Weekly News: October 31-November 4

We had such a great time investigating pumpkins! Thank you for all the help and donations. We could not do it without you! We are excited to try all of those roasted pumpkin seeds this week!

We are looking forward to our fun Fall Centers games and activities on Monday! Remember to wear your PJs! 

There is no school next Friday, November 11th due to Veteran's Day and no school the following Monday, November 14th due to parent conferences. 

Parent Conferences are in a few weeks (November 14-18). Please sign up on ParentSquare for a time that works for you. I am looking forward to meeting with all of you to discuss your child's growth in the classroom. Because we only have so much time per conference, I'd like to politely ask that you arrive on time so we can make the most of our time together. If possible, please make other arrangements for your children, as parent conferences are for parents and teachers only. Thank you!

Upcoming Events: 

Monday, October 31: Fun Fall Centers! 

Friday, November 11: No School - Veteran's Day

Monday, November 14: No School - Conference Day 

November 14-17: Parent Conferences - sign up on ParentSquare!

Friday, November 18: Thanksgiving Feast - more info coming soon! 

November 21-25: No School - Thanksgiving Break! 

What Are We Learning This Week:

Sight Words: IN, ON, SO, GO, DO. 

Letter Team: This week we are learning about Mr. ER's two crazy cousins....UR and IR (like in FUR, CURL and STIR, GIRL).

Word Family:  This week we will be making words with the word families -EN (HEN, MEN, TEN).  Please help your child with word families of the week by asking them to create different words with the word families.

Reading: We will read many books turkeys and pilgrims and Indians, as we prepare for Thanksgiving. We will practice all of our reading strategies learned so far. This week, I will continue assessing students on letters, sounds, sight words, and letter teams learned so far. We will continue to read our paper books and books from our class library. Please remember to bring your book bag to school every day! Unfortunately, students who do not bring their book bag back to school cannot take a book home that day. Thank you for your help in reinforcing this responsibility. 

Writing: We will continue to write three sentences on the same topic, using an uppercase at the beginning of a sentence, finger spaces after each word, and a period at the end.

Math: This week, we will dive into some fun turkey and Thanksgiving story problems. We are learning to answer these problems with pictures, numbers, and words. I will also be assessing each student on counting, numbers, and shapes. 

Leadership: We have now learned and discussed every letter for ROAR! R: Respect, O: Own Your Actions, A: Act Safely, R: Rise to Servant Leadership. We will all practice "roaring" at school and continue to discuss how to be a good leader. Students will continue to fill out their ROAR sheets and receive ROAR tickets. My hope is to build a respectful, responsible, safe classroom of leaders! :)

Homework: October 31-November 4

Please take a moment to read each section of homework. I understand this can be very overwhelming. Please feel free to email me if you have any questions or concerns.

Flashcards: Make flashcards for our new sight words (IN, ON, SO, GO, DO), letter teams (UR and IR), and word family (EN - hen, men, ten, etc). Study flashcards every day.

Phonemic Awareness: Your child's Foundational Skills goal sheet came home a couple of weeks ago with his or her highlighted goals. Please refer to this sheet and work with your child on these skills that he or she still needs to master (blending, segmenting, rhyming, syllables, add/change/delete a sound, etc.) Please see our Phonemic Awareness tab for ideas and tips. 

Reading: Play Smarty Ants for 10-15 minutes each night. Read on RAZ-Kids. Read books from your Book Bag! Read books from your at-home book box! Read to your child every day and have your child read to you every day. Find sight words and letter teams in books, in the car as you are driving - just READ, READ, READ! 

Writing: Please refer to your child’s writing goal sheet and work with your child on these skills that he or she still needs to master. Write every day in your at-home journal. Practice proper penmanship using the lines to help you. Practice writing your sight words of the week. Practice using an uppercase only at the beginning. Some students should now be working on writing one to three sentences on the same topic. Some students are still practicing writing their names, letters, and sight words.

Math: Play Dreambox for 10-15 minutes each night. Work on your child's Counting and Geometry goals from their goal sheets. Help your child master their Geometry (shape) goal by asking them to name, draw, build, and describe the following attributes:

1. *Is the shape 2D flat or 3D solid
2. *How many sides or faces
3. *How many vertices
4. *curved or straight lines on flat shapes
5. *what shape are the faces on 3D solid shapes
6. *Does the 3D solid shape roll, slide, or stack? 
7. 
   

Keep going over those Daily Math worksheets that go home each day to see if your child needs help with a particular skill. Remember to check the back to see our Math Talk of the day. 

