sorting activity where we sorted different clothes and objects that we would need in certain seasons. We also read the book Goodbye Summer, Hello Autumn by Kenard Pak which gives more details about the differences between Summer and Autumn.

Students also had Mass again this week and they did a wonderful job!

Many students have collected enough tickets for good behavior to start earning prizes throughout the week. A popular one has been bringing a toy from home, bubble during Free Play, and eating lunch with Ms. V. 🙂 Some students have been saving their tickets for one of the larger prizes, and I’m proud of their patience this early on in the year! LOL!

Thank you to everyone who responded to my email about missing jackets. Please be sure to write your student’s initials or name in theirs so that we are able to keep track of everyone’s! Also – please don’t forget to be checking your student’s folder, especially the items on the Return To School side. Thanks for your continued help with having smooth communication!

Have a great day!

Love,

Ms. V

Hello families!

This week was a quick one in Kindergarten. Monday we were off for Labor Day, and I was not in the building on Tuesday and a substitute was in the classroom.

On Tuesday students were introduced to the five senses! They came up with words to describe each sense and they learned which body parts we use each sense for. This is a topic that we will routinely revisit throughout the school year! They also read a story called My Mouth Is A Volcano, which uses a story to tell students why it’s important why we shouldn’t interrupt others.

This week students have dived into handwriting. We worked our way through the introduction pages of our Handwriting workbooks and began working on the first letters we were introduced to this week! We are trying to get into the routine or holding the pencil correctly and having the correct posture so that we can do our best work. We also are trying to drill in the fact that letters need to stay on the bottom line instead of “floating away”.

Thursday and Friday we started our “ABC Bootcamp” with letters P and N. At this point in the year we are focused on simply recognizing the letters. We did a lot of practice cutting with scissors while also practicing sorting the letters and differentiating between uppercase and lowercase. We’ll continue to work on some more letters and eventually work on the letter sounds.

We did a lot of free reading this week, and students got a chance to relax in the cozy corner to do so! Be sure to encourage free reading at home, as this encourages a love of books. We remind students that we can pick up on what a story is about even by looking at just the pictures.

We also have been working with a lot of playdoh because I want to encourage students to work on building up those muscles in your hands. This will help make their pencil grip better and build up their fine motor skills! One way we did this was by having them make their names with playdoh. This also helps with recognizing the shapes of letters and memorizing how to spell their names! We will keep doing this until every student can do it easily!

On Friday students went to their very first Mass at school. They had a lot of questions but most of them did well for their first time there! It’s a big ask for Kindergarten to sit still and quiet for almost a whole hour, so I am proud of them for how they did and excited to see how much better they get.

We also celebrated our first birthday in the classroom – Carter’s! He turned 6 years old! Happy birthday Carter!

Students received some cut and paste homework in their folder this week to practice the letter N some more. I want them to get as much practice with scissors as they can! I also sent home a preschool workbook to review some key concepts like letters, colors, and more!

Be sure to keep checking your students folders for updates and to see student work. And feel free to reach out with any questions you might have!

Love,

Ms. V 🙂

Hello everybody!

This is our very first newsletter of the school year! It’s been a busy start so far. With a full class of 20 kids, Kindergarten is going to be go go go this whole year. But we are looking forward to the challenge!

On the first day of school, we spent time getting to know each other. We read a story called School’s First Day of School, which led to a good conversation about how it’s okay to feel nervous on the first day of school. Students had a packet of coloring pages that they completed as well, which was a great way to see where they are at with seating in their seats, writing their names, and coloring!

Students had plenty of time to play freely, exploring the blocks, building cubes, and playdoh. They did great following the directions given to make sure that things stayed under control.

Look at those smiling faces!

On Friday, our first full day of school, we established the rules in our classroom together. We also talked about the consequences for what happens when these rules are broken. Students then signed their names to say that they agree with the rules we came up with!

We started out our week working on using pencils correctly and tracing our name. Many students did a wonderful job! Our goal will be to memorize how to write our name without looking at our name tag, keeping our letters within the lines given, and using the appropriate capitalization. Some students are also working on holding the pencil correctly, so have them practice writing and coloring as much as they can at home.

To continue working with pencils, we established the class expectations for how to use them appropriately. We also began working in our Handwriting workbooks! These are gunna be kept in their desks. For now we are working on making straight lines and becoming familiar with the structure of the handwriting lines we use.

We also spent days talking about how to appropriately use markers, scissors, and glue. We made charts to separate the Do’s and Don’t’s. When talking about markers, students got to choose what picture they wanted to color with the markers. Then we saved these pictures in our desks and the next day we cut them into strips to practice using scissors safely. Then, we put the pictures back together and glued them to construction paper to practice using the glue sticks.

Students were introduced to our Cozy Corner, which is where students can go to use the Calm Down Kit when they are feeling overwhelmingly sad or angry. The Calm Down Kit has fidget toys, stress balls, coloring books, etc. Students will have a timer set for how long they can be over there. There are also visual reminders for various ways to calm their body.

On Thursday, students played ABC Bingo. This was a great way to do a quick and very general assessment on students’ knowledge of the alphabet. It was also a lot of fun!

We read quite a few book about starting school, including Kindergarten ,Here I Come and Grover Goes to School. We also read the story Howard B. Wigglebottom Learns It’s Okay to Walk Away, which is all about learning when to back away and calm your body.

Students also did a STEM activity this week with playdoh and popsicle sticks. Students got creative making airships, flowers, spelling their name, making chairs, and more!

Students also built lots of things during Free Play using various tools and toys around the classroom. It’s a great opportunity to have them work on fine motor skills and express their creativity.

Another thing we discussed this week was the difference between “little deals” and “big deals”. Because we have such a large class, I want students to be able to handle minor disagreements on their own as much as possible. To minimize tattling, I have students differentiate between big deals and little deals that way they know which incidents are a priority and need a grown up’s help. This also helps build resiliency skills. Having this chart up in the classroom is a good visual remind of this as well.

Lastly, Kindergarten is loving using Brain Breaks as a way to break up our day and reset when we start to get antsy. We play Ms. V Says, have dance parties, and more!

We had a great first week, and I’m looking forward to next week! Please keep remembering to send in your student’s folder with them in their backpack every day. If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to reach out!

Love,

Ms. V 🙂