Weekly News: October 1-5

News: 

We had so much fun making applesauce! Thank you Mrs. Irey for the donation of apples and for our Friday mommies for helping us!  Check out more of our apple pie pictures on our Photo Site.

Over the next four weeks, we will begin sending home Book Bags with your child. Book Bags are to be brought back and forth, home to school, every day. Book bags are also an ESSENTIAL part of your child's home reading - they should be reading these books EVERY DAY for homework. We will only be starting one group each week, so look for your child's book bag sometime in the next month!! If you have any questions about our book bags or home reading program, please do not hesitate to ask!

We are so excited about our field trip next Tuesday! We will be leaving school in the morning and returning by dismissal (hopefully!). Please send your child to school this day in a normal shirt (we will be throwing their field trip t-shirt over their clothing!) and without a snack (snack will be provided for them!) We gave our head count to Los Rios Ranch after school on Friday. Thank you to the parents who asked to chaperone! Please remember that you will be following the bus. Your child will be bringing home a permission slip for our field trip this week. PLEASE TURN IN YOUR FIELD TRIP PERMISSION SLIPS!!!! STUDENTS WILL NOT BE ABLE TO GO ON THE FIELD TRIP WITHOUT A SIGNED PERMISSION SLIP! Thank you! 

I am sending home our October Scholastic Book Order on Monday. These orders will be due next Friday, October 12th. Please visit our Book Orders Tab if you would like to order books for the month of October! Also remember that if you ordered last month, you have your $5.00 coupon!! :) 

We are asking for donations of "lost/missing/misc. socks" to use as our whiteboard erasers. If you have random socks lying around the house, please send them in! 

What Are We Learning This Week?: 

Sight Words: TAKE, AN, BECAUSE, UP.

Letter Team:  OW/OU (like in COW, FLOWER/OUCH, HOUSE) and the long OW sound (like in YELLOW, SNOW).

Word Family:  -AN. Please help your child with word families of the week by asking them to create different words with  the word family -an (for example: CAN, MAN, PAN, FAN) 

Reading:   This week, we will focus on a new strategy, "Look for the Magic E" (Please see Reading Strategies Tab). This week, we will read books about Autumn and leaves and read our special poem of the week, "Down, Down".

Writing:   This week we will write a big book together about matter. We will learn that matter is anything that takes up space. This big book will be written using the sight words we have learned so far.We will also learn that when we are writing a word that begins with a vowel with an "A" in front, we have to make that "A" - "AN" - for example, "an elephant" instead of "a elephant".

Math:   This week we will really focus on counting by tens and time to the hour. Please help your child with this at home. We are excited to announce that many friends are in the "30's Club" - this means the students have written numbers 1-30 perfectly with no reversals. Those students will now move on "Check-Off Challenge", which is a great math program students can complete at their own pace. Please continue to help your children write numbers at home. 

Leadership: Congratulations to our Leadership Award Winners for Orderliness: Cooper, Kassidy, Paige, Talise, and Ashley White!! 

Our new leadership theme for the month of October is TEAMWORK. We will do many team-building activities and discuss what it means to work together as a team. This is also our sharing homework this week!

Homework: October 1-5

Flashcards: Make flashcards for our new sight words (TAKE, AN, BECAUSE, UP) and letter team (OW, OU). Study all flashcards every day. NOTE: STUDENTS HAVE BEEN DOING SO WELL WITH SIGHT WORD RECOGNITION, BUT SOMETIMES GET CONFUSED WITH THE SIGHT WORDS THAT START WITH THE SAME LETTER (ME AND MY, LOOK AND LIKE, THIS AND THE). WHILE YOU ARE FLASHCARDING, PLEASE HAVE STUDENTS LOOK THROUGH THE WHOLE WORD IN ORDER TO TELL YOU THE CORRECT SIGHT WORD.

Reading:  We are continuing our book bag reading program with one group each week.  Look for a ziploc bag to come home in your child’s Take Home Folder.  Within four weeks every student will have a book bag for the rest of the school year. Please make sure your child is reading their book bag book each night and returning it to school each day. IT IS SO IMPORTANT THAT YOU BRING YOUR BOOK BAG BACK TO SCHOOL EVERYDAY! Also, please have your child read the paper books in their “at home” book box each night, making sure they are pointing under each word as they read it. "Make your finger match the word" is the phrase they will hear me say in class. If your child is struggling with words they are reading, please have them "sound out" the word by putting their finger under each letter and saying the sound it makes. This will help with letter and sound recognition as well.   