We have been working on positional words and naming shapes.  For example:  the sphere is behind the fence, the rhombus is above the lamp.  Students have an easier time with this when the positional word is given - (Draw a circle next to the tree) but when students need to describe the position themselves it becomes much more difficult.  Practice having your child tell you where things are using the following positional words:

1. *in front of
2. *behind
3. *between
4. *next to
5. *above
6. *below
7. *beside
8. *left
9. *right

QR Codes: Download and print the QR Code practice pages on ParentSquare. Work on these pages together. 

Turn-In Homework: We have a FUN turn-in homework this week! Save a candy bar/bag wrapper from one of your "Trick or Treat" candies, tape or glue it to a piece of paper and write a few sentences describing your candy :) We have been talking a lot about "describing" words in class. Please help your child to think of describing words for their favorite candy. Here is a link to our Sharing Paper. 

Weekly News: October 24-28

This week we will read and learn all about pumpkins. We will learn the life cycle of a pumpkin along with many other pumpkin facts. On Friday, we will be investigating pumpkins by measuring, carving, and counting seeds. Part of our study will be to pull out the inside (pulp) of the pumpkin. This is REALLY MESSY - it would be a good idea to send an old button up shirt, a "daddy shirt", or an apron for your child to wear over their clothes on this day! We are excited for this fun activity!

Next Monday (on Halloween day), we will be celebrating with some fun fall games and activities. Instead of Halloween costumes, we invite all students to wear their PJs on this day. Please check our ParentSquare post if you would like to volunteer or donate items for this day! 

What Are We Learning This Week:

Sight Words: BOY, GIRL, HAS, NICE, WANT. 

Letter Team:  OY/OI (like in BOY, TOY/COIN).

Word Family:  This week we will be making words with the word families -OP (HOP, COP, SHOP) AND -OY (BOY, TOY, JOY).  Please help your child with word families of the week by asking them to create different words with the word families.

Reading: We will read many books about pumpkins and Halloween. We will practice all of our reading strategies learned so far.  We will continue to read our paper books and books from our class library. Please remember to bring your book bag to school every day! Unfortunately, students who do not bring their book bag back to school cannot take a book home that day. Thank you for your help in reinforcing this responsibility. 

Writing: We will continue to write three sentences on the same topic, using an uppercase at the beginning of a sentence, finger spaces after each word, and a period at the end.

Math: This week, we will learn all about greater, less than, and equal to. We will learn the symbols for greater, less than, and equal to, and practice writing these equations. We will also continue our fun Halloween math story problems, including addition, subtraction, and comparing (more or less) problems. We are learning to answer these problems using pictures, numbers (5-3=2), and words. Students will continue to work hard on their math goals. 

Leadership: We have now learned and discussed every letter for ROAR! R: Respect, O: Own Your Actions, A: Act Safely, R: Rise to Servant Leadership. We will all practice "roaring" at school and continue to discuss how to be a good leader. Students will continue to fill out their ROAR sheets and receive ROAR tickets. My hope is to build a respectful, responsible, safe classroom of leaders! :)

Homework: October 24-28

Please take a moment to read each section of homework. I understand this can be very overwhelming. Please feel free to email me if you have any questions or concerns.

Flashcards: Make flashcards for our new sight words (BOY, GIRL, HAS, NICE, WANT), letter teams (OY and OI), and word family (OP - hop, cop, top, etc). Study flashcards every day.

Phonemic Awareness: Your child's Foundational Skills goal sheet came home a couple of weeks ago with his or her highlighted goals. Please refer to this sheet and work with your child on these skills that he or she still needs to master (blending, segmenting, rhyming, syllables, add/change/delete a sound, etc.) Please see our Phonemic Awareness tab for ideas and tips. 

Reading: Play Smarty Ants for 10-15 minutes each night. Read on RAZ-Kids. Read books from your Book Bag! Read books from your at-home book box! Read to your child every day and have your child read to you every day. Find sight words and letter teams in books, in the car as you are driving - just READ, READ, READ! 

Writing: Write every day in your at-home journal. Practice proper penmanship using the lines to help you. Practice writing your sight words of the week. Practice using an uppercase only at the beginning. Some students should now be working on writing one to three sentences on the same topic. Some students are still practicing writing their names, letters, and sight words. 

Math: Play Dreambox for 10-15 minutes each night. Work on your child's Counting and Geometry goals from their goal sheets. Keep going over those Daily Math worksheets that go home each day to see if your child needs help with a particular skill. Remember to check the back to see our Math Talk of the day. Count everything! Practice drawing shapes! Tell your child addition and subtraction math stories and have them tell you how they got their answer. 

