Mrs. Bess's Kindergarten Classroom

Please take a moment to read each section of homework. I understand this can be very overwhelming. We will go over each area of homework IN DETAIL at Back to School Night on Wednesday. 

Flashcards: Please make flashcards for our sight words (we, can, see, a), letters of the week (w, e, c, a, n, s) our letter team of the week (ee) and our word family (an - can, tan, ran, etc.) Study these flashcards every day. Have your child read the word, spell the word, read the word. I would suggest making a little flashcard box that you can add to throughout the year and reading through those flashcards a few times a day. Make a game of it. Put the sight word CD on and sing and dance to the sight words (You will receive this sight word CD at Back to School Night!) We will have a Reading Test on these sight words, letters and letter sounds, and letter teams each Friday. We will also have a Sentence Test on our sight words every Friday. A sentence test means we will be asking your child to write a sentence that we give them using our sight words of the week. We will not only be looking for correct spelling of our sight words, but also for an uppercase at the beginning, spaces between words, a proper punctuation at the end. An example of a sentence is, "We can see a man." It may be a good idea to have a practice Sentence Test with your child on Thursday night. 

Phonemic Awareness: Please work with your child on the following Phonemic Awareness skills: rhyming, blending, segmenting, syllables, beginning/middle/ending sounds, and sound switch in words.  Please see our Phonemic Awareness tab for ideas and tips. 

Reading: Reading at home is SO IMPORTANT! In a few short weeks, your child will be bringing home little books that we have been reading in class to read at home for YOU! Reading to your child is also important. Children need to hear frequent fluent reading to become a reader themselves. This week, we are learning Parts of a Book - when reading with your child, have them point out the front cover, back cover, spine, title, author, illustrator, and title page. Part of reading homework is also Smarty Ants. We are learning our Smarty Ants program in class this week and will go over it at Back to School Night. We will be sending home a paper this week with more information about how to log on to Smarty Ants at home. 

Writing: Our writing homework will change throughout the year and may look different for each student since each student may be at a different place developmentally. I would like all students to practice writing your name with an uppercase only at the beginning. Practice writing your ABC's both uppercase and lowercase. Take a look at the ABC Writing Assessment that came home last week so you can see what your child needs to practice. You can also practice writing your sight words of the week in a short sentence. We are learning to start our letters at the TOP! 

Math: Practice counting 1-30 or higher. Make number flashcards and have your child identify numbers out of order. Practice number writing - take a look at your child's number writing assessment that is coming home later this week so you can see what needs to be practiced! Practice drawing shapes, identifying shapes, or even creating shapes out of play-dough and sticks. Ask your child to name different attributes of shapes. For example, "What shape has three sides?" or "How many vertices does a rectangle have?" Your child will also be bringing home "Daily Math" practice pages that we do every morning in class. Please take a moment to go over these practice pages to see if there is anything specific your child needs to work on. Part of reading homework is also Dreambox. We are learning our Dreambox program in class this week and will go over it at Back to School Night. We will be sending home a paper this week with more information about how to log on to Dreambox at home. 

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 weekend, 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.