Weekly News: October 1-5

This week we will continue to read and write about Autumn. We will continue to learn about leaves and discuss our favorite fall activities.

Our very first kindergarten field trip is coming up! We will be going to Greenspot Farms in Mentone on Wednesday, October 17th. We will be leaving school by bus around 8:30 for our 9:00 farm tour. During this tour, our students will have the opportunity to enjoy a hayride, feed the farm animals, visit the honey house, learn about the life cycle of a pumpkin, and even pick their very own pumpkin to take home! We will then enjoy snack together at the picnic tables at 10:45, then be back to school in time for dismissal and electives. Please do not forget to donate $35 for our entire year of kindergarten field trips onto our school's Dollar a Day website. Here is the link:  Dollar A Day Link   Unfortunately, if we do not receive the funding, we will not be able to go on any other field trips this year. If you would like to chaperone, we would love to have you! Chaperones can either ride the bus with the students or drive separately. If you would like to chaperone, please let me know by email. Chaperones will need to bring $8 in exact cash on the day of the field trip. Unfortunately, siblings and little ones are not welcome on the field trip due to the safety of our kindergarten students. A permission slip will be coming home soon for our field trip, so make sure you fill that out and return it to your child's teacher. We are looking forward to a great field trip together!

What Are We Learning This Week?:

Sight Words: HE, SHE, WENT, TO, PLAY.

Letter Team:  AY (like in PLAY, DAY) and ING (like in SING, RING).

Word Family: -AY and -AM. Please help your child with word families of the week by asking them to create different words with  the word family -ay (for example: BAY, DAY, SAY, MAY, HAY) and -am (SAM, HAM, RAM, SLAM).

Reading: We will continue reading books about Autumn and leaves. We will continue to read our book bag books and work on our letters, sounds, and sight words every day. 

Writing: We will continue to make our own individual writing goal this week and I will begin holding special writing "conferences" with students to work on their goals. Your child will bring home his or her September journal this week. Attached to these journals will be your child's current writing goal. Please go over these with your children, praising them for their efforts and discussing ways to make our writing even better.

Math: We will keep working hard on counting goals, number writing goals, number ID goals, and shapes. Last week our focus was counting to 100 by tens. Please practice this with your child if they are still struggling. This week, our focus will be ways to make five. You can help at home by asking your child what you need to make five. Example: "I have three, how many do I need to make five?" The goal is for students to be quick and proficient at this skill. 

Leadership: For the month of October, our whole school will be focusing on the O of ROAR: Own Your Actions. We will talk about what that means and how we can own our actions at school. Our goal is to have students take ownership of their own behavior as we all strive to be leaders in our classroom and school.

Homework: October 1-5

Flashcards: Make flashcards for our new sight words (HE, SHE, WENT, TO, PLAY), letter teams (AY and ING), and word family (AM). Study these flashcards (and those from previous weeks) every day.

Phonemic Awareness: Keep working with your child on skills such as blending, segmenting, rhyming, syllables, and sound switch. Our Friday video focus this week is on syllables. A test your child took on syllables as well as some syllables games and worksheets will come home this week. Make sure to watch our Friday ParentSquare video - Mrs. Stanley and I will go over syllables expectations and tips for kindergarten. 

Reading: Read books and review the sounds from your book bag! Book bags will come home every day and need to be returned every day. Inside of your child's book bag will be a book we are working on in class. This may be a paper book or it may be a book chosen from our classroom library. There may also be a page with letters and sounds that your child is still working on. Please have your child read these books (and pages) to you every day.  Continue to read the little paper books that come home to live in your book box at home. Continue to read TO your child every night, having conversations about the stories you are reading. Continue to log onto Smarty Ants for 10-15 at least a few times a week. 

You can find the link for Smarty Ants on the right side tab of our website. Our class username is: JCBESS@INLANDLEADERS.COM and our password is: READ.

Writing: If you have not done so already, I highly recommend picking up a small notebook or journal for your at-home writing. Have your child write in this every day. All of our students have been doing a great job writing their name and ABCs. We should still be practicing our sight words each day. September Journals will come home this week. Take a moment to look over your child's writing this month, celebrating successes and discussing ways to make our writing even better! All students should be at the point where we are attempting to write at least one sentence each day with a picture to match. 