QR Codes: Download and print the QR Code practice pages on ParentSquare. Work on these pages together. 

Turn-In Homework: This week, we are learning all about pumpkins. Write one sentence about the life cycle of a pumpkin. Draw a picture to go with your sentence. Here is a link to our Sharing Paper. 

Weekly News: October 17-21

This week we will read and learn all about spiders. We will explore non-fiction text and continue to discuss the difference between fact and opinion. 

Please continue to work with your child on their goal sheets for Counting and Cardinality, Geometry, Writing, and Foundational Skills. Continue to reinforce these at home and work with your child on these skills. Just a heads up - we will have our first trimester parent conferences the week of November 14th. Sign ups for these conferences will come out near the end of October via ParentSquare. Students have been working so hard and I am so proud of how much we have grown so far since the beginning of the year! 

We are looking forward to celebrating fall together with some fun activities coming up. Next Friday, October 28th, we will be investigating pumpkins by measuring and carving and counting seeds. On Halloween day, we will be celebrating with some fun fall games and activities. Instead of Halloween costumes, we invite all students to wear their PJs on this day. 

What Are We Learning This Week:

Sight Words: ARE, BIG, LITTLE, FOR, WAS.

Letter Team:  IGH (like in HIGH, BRIGHT, LIGHT, RIGHT) and AR (like in CAR, FAR, JAR).

Word Family:  -IG. Please help your child with word families of the week by asking them to create different words with  the word family -IG (for example: BIG, PIG, WIG, DIG). I am sending home a fun worksheet/activity that you can do at home this week!

Reading: We will read many fiction and non-fiction books about spiders and discuss facts and key details from the text. We will continue to read our paper books and books from our class library. Please remember to bring your book bag to school every day! Unfortunately, students who do not bring their book bag back to school cannot take a book home that day. Thank you for your help in reinforcing this responsibility. 

Writing: This week, we will learn to use story starters to help us with our topic. Our goal is to write three sentences on the same topic, using an uppercase at the beginning of a sentence, finger spaces after each word, and a period at the end.

Math: We will continue our focus on our kindergarten goal of one more and one less. Our goal is that we are able to quickly tell what number is one more or one less without having to go back to begin counting from one to get our answer. We will also dive into fun Halloween math story problems, including addition, subtraction, and comparing (more or less) problems. We are learning to answer these problems using pictures, numbers (5-3=2), and words.  Students will continue to work hard on their math goals. 

Leadership: We have now learned and discussed every letter for ROAR! R: Respect, O: Own Your Actions, A: Act Safely, R: Rise to Servant Leadership. We will all practice "roaring" at school and continue to discuss how to be a good leader. Students will continue to fill out their ROAR sheets and receive ROAR tickets. My hope is to build a respectful, responsible, safe classroom of leaders! :) 

Homework: October 17-21

Please take a moment to read each section of homework. I understand this can be very overwhelming. Please feel free to email me if you have any questions or concerns.

Flashcards: Make flashcards for our new sight words (ARE, BIG, LITTLE, FOR, WAS), letter teams (AR and IGH), and word family (IG - big, pig, twig, etc.). Study flashcards every day.

Phonemic Awareness: Your child's Foundational Skills goal sheet came home a couple of weeks ago with his or her highlighted goals. Please refer to this sheet and work with your child on these skills that he or she still needs to master (blending, segmenting, rhyming, syllables, add/change/delete a sound, etc.) Please see our Phonemic Awareness tab for ideas and tips. 

Reading: Play Smarty Ants for 10-15 minutes each night. Read the paper books that have been coming home to live in your Home Book Box. Read the books in your book bag. Go on RAZ-Kids Online Reading. Read to your child every day and have your child read to you every day. Find sight words and letter teams in books, in the car as you are driving - we want to give you plenty of opportunities to just READ, READ, READ!

Click on the links below to access our online reading programs... 

Smarty Ants Reading World

Username: Bess

Password: read

RAZ-Kids

Class Log-in: mrsbess (no spaces!)

Password: abc

Writing: Write every day in your at-home journal. Practice proper penmanship using the lines to help you. Practice writing your sight words of the week. Practice using an uppercase only at the beginning. Some students should now be working on writing one to three sentences on the same topic. Some students are still practicing writing their names, letters, and sight words. 