Math: Practice counting 1-30 or higher, identify numbers out of order, study number flashcards, number writing practice, sort items by color and size, practice drawing shapes, sort and count coins at home, start discussing time to the hour.

Writing: Practice writing sentences with your child. Give your child a sentence to write with sight words in it and help him or her to start with an uppercase, use fingerspaces, sound out words we do not know how to spell, and end with a period. {Examples: Look at this dog. We can see a rat. I like the book.} This will really help with our journal writing and our dictation test on Fridays. 

Sharing: Write one sentence about a way to show teamwork. Draw a picture to go with your sentence. Make sure you practice reading your sentence at home so you are prepared to read in front of the class. Sharing is due any day this week.

Weekly News: September 24-28

News: 

We had so much fun making apple pie! Thank you for all of our donations and a special thank you to Mrs. Proctor for ALL of your help baking our pies! Check out our apple pie pictures on our Photo Site .This week we will be making applesauce together! YAY :)

Over the next four weeks, we will begin sending home Book Bags with your child. Book Bags are to be brought back and forth, home to school, every day. Book bags are also an ESSENTIAL part of your child's home reading - they should be reading these books EVERY DAY for homework. We will only be starting one group each week, so look for your child's book bag sometime in the next month!! If you have any questions about our book bags or home reading program, please do not hesitate to ask!

Our field trip is coming up! If you would still like to chaperone, please let me know by FRIDAY - we need to give our final head count to Los Rios Ranch. Please remember that you will be following the bus and our school policy is no siblings or little ones! Thank you! We are also still accepting $5 donations for our field trip t-shirts!

What Are We Learning This Week?:

Sight Words: COME, AT, SAID.

Letter Team:  CE/CI (we are learning that the letter C can make a soft sound when it is followed by an E or I like in "cent" and "city").  

Word Family:  -IN. Please help your child with word families of the week by asking them to create different words with  the word family -in (bin, fin, tin, etc.) 

Reading:   This week, we will focus on a new strategy, "Skip the word and read on to think about what makes sense" (Please see Reading Strategies Tab). This week, we will continue reading books about apples and Johnny Appleseed, and read our special poem of the week, "Applesauce". 

Writing:   This week we will learn what "quotations" are. We will write a big book together about our silly monster friends and use "quotations" when they say something. This big book will be written using the sight words we have learned so far. 

Math:   This week we will introduce before, after, and in between. We will be practicing this number sense by identifying numbers that come before, after, and in between others. Mastery of this concept is identifying the number quickly without having to go back and start counting from the number 1. We will continue counting money and telling time to the hour, learning how to identify, order, and count numbers to 30 and write numbers to 10, learning the days of the week, months of the year, shapes, how to read and extend patterns, and identify what number comes next. 

Leadership: This month our theme is "orderliness". We will talk about keeping ourselves and our surroundings "orderly". We are learning that orderliness is keeping things neat and tidy.

Homework: September 24-28

Flashcards: Make flashcards for our new sight words (COME, AT, SAID) and letter team (CE, CI). Study all flashcards every day.
 
Reading:  We are continuing our book bag reading program with one group each week.  Look for a ziploc bag to come home in your child’s Take Home Folder.  Within four weeks every student will have a book bag for the rest of the school year. Please make sure your child is reading their book bag book each night and returning it to school each day.  Also, please have your child read the paper books in their “at home” book box each night, making sure they are pointing under each word as they read it. "Make your finger match the word" is the phrase they will hear me say in class. If your child is struggling with words they are reading, please have them "sound out" the word by putting their finger under each letter and saying the sound it makes. This will help with letter and sound recognition as well.  

Math: Practice counting 1-30 or higher, identify numbers out of order, study number flashcards, number writing practice, sort items by color and size, practice drawing shapes, sort and count coins at home, start discussing time to the hour.

Writing: Practice writing sentences with your child. Give your child a sentence to write with sight words in it and help him or her to start with an uppercase, use fingerspaces, sound out words we do not know how to spell, and end with a period. {Examples: Look at this dog. We can see a rat. I like the book.} This will really help with our journal writing and our dictation test on Fridays. 

Sharing: We have a very special sharing this week about our favorite colors! You may write a sentence about your favorite color, create a collage of your favorite coor, or bring in an object of your favorite color. Sharing is due any day this week.

T-SHIRT TIME

As you know, our first field trip is just around the corner! Our wonderful room parents and parent volunteers have been busy planning class field-trip t-shirts. These shirts will be worn on each field trip we take this year. These t-shirts are so important to us because at the end of the year, this shirt will go home with you as a wonderful keepsake and memory of your child's first year of school! We are asking for a $5.00 minimum donation per child to help cover the cost of the t-shirts and printing. If you are able, please send this donation to school in your child’s homework folder as soon as possible. This will allow our wonderful volunteers plenty of time to complete the t-shirts before our first field trip. Thank you in advance for your generous donations. 