Math: Continue to play Dreambox for 10-15 minutes each night. Continue to count to 30 (or 50 or 100!) every day, practice number flashcards out of order, practice writing your numbers to 20 or higher, practice identifying shapes and drawing shapes. Remember to also go over our "Daily Math" practice pages that we do every morning in class - take a moment to go over these practice pages to see if there is anything specific your child needs to work on. 

1. 
   

Our school code for Dreambox is X2we/inlandlcs

QR Codes: Download and print those QR Codes each week from ParentSquare and have your child work on those at home!

Weekly News: September 24-28

Happy Autumn! Though it may not feel like it, this week we will be reading and writing all about fall. 

Please remember to bring your book bags to school every day. The worksheets and books inside your book bag are to be worked on every night at home and we work on them every day at school. 

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 (can, man, pan, etc.) 

Reading: This week, we will begin reading books about Autumn and leaves. This week, we will also study our first science unit about pushes and pulls. We will read a big book about pushes and pulls together.

Writing: Students will each make their own individual writing goal this week and I will begin holding special writing "conferences" with students to work on their goals. 

Math: This week, we will work on "What Comes Before" - to have excellent number sense, we want students to be able to tell us what comes before a given number without having to look at a number line or go back to begin counting at 1. We will also practice counting to 100 by tens. Please practice this at home if your child struggles with counting by tens. We will keep working hard on counting goals, number writing goals, number ID goals, and shapes. 

Leadership: For the month of September, our whole school will be focusing on the first R of ROAR: Respect. We will discuss ways that we can respect ourselves, others, and our school. 

PLEASE SCROLL DOWN TO THE HOMEWORK POST TO SEE ALL OF THE HOMEWORK FOR THE WEEK.

Homework: September 24-28

Flashcards: Make flashcards for our new sight words (AN, BECAUSE, TAKE, UP), letter teams (OW and OU), and word family (AN - pan, fan, man). Study these flashcards (and those from previous weeks) every day.  

Phonemic Awareness: Keep working with your child on skills such as blending, segmenting, rhyming, syllables, and sound switch. Our Friday video this week features Mrs. Stanley and myself going over rhyming expectations. 

Reading: We began book bags last week. Book bags will come home every day and need to be returned every day. Inside of your child's book bag will be a book we are working on in class. This may be a paper book or it may be a book chosen from our classroom library. There may also be a page with letters and sounds that your child is still working on. Please have your child read these books (and pages) to you every day.  Continue to read the little paper books that come home to live in your book box at home. Continue to read TO your child every night, having conversations about the stories you are reading. Continue to log onto Smarty Ants for 10-15 at least a few times a week. 

You can find the link for Smarty Ants on the right side tab of our website. Our class username is: JCBESS@INLANDLEADERS.COM and our password is: READ.

Writing: If you have not done so already, I highly recommend picking up a small notebook or journal for your at-home writing. Have your child write in this every day. All of our students have been doing a great job writing their name and ABCs. We should still be practicing our sight words each day. All students should be at the point where we are attempting to write at least one sentence each day with a picture to match. 

Math: The students have been working hard on math goals - a sheet came home last week with your child's math current math goals and latest number recognition assessment. If you have not done so already, please make flashcards for those numbers on the "incorrect" column and review those flashcards every day! This week, we are working on counting by tens (10, 20, 30... to 100). A Hundreds Chart and fun Count by Tens Worksheet will come home this week. You can use these papers to help your child count by ten at home! Remember to also go over our "Daily Math" practice pages that we do every morning in class - take a moment to go over these practice pages to see if there is anything specific your child needs to work on. 

1. 
   

 Math homework every week also includes Dreambox. My hope is that your child is logging onto Dreambox at home and playing for 10-15 minutes at least a few times a week. 

Our school code for Dreambox is X2we/inlandlcs

QR Codes: Download and print those QR Codes each week from ParentSquare and have your child work on those at home!

Weekly News: September 17-21

We had so much fun making apple pies! Thank you for all of your donations and a special thank you to all of our fabulous parent helpers

for ALL of your help making our pies! Be sure to check out our apple pie pictures on ParentSquare. This week we will finish our unit on apples by making applesauce together! YAY!

Thank you to the families that attended our Parent Workshop. I really appreciate you taking the time to join us in the classroom and I hope that it was informational and helpful. :) If you were not able to join us, please continue to watch our weekly videos that we post on ParentSquare - each week, we will go over a different strategy or different way to help your child at home. 

