Happy Thanksgiving to all! I hope that you enjoyed your Thanksgiving Break as much as I did! It was so nice to spend time with family and friends!
Here's what we'll be working on this week:
Language Arts: We'll revisit some of the stories that we've been reading in this past section all about families. We'll focus on characters, setting, noting details, compare and contrast, evaluating and classifying. We'll also learn about our new alphafriend: Nyle Noodle! Please be sure to look for him and his song on the newsletter going home this week!
Math: We'll be working with numbers and counting and making graphs this week! We'll start to learn some of the number words, so keep practicing them at home!
Religion: We have started the season of Advent! It is the beginning of a new church year. We'll learn about preparing ourselves for Jesus' birth, to be celebrated on Christmas Day! We'll also be learning about prayer. There are so many different ways to pray and things to pray about. Our focus will be on prayer as 'talking' to God. It is important for the children to understand that God hears them and will listen to them whenever and wherever they are!
Science: We'll be starting to learn about our senses! We'll do an activity where we sort out and organize a variety of items, and then we will graph them into which senses we could use to identify them and we'll identify the properties of each object. We'll also talk about how our senses help us.
Social Studies: We'll be learning about a different culture; that of the Eskimos. We will hear a story about the eskimos and how they live and compare/contrast on how it is different from where we live. We'll also try our hand at building some sugar cube igloos!
Centers: Monday & Wednesday:
Center One: The children will make wreaths using green paint hands and red thumbprints. They will each make 2...one to take home and one that we will be sending to the Senior Center in town.
Center Two: Shiny Ornaments! We will use light corn syrup to 'paint' over ornaments cut from tag board. After they are dry we will secure a ribbon on each and they will be sent home to be hung on your tree!
That's all for now! Thanks for stopping by!
~Mrs. Westlund
Sunday, November 27, 2011
Sunday, November 13, 2011
November 14th-18th
Hello! What a gorgeous weekend! Ben and I were able to join some neighbor friends down at the Mason park on Saturday for some fun...we sure aren't going to have many more days as nice as that one! Looking ahead, it's hard to believe that Parent Teacher Conferences are this week already, Opening Gun Hunting Season starts this weekend and Thanksgiving is next week!
Here's what we've got planned for the week ahead:
Language Arts:
We are continuing to focus on families. We will read 'Goldilocks and the Three Bears', 'Shoes from Grandpa' and 'Baby Bear's Family'. Our new alphafriend is Benny Bear and we'll be focusing on the letter Bb! Try to ask your child to come up with words that start with the 'b' sound! We'll also continue to practice our sight words: I, see & my. We'll also add to that list of sight words this week with the new word: like. We'll be writing in our journals at school during small group time and practicing these new words with the sentence "I like my..." I'll help them with filling in the blank. I often do this by writing the word that they've dictated to me on a little post it note, and they just copy it onto the page to complete the sentence and then add an illustration.
Religion:
We're starting a new chapter on prayer. We will learn about talking to God and learn about how prayer can be recited with the prayers we memorize, but it can also be just simply talking to God. We'll also talk about how God can hear our prayers always.
Math:
We're continuing with counting! We're practicing counting to 100 at school...practice this (and higher if you can!) at home too! We're also learning about numbers that show more and less.
Science:
We'll have a special treat this week...Brad Gingras (Bradan's dad) will come in on Tuesday afternoon to show us his various animal skins and preserved animals and talk about Hibernation, Migration and animals that 'tough it out' during the winter.
Social Studies:
We'll be continuing to learn about life way back when the first Thanksgiving happened. We've read stories about the Pilgrims coming to the Americas and how the Native Americans helped them to live off the land. We celebrate the different gifts that God has given us and how we can all share them with each other. We'll read a simple story called 'Pilgrim, Pilgrim'. There are some of our sight words in this story, so we will be identifying them, as well as trying to sound out some of the tougher words as we read together. Your child will be bringing this home on Thursday...be sure to read it through with them, they are so excited to be able to read new words every day!
Centers:
No Centers on Monday because of the Early Release Day.
Centers on Wednesday will be with Mary Jo Gingras and I. Together we will be helping the children to make Native American Headbands. Also, earlier in the week I will be making Pilgrim hats with each of the children in small groups. The children will be able to choose which hat they'd like to wear down to the All School Thanksgiving Luncheon!
Parent Teacher Conferences!!!