Apple Video :)

I found this very cute "life cycle of an apple" video that I wanted to share with you! Perhaps you can watch it at home to help with your homework!

Our Own Photo Share Site

I see that many of you have already checked out our brand new photo share site! I am so excited about this! I will update from time to time with fun pictures that I take of us learning in the classroom. As a member, you can also add pictures that you may take - of various events, field trips, and class parties. My hope is that this will be a place for all of us to share pictures that we take throughout our wonderful year of kindergarten!

Please click on the link below to visit our site. I have also added it to our "Class Sites" list on the right hand side of our website, and to our Facebook page - so you can always get to it easily :) 

Our Photo Share Site - click here!

Weekly News: September 17-21

News: 


We had so much fun tasting apples this week! After looking at our class graph, yellow was the most-liked apple. This Friday, we will be making apple pie in class!! There will be a clipboard on our table in the morning for you to sign up for donations for our pie. Thank you! 

We now have a Classroom Facebook Group! This will be a great way to communicate with other parents! If you would like to join the group, please go to: http://www.facebook.com/groups/missreeve and click on "Join Group" in the upper right hand side of the page under the banner. If you have any questions, please contact Tammy. 

Our parent volunteer program will begin this week! We are very excited for you to start joining us in the classroom. Our times for centers are Monday-Friday 10:15-11:30. Thank you in advance for donating your valuable time in our classroom. A reminder: if you cannot make one of your scheduled days, please either "cover your shift" {perhaps on Facebook!} or let me know so that I can adjust our plans accordingly. Thank you for all of your support!

Electives begin this week! If your child is participating in an elective, please send a lunch to school with him/her on that elective day and lunch supervision will be provided for your children on these days. Kindergarten electives are from 12:15-1:00 and the elective teachers will be dismissing at 1:00 on the ramp. If your child is staying with me for our intervention elective, please pick up from the classroom at 1:00. 

Our first field trip is planned!!! We will be going to Los Rios Ranch in Oak Glenn on Tuesday, October 9th. We will be leaving school by bus sometime in the morning and returning around pick-up time. The students will get to meet Johnny Appleseed, tour the apple orchards, and even make apple cider! We are very excited about this field trip and we are looking for wonderful volunteers that would like to take the tour with us. We are asking that chaperones drive separately and meet us there. The cost for chaperones is also $5.  If you are interested in chaperoning for our field trip on this day, please EMAIL MISS REEVE! On Friday, September 28th, we will need to give our final head count to Los Rios Ranch, so if you would like to chaperone please let me know and pay $5 before that Friday. We apologize for any inconvenience, but siblings and little ones are not allowed on this field trip due to the safety of our kindergarten students you will be chaperoning.  Also, be on the look-out for the field trip permission slip that will be coming home in your child's Homework Folder soon. These are due back to school ASAP in order for your child to go on the field trip.We are so excited for this field trip! Yay!

Our Welcome Back Picnic is Tuesday, September 18th at 6:00 at CSC if you would like to attend! 

What Are We Learning This Week?:


Sight Words: YOU, AND, IT, FRIEND.

Letter Team: WH (like in "what" and "whistle")

Word Family: -AT. We have been studying word families in class. Word families are words that have different beginning sounds with the same ending chunks. Please help your child with word families of the week by asking them to create different words with  the word family -at (cat, bat, rat, fat, etc). 

Reading:  This week, we will focus on a new strategy, "Go back and get a running start" (Please see Reading Strategies Tab). We will continue to read books about apples and Johnny Appleseed and continue to read books about colors as we learn our color words. 

Writing:  We are writing a big book together about the life cycle of an apple using sight words we have learned so far. We will be studying how an apple grows, from seed to tree to blossom to apple. We will continue learning to put spaces between each word, use an uppercase at the beginning of each sentence with lowercase letters throughout, and use a period at the end. We will continue to use our sight words in our sentences and use our sound chart to help us sound out the words we do not know how to write.

Math:  This week, we will learn how to tell time to the hour. We will learn that when the "big hand points up, it means o'clock". Please reinforce this at home by looking at clocks around the house and talking about the time. We will continue to learn all about money as we start counting pennies! We will also learn how to count by our 5's and 10's. 

Leadership: This month our theme is "orderliness". We will talk about keeping ourselves and our surroundings "orderly". We are learning that orderliness is keeping things neat and tidy.

