October 30, 2015
Ms.
Mac’s Newsletter
Hello families of the Kindergarten class in room 138!
It has been a very busy couple of weeks in our
classroom. The students have been learning about life cycles of pumpkins. The class has also been using their math skills
to count and sort pumpkins by height. Today
the students estimated how many seeds were in our class pumpkin. Our class pumpkin had four hundred and
seventy pumpkin seeds in it. The class did a wonderful job counting by tens and
were very amazed with their finding!
The students have been practicing letter names and letter
sounds consistently since day one of school.
Now that we just ended day forty one of school the students have been
introduced (through the Fundations program) to the lower case letters: a, b, c,
d, e, f, g, i, m , n, o, r, s, t, and u. The class has added a new game that we
start Fundations with each day. The students play “Around the World” by
practicing their sounds and letter names.
In the game, each student wants to get around all the tables in the
classroom, and end back at the seat that they started from. This game has
become very popular and I enjoy seeing the students having fun while they
learn.
The class has been practicing writing simple sentences
in their journal and white boards. The
class has a visual of the sentence they are writing. Today’s sentence was “I am being a _______ for
Halloween.” After their sentence, the students
draw a picture that goes with their sentence.
It has been fantastic to see how their fine motor skills with drawing,
coloring, and writing have improved since their beginning days in
Kindergarten. The whole class has so
many more details in their pictures and students are able to form their letters
more confidently.
The class has also been continuing to strengthen their
recognition of rhyming words when we read books as a whole group. We notice that some rhyming words have the
same ending letters and this is a strategy we can use to help us predict if two
words rhyme. The class has also been practicing identifying how many syllables
are in different words. The students use their hands to clap out syllables. They have been very successful in their
practicing. The students are always
eager to show what they know. If
families want to do some syllable or rhyme practicing while they are reading at
home; it is always encouraged!
Our field trip for Goodnight Moon will be taking place
on Tuesday, November 3rd at 10:00 am. Next
week the students will have full days of school on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. During Thursday, November 5th the
students will have a half day and no school on Friday November 6th for
parent conferences. Thank you to all families for signing up so quickly for
parent conferences. I am looking forward
to meeting with each of you to discuss your child’s progress this year. We have very hard workers in our room and I
am enjoying getting to teach this enthusiastic class!
I hope everyone
has a safe and happy Halloween this weekend!
Sincerely,
Tara MacCallum
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