Thursday ~ After school!! Please let me know as soon as you can if you're not able to make it that night. I will do my best to accomodate you and find a time that works for both of us to get together!
Here's what we've got planned for the week ahead:
Language Arts:
We are continuing to focus on families. We will read 'Goldilocks and the Three Bears', 'Shoes from Grandpa' and 'Baby Bear's Family'. Our new alphafriend is Benny Bear and we'll be focusing on the letter Bb! Try to ask your child to come up with words that start with the 'b' sound! We'll also continue to practice our sight words: I, see & my. We'll also add to that list of sight words this week with the new word: like. We'll be writing in our journals at school during small group time and practicing these new words with the sentence "I like my..." I'll help them with filling in the blank. I often do this by writing the word that they've dictated to me on a little post it note, and they just copy it onto the page to complete the sentence and then add an illustration.
Religion:
We're starting a new chapter on prayer. We will learn about talking to God and learn about how prayer can be recited with the prayers we memorize, but it can also be just simply talking to God. We'll also talk about how God can hear our prayers always.
Math:
We're continuing with counting! We're practicing counting to 100 at school...practice this (and higher if you can!) at home too! We're also learning about numbers that show more and less.
Science:
We'll have a special treat this week...Brad Gingras (Bradan's dad) will come in on Tuesday afternoon to show us his various animal skins and preserved animals and talk about Hibernation, Migration and animals that 'tough it out' during the winter.
Social Studies:
We'll be continuing to learn about life way back when the first Thanksgiving happened. We've read stories about the Pilgrims coming to the Americas and how the Native Americans helped them to live off the land. We celebrate the different gifts that God has given us and how we can all share them with each other. We'll read a simple story called 'Pilgrim, Pilgrim'. There are some of our sight words in this story, so we will be identifying them, as well as trying to sound out some of the tougher words as we read together. Your child will be bringing this home on Thursday...be sure to read it through with them, they are so excited to be able to read new words every day!
Centers:
No Centers on Monday because of the Early Release Day.
Centers on Wednesday will be with Mary Jo Gingras and I. Together we will be helping the children to make Native American Headbands. Also, earlier in the week I will be making Pilgrim hats with each of the children in small groups. The children will be able to choose which hat they'd like to wear down to the All School Thanksgiving Luncheon!
Parent Teacher Conferences!!!
Thursday ~ After school!! Please let me know as soon as you can if you're not able to make it that night. I will do my best to accomodate you and find a time that works for both of us to get together!
Monday, November 7, 2011
November 7th-11th
Hello!
We're having a great time in Kindergarten and the children are learning so much! They are such good readers and helpers throughout the day! They are very proud of their ability to read some of the stories, calendar words, etc!
Last week we ended our Reading theme on Colors. We are now into the theme of Families! Last week we also finished up our Patterns and Movement section of Math. We're moving right along and doing well!
This week:
Reading ~ We will introduce a new theme and a new Alphafriend: Tiggy Tiger! We are learning lots of new words. So far we've focused on I & see; this week we will add 'my'. Not only are the children excited about reading these words, but also incorporating them into their writing. In writing, we're also working on letter sounds and trying to 'sound out' words to figure out how they are spelled. If a child uses inventive spelling to figure out a word, at this level...it's FINE! =) 'Sound spelling' is completely appropriate for the Kindergarten age level. For instance, if a child spells 'city' with 'sity', they have used the knowledge that they know that the first sound in 'city' can be produced by the letter s. Later, as they get older, they will work on remembering the 'correct' way of spelling the word. If a child asks me if they spelled that word ('sity' or others with sound spelling) correctly, I simply tell them 'I like the way you sounded out the word!' I never want to hinder a child's desire to write, so I hesitate to correct them with their inventive spelling.
All sight words, however, should be spelling correctly...in their writing I will correct them on the sight words simply by calling their attention to it and having them write it over correctly. We have a wonderful word wall in our classroom, and the students know that they are free to go up and use it at any time during their writing. It is color coded, so if a child asks me "How do I spell 'see'" I can easily tell them, "It's under the letter 'S', it's the train track that is red." All of the letters are on train cars, so the words below them are on different colored train tracks.
