News
Dear Parents,
Happy New Year! I hope that you and your family have a very happy and healthy year. What an exciting time the children will be having for the rest of the school year. We are about to begin the big journey to become first graders. Many new and exciting things will be happening in the Kindergarten classroom.
The children will be bringing home a handwriting readiness workbook as part of their homework each week. The book will be a review of the skills and concepts learned and will be preparing the children for first grade. On the bottom of the weekly assignment sheet will be the pages to complete in the book. Please only have your child complete the pages assigned each week. Please send in the book and homework packet on Friday. The handwriting book will start coming home on Monday, January 12.
There are some changes occurring in our learning centers. In our reading center we will now be using readers to help us focus on the characters, setting, and comprehending the story. Once we have finished reading the story in our reader and completing the activities I will be sending them home for you to review and read with your child. This is such an exciting time as the children are so eager to read and share with you and me all that they are capable of doing. I so enjoy watching their faces as they realize that yes they are reading the book all by themselves without any help.
The skill center for the next two months will focus on rhyming words. The children will be playing various games and using different computer software on the smartboard that focus on recognizing and producing rhyming words.
The math center will focus on numbers. The children will be working on recognizing and counting all the way to 100. We will be reaching the 100th day of school in the middle of February and I have a fun day of activities planned for that day. The children will also be working on counting by 2’s, 5’s and 10’s to 100.
We also have some new items that the children will be using in the classroom. One new item is our reading and math center bins. The bins are filled with various games and activities that the children can complete by themselves or with the person next to them. The bins are filled with activities that review the skills we are working on or have worked on. The children now will be able to go to the reading and math center bins on Mondays and Fridays for quiet time and when they have completed their work. Another new item is the magnet bin. The magnet bin is filled with activities for the children to play with that review skills that we have worked on. The children can also build with the magnetic blocks and find objects that are attracted to magnets and which ones are repelled. The children are able to go to the magnet bin after snack. We also have some new table toys for the children to explore.
Our quiet time is changing. As stated above during quiet time on Mondays and Fridays the children can go to our reading and math center bins. On Tuesdays the children will work in their notebooks to review writing letters and or numbers. On Wednesdays we will be working in our journals to draw pictures and write sentences about the picture. On Thursdays the children will work with our pocket stories that we will be creating during writing time on Mondays twice a month. Your child will also be given the choice that if they just want to sit and rest with their head down for quiet time they can. I find that the children really enjoy these activities and look forward to the different activities planned for each day.
In our journals we will be beginning to write our own sentences about the pictures we have drawn related to the picture of the week. The children are very excited about being their own authors and illustrators for their journals.
Our class will have a visiting bear for the next two months. Each night starting the week of January 12 a different child each night will be able to take home our class bear Buster. Buster’s bag will be filled with different activities for you and your child to do as well as a journal to tell us about your adventure with Buster. A note will be sent home with your child explaining what needs to be done.
The progress report format is also changing. For the rest of the school year a progress report will be sent home with your child on each first Friday half a day. The first report will come home January 30. As always if you have any questions about the progress report after you have reviewed it, please just let me know.
Thank you, for your continued support and cooperation. If you have any questions, please contact me. I am looking forward to a wonderful rest of the school year.
Sincerely,
Colleen LoCasto
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