Homework: September 17-21

Flashcards: Make flashcards for our new sight words (YOU, AND, IT, FRIEND) and letter team (WH). Study all flashcards every day.
 
Reading: Read, read, read! Read books that have come home, read books from your book box, and read to your child!

Math: Practice counting 1-30 or higher, identify numbers out of order, study number flashcards, number writing practice, sort items by color and size, practice drawing shapes, sort and count coins at home, start discussing time to the hour.

Writing: Practice writing sentences with your child. Give your child a sentence to write with sight words in it and help him or her to start with an uppercase, use fingerspaces, sound out words we do not know how to spell, and end with a period. {Examples: Look at this dog. We can see a rat. I like the book.} This will really help with our journal writing and our dictation test on Fridays. 

Sharing: Write one sentence about the life cycle of an apple (from seed to tree to blossom to apple). Draw a picture to go with your sentence. Make sure you practice reading your sentence at home so you are prepared to read in front of the class. Sharing is due any day this week.

Weekly News: September 10-14

News: 
This week we will be studying and reading books about apples. On Friday, we will have a fun apple tasting in our classroom. We will each try a red, green, and yellow apple and make a graph of our favorite :)

Thank you so much for all of your Scholastic Book Orders! I placed the order over the weekend so in a few weeks, your new books will be delivered to our classroom! Thank you for ordering online - with every order you place online, we get a free book for our classroom so this significantly helps me add to our classroom library!!!

Electives on our campus will begin the week of September 17th. If your child is participating in an elective, please send a lunch to school with him/her on that elective day and lunch supervision will be provided for your children on these days. Kindergarten electives are from 12:15-1:00 and the elective teachers will be dismissing at 1:00 on the ramp. 

I understand that our "What Are We Learning This Week?" and "Homework" sections can be so repetitive and a lot of reading. To make things a little easier for you, I always post all the NEW information each week IN RED. Thank you so much for taking the time to read our news each week and stay up-to-date on what we are doing in class! 

What Are We Learning This Week?:


Sight Words: LOOK, HERE THIS.

Letter Team: CH (like in "cheetos") and OO (like in "look" - we will learn that OO also makes another sound, like in "pool" a little later on!)

Reading: This week, we will focus on the Reading Strategy, "Stretch Out the Sound" (see Reading Strategies Tab). This week, we will read books about apples and Johnny Appleseed, and continue to read books about colors as we learn our color words.

Writing: We are writing a big book together about science tools using sight words we have learned so far. We will be studying these science tools and how and when we use them. We will continue learning to put spaces between each word, use an uppercase at the beginning of each sentence with lowercase letters throughout, and use a period at the end. We will continue to use our sight words in our sentences and use our sound chart to help us sound out the words we do not know how to write.

Math: This week we will learn the name and value of each coin and pretty soon, we will start counting money! You can help at home by having your child name and tell you the value of coins around the house. We will learn to count backwards and identify the missing number in row of numbers. We will continue to learn how to identify, order, and count numbers to 30 and how to write numbers to 10. We will also continue learning the days of the week, months of the year, shapes, how to read and extend patterns, and identify what number comes next. 

Leadership: This month our theme is "orderliness". We will talk about keeping ourselves and our surroundings "orderly". We are learning that orderliness is keeping things neat and tidy.

Homework: September 10-14

Flashcards: Make flashcards for our new sight words (LOOK, HERE, THIS) and letter teams (CH and OO). Study all flashcards every day.
 
Reading: Read, read, read! Read books that have come home, read books from your book box, and read to your child!

Math: Practice counting 1-30 or higher, identify numbers out of order, study number flashcards, number writing practice, sort items by color and size, practice drawing shapes, start sorting and counting coins at home. 

Writing: Practice writing your name with an uppercase only at the beginning. Practice writing ABC's uppercase and lowercase (Aa, Bb, Cc). Also practice writing your sight words of the week and sight word dictation sentences for our spelling test on Friday.

Sharing: This week, we are learning about tools that we use in science (balance, ruler, thermometer, hand lens, magnets, etc.) Write one sentence about a science tool and how you would use it. Draw a picture to go with your sentence. Make sure you practice reading your sentence at home so you are prepared to read in front of the class. Sharing is due any day this week. Please see the "Attachment Library" page to download our Sharing Page - this is a great paper for sharing with a picture and writing space :)

Meet Our Room Mom!!!

Meet our FANTASTIC room mom.....

Tammy Proctor!!!!

Thank you, Tammy for signing up to be our room mom this year!! Tammy is the mommy of our friend Landon P. If you have any questions about helping or any special projects, please feel free to contact Tammy. 