Math ~ We are on to Counting and Matching. One to one counting can be challenging for a child, so this Chapter is very important. At times children may count too fast or miss a number. This Chapter will focus on the one to one counting; on which number shows 'more' or 'less'; and on rote counting (1,2,3,4...). We've been adding a number to our line every day that we've been in school and have been practicing counting to 100! The children do a great job and are excited for the 100th day of school, which will come sometime in February! =)
Religion ~ We're working on learning about God as our Father in Heaven. The children have enjoyed talking about special people in their lives. We learn about God's love for us through the many gifts that He gives us. The special people in our lives are one of those gifts...and our families are very special people! (This ties in SUPER with our Reading Chapter!)
Science ~ We continue to learn about living things. This week we'll learn about Sea Otters with our National Geographic Young Explorers. Our interactive whiteboard is not quite ready yet, so we'll travel to the 1st Grade room to view the interactive lesson there.
Social Studies ~ We're learning about life 'way back when' in Colonial Times and how it compares to life now. If the children have a chance, visiting with Grandma or Grandpa or another older person and asking about what life was like for them would be a great activity to tie into this!
This week we celebrate being Drug Free! All week the children will wear red wrist bands to remind them of this and Mr. Bell will call off names each day...if the names that he calls off are wearing their bands, they get to come to the office for a prize!
Also...Friday, Nov. 9th we will celebrate Veteran's Day. The Veteran's Program will start at 2 PM, please join us if you can!!
That's all for now!
Thanks for stopping by!!!
~Mrs. Westlund
We're having a great time in Kindergarten and the children are learning so much! They are such good readers and helpers throughout the day! They are very proud of their ability to read some of the stories, calendar words, etc!
Last week we ended our Reading theme on Colors. We are now into the theme of Families! Last week we also finished up our Patterns and Movement section of Math. We're moving right along and doing well!
This week:
Reading ~ We will introduce a new theme and a new Alphafriend: Tiggy Tiger! We are learning lots of new words. So far we've focused on I & see; this week we will add 'my'. Not only are the children excited about reading these words, but also incorporating them into their writing. In writing, we're also working on letter sounds and trying to 'sound out' words to figure out how they are spelled. If a child uses inventive spelling to figure out a word, at this level...it's FINE! =) 'Sound spelling' is completely appropriate for the Kindergarten age level. For instance, if a child spells 'city' with 'sity', they have used the knowledge that they know that the first sound in 'city' can be produced by the letter s. Later, as they get older, they will work on remembering the 'correct' way of spelling the word. If a child asks me if they spelled that word ('sity' or others with sound spelling) correctly, I simply tell them 'I like the way you sounded out the word!' I never want to hinder a child's desire to write, so I hesitate to correct them with their inventive spelling.
All sight words, however, should be spelling correctly...in their writing I will correct them on the sight words simply by calling their attention to it and having them write it over correctly. We have a wonderful word wall in our classroom, and the students know that they are free to go up and use it at any time during their writing. It is color coded, so if a child asks me "How do I spell 'see'" I can easily tell them, "It's under the letter 'S', it's the train track that is red." All of the letters are on train cars, so the words below them are on different colored train tracks.
Math ~ We are on to Counting and Matching. One to one counting can be challenging for a child, so this Chapter is very important. At times children may count too fast or miss a number. This Chapter will focus on the one to one counting; on which number shows 'more' or 'less'; and on rote counting (1,2,3,4...). We've been adding a number to our line every day that we've been in school and have been practicing counting to 100! The children do a great job and are excited for the 100th day of school, which will come sometime in February! =)
Religion ~ We're working on learning about God as our Father in Heaven. The children have enjoyed talking about special people in their lives. We learn about God's love for us through the many gifts that He gives us. The special people in our lives are one of those gifts...and our families are very special people! (This ties in SUPER with our Reading Chapter!)
Science ~ We continue to learn about living things. This week we'll learn about Sea Otters with our National Geographic Young Explorers. Our interactive whiteboard is not quite ready yet, so we'll travel to the 1st Grade room to view the interactive lesson there.
Social Studies ~ We're learning about life 'way back when' in Colonial Times and how it compares to life now. If the children have a chance, visiting with Grandma or Grandpa or another older person and asking about what life was like for them would be a great activity to tie into this!
This week we celebrate being Drug Free! All week the children will wear red wrist bands to remind them of this and Mr. Bell will call off names each day...if the names that he calls off are wearing their bands, they get to come to the office for a prize!
Also...Friday, Nov. 9th we will celebrate Veteran's Day. The Veteran's Program will start at 2 PM, please join us if you can!!
That's all for now!
Thanks for stopping by!!!
~Mrs. Westlund
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)