Math: Play Dreambox for 10-15 minutes each night. Your child's math goal sheets came home last week. Please review these Counting and Cardinality and Geometry goal sheets and work on any highlighted goals - these are skills that your child is working on in class. Most students have a counting goal and a shape goal. Our shape goals include naming, drawing, building, and describing the attributes of each 2D and 3D shape. Keep going over those Daily Math worksheets that go home each day to see if your child needs help with a particular skill. Remember to check the back to see our Math Talk of the day.  Count everything! Ask your child all the different ways that numbers can be represented. Start asking your child simple word problems like, "If there are four cats playing in the yard and two more cats come, how many cats are there altogether?" and have your child explain HOW he got the answer.

Dreambox Log-in Information is below... 

DreamBox 

Our school code is: X2we/inlandlcs

Dream Box Parent Letter       Dream Box Parent Letter Spanish        

QR Codes: Our class uses a LOT of QR codes in our learning.  Mrs. Stanley has created many QR code activities for all of our kindergarten students to scan and work on at home. Each week, these will be uploaded on ParentSquare. Please print these pages for your child to work on at home each week. One great idea is to put these pages in sheet protectors and add these pages into a binder for your child to refer to all year long. 

Turn-In Homework: This week, we are learning about spiders through various non-fiction books. We will be continuing our discussion on the difference between fact and opinion. Write one sentence with a fact that you have learned about spiders. Draw a picture to go with your sentence. 

Note: If you visit the following link (Sharing Paper), you'll find a great printable writing page with a spot for writing and for a picture! Feel free to print off a bunch of these pages to use for turn in writing homework each week :) 

Weekly News: October 10-14

This week we will read and learn all about bats. We will explore non-fiction text and discuss the difference between fact and opinion. 

We had so much fun on our field trip to Los Rios. Thank you for all of your donations to Dollar a Day to make this possible for us and for all of out parent chaperones. Make sure you check out our pictures on the ParentSquare post.  

We are more than half way through our first trimester! I have been assessing the students on foundational skills, writing, counting and cardinality, and geometry. On Friday, your child came home with their "Goal Sheets" for Counting and Cardinality and Geometry. Highlighted are your child's current goals that we are working on in class. Please reinforce these at home and work with your child on these skills. Of course, we have not learned everything there is to learn yet, but I wanted you to be aware of your child's progress so far. Students have been working so hard and I am so proud of how much we have grown so far since the beginning of the year! Just a heads up - we will have our first trimester parent conferences the week of November 14th. Sign ups for these conferences will come out near the end of October via ParentSquare. 

THIS WEEK IS SPIRIT WEEK!!!! Show your school spirit by dressing up every day!

Monday, Oct. 10: Mis-Match Day (dress in clothes all mixed up and not matching! How fun!)

Tuesday, Oct. 11: Twin Day (in kindergarten, we like to wear our ILCS school shirts so that we can ALL be twins and no one is left out!)

Wednesday, Oct. 12: Superhero Day (dress as your favorite superhero)

Thursday, Oct. 13: Sports Day (dress as your favorite sports team or sport)

Friday, Oct. 14: Dress as your favorite movie character! :) 

What Are We Learning This Week?: 

Sight Words: WHEN, HAVE, BE, AM, WHAT.

Letter Team:  AW/AU (like in SAW/SAUCE). We will also review the letter team OO, remembering that it makes two sounds (like in LOOK and in BOO). 

Word Family:  -OT. Please help your child with word families of the week by asking them to create different words with  the word family -OT (for example: COT, JOT, ROT, SPOT). 

Reading: This week, we will read many non-fiction books about bats and spiders. Students will continue to take home book bags for nightly reading practice. Since book bags are considered daily homework, it is crucial that they are brought back to school every day. 

Writing: This  week we will write non-fiction stories about what we are learning about bats. We will continue to use an uppercase at the beginning of a sentence, finger spaces after each word, and a period at the end. Please keep working with your child on their specific writing goals from their goal sheet that came home last week. 

Math: This week we will focus on our kindergarten goal of one more and one less. Our goal is that we are able to quickly tell what number is one more or one less without having to go back to begin counting from one to get our answer. 

Leadership: This week, we will continue discussing the last letter of our leadership, ROAR: R - RISE TO SERVANT LEADERSHIP. Last week, we discussed that part of being a servant leader is doing something for others without expecting anything in return. Part of rising to servant leadership this year will be our community service projects. Every student will be responsible for 6-8 hours of community service this year and their projects will be due in May. We are recommending that you not wait until March or April to do these community service projects and hours, but start thinking about it now. In fact, a homework assignment coming up in November will be to write down and turn in your plan for your community service. I wanted to give you a heads up so that you can start thinking about this now as a family.