Phone: 951.218.9101

Email: tammykproctor@gmail.com

A Few Reminders....

1. Picture day is Thursday!!! Tomorrow your child will bring home a 'picture day envelope'. These envelopes must be filled out and brought back to school on Thursday even if you are not purchasing pictures!

2. Our book orders are due on Friday! If you would still like to order books, make sure you get your order in by Friday afternoon! :) 

3. Elective sign-ups are this week! You should be receiving an email from the school tomorrow! 

4. SUPPLIES WANTED! If you are at the store and thinking of us, we are still in need of gluesticks, heavy-duty sheet protectors, and Staples brochure and flyer paper. Thank you! 

Weekly News: September 4-7

News: 

I hope you had a relaxing three-day weekend with your families! 

School picture day will be Thursday, September 6th! Be on the look-out for a flyer being sent home soon!

Thank you for allowing me to keep your kiddos for one extra hour last week to do assessments. Our beginning of the year assessments gives me a good idea of what level each child is coming in at and how I can help them in the classroom. If you have not received your child's results yet, they will be in their cubbies on Tuesday. Please take some time to review these results with your child.

Scholastic Book Orders are due on Friday! Don't miss out on this great opportunity to buy inexpensive books for your child! Visit our "Book Orders" tab to get started!

Electives on our campus will begin the week of September 17th. Keep an eye out for the elective email (coming from the school) if you wish to sign your child up for an ILCS elective. If your child is participating in an elective, you may send a lunch to school with him/her on that elective day and lunch supervision will be provided for your children on these days.

Please don't forget to read through the entire homework post about turning in homework in kindergarten! 
  
What Are We Learning This Week?:

Sight Words: I, LIKE, MY.

Letter Team: SH (like in "she" and "push") and ER (like in "her" and "mother") - ask your child to tell you about Mr. ER - he is one crazy driver!!!

Reading: We will continue to learn that vowels make 2 sounds - a short sound and a long sound. We will continue to read big books to help us with our reading strategies - this week we are learning to Get Your Mouth Ready for the First Sound and to Look Through the Word at all the Sounds (see the Reading Strategies tab for more information). This week, we will also read books about colors and our five senses.

Writing: We are writing a new book together about our five senses using our sight words of the week. We are continuing to use an uppercase at the beginning of a sentence, finger spaces between our words, and a period at the end. We are also learning to use our sight words in our sentences and to listen for the sounds in all unknown words using our sound chart. You can help your child at home by using the same sound chart on the back of  your Homework Folder to help with sounding out words and writing at home.

Math: We are learning to count by ordinal numbers (first, second, third...) We will also sort objects by color, size, and shape. We are also learning to read and extend patterns. We will also focus on identifying what number should come next without going back to 1 to count. We will continue to identify, order, write, and count numbers to 30.  

Leadership: This month our theme is "orderliness". We will talk about keeping ourselves and our surroundings "orderly". We are learning that orderliness is keeping things neat and tidy.

Homework: September 4-7

Flashcards: Make flashcards for our new sight words (I, LIKE, MY) and letter teams (SH and ER). Study these flashcards (and those from previous weeks) every day. It may be a good idea to keep a bunch of index cards on a binder ring or in a box and you can add the new flashcards to that every week. Also, if your assessment results from last week showed that your child is still struggling with letters, sounds, or numbers, it may be a good idea to make flashcards for those as well! :) 

Reading: On Friday, your child came home with paper books to live in special book boxes at home. Have your child read his or her books to you every night three times each, pointing to the words. Don't forget to also read picture books to your child, as you are a wonderful reading example! 

Math: Practice counting 1-30 or higher, identify numbers out of order, number writing practice, sort items by color and size, and practice drawing shapes. If your child is struggling with numbers, make number flashcards!

Writing: Practice writing your name with an uppercase only at the beginning. Practice writing ABC's uppercase and lowercase (Aa, Bb, Cc). Also practice writing your sight words of the week and sight word dictation sentences for our spelling test on Friday.

Sharing: Oh, no! Only 10 friends turned in their sharing homework this week!!!! This is a big part of our curriculum and the only homework you need to turn in. I do record who turns in sharing for student's homework grades. This week, we are learning about our senses. Please write one sentence about your favorite sense and how you use it. Draw a picture to go with your sentence. Make sure you practice reading your sentence at home so you are prepared to read in front of the class. Sharing is due any day this week. Note: If you visit the "Attachment Library" tab, you'll find a great printable sharing page with a spot for writing and for a picture! Feel free to print off a bunch of these pages to use for sharing each week :)