We will begin Book Bags this week.  Please watch our Friday ParentSquare video and read our Homework post for more information on these Book Bags. 

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 learn what "quotations" are. We will read a big book together every day about our silly monster friends and use "quotations" when they say something. We will continue to read books about apples and Johnny Appleseed and finish our author study on Mo Willems. Students will continue to read little books in class that include sight words and letter teams. Please keep practicing them at home! We will also begin Book Bags this week. Please see the Homework tab for more information. 

Writing: We are working hard on our writing goals that we have learned so far: finger spaces, punctuation, neat penmanship, and uppercase at the beginning. Please continue to work with your child on writing every night, reinforcing these strategies at home. 

Math: This week, we are working on our math goal, "What Comes Next". The goal is that your child is able to tell us what number comes after a given number without having to go back to count from one. We will also be working on Ways to Make Five. We will learn that five can be a 2 and a 3, five can be a 1 and a 4, and five can be a 0 and a 5. 

Leadership: For the month of September, our whole school will be focusing on the first R of ROAR: Respect. We will discuss ways that we can respect ourselves, others, and our school. 

PLEASE SCROLL DOWN TO THE HOMEWORK POST TO SEE ALL OF THE HOMEWORK FOR THE WEEK.

Homework: September 17-21

Flashcards: Make flashcards for our new sight words(come, at, said), letter teams (CE and CI), and word family (IN - bin, fin, win). Study these flashcards (and those from previous weeks) every day. 

Phonemic Awareness: Keep working with your child on skills such as blending, segmenting, rhyming, syllables, and sound switch. We went over many of these skills at our Parent Workshop. 

Reading: We will begin book bags this week. Book bags will come home every day in your child's folder and need to be returned every day. Inside of your child's book bag will be several things we are working on in class. There may be a paper book from our reading group, a Decodable Book your child is working on, or a book chosen from our classroom library. There may also be a baggy of flashcards or a page with letters and sounds that your child is still working on. Please have your child read these books (and pages) to you every day. Our Friday ParentSquare video will give more detailed information about book bags as well so make sure to check that out!  Continue to read the little paper books that come home to live in your book box at home. Continue to read TO your child every night, having conversations about the stories you are reading. Continue to log onto Smarty Ants for 10-15 at least a few times a week. 

You can find the link for Smarty Ants on the right side tab of our website. Our class username is: JCBESS@INLANDLEADERS.COM and our password is: READ.

Writing:  Keep writing, writing, writing! Write your name (uppercase only at the beginning), write your sight words of the week, practice writing your ABCs, write short sentences, write in the tub with bathtub paint, write words in daddy's shaving cream all over the bathroom mirror - have fun and be creative! Remember, we learn to write by WRITING! 

Math: The students have been working hard on math goals - Our math goals in class so far include Counting to 30, Counting to 50 or Counting to 100 (depending on where the student is at), writing numbers to 20, identifying numbers out of order to 30, and recognizing and describing shapes. Please work at home on these skills. Remember to also go over our "Daily Math" practice pages that we do every morning in class - take a moment to go over these practice pages to see if there is anything specific your child needs to work on. 

This week, we are working on ways to make 5. You can help at home by asking your child the ways to make 5 (3 and 2, 4 and 1, 5 and 0) or by asking them simple addition and subtraction stories with numbers within five. For example, "If I have three red apples and two green apples, how many is that altogether? OR "We have five people in our family but there are only 4 forks on the table for dinner, how many more forks do we need?"

1. 
   

 Math homework every week also includes Dreambox. My hope is that your child is logging onto Dreambox at home and playing for 10-15 minutes at least a few times a week. 

Our school code for Dreambox is X2we/inlandlcs

QR Codes: Download and print those QR Codes each week from ParentSquare and have your child work on those at home!

Weekly News: September 10-14

The class had so much fun tasting apples on Friday.  This Friday, we will be making apple pie as we continue our study on apples. You can sign up on ParentSquare to bring items for this event! Thank you so much! We could not do it without you! 

Our Parent Workshop is THIS THURSDAY from 6:00-7:00. Please remember this is a parent-only event. We will meet in our classroom and go over all of our kindergarten standards/goals for the year, exactly what they mean, and strategies for how you can help your child with these goals at home. I hope you can make it - there is so much valuable information. 

I placed our first class Scholastic Book Order today! Thank you so much for ordering books for your kiddos. These books will arrive in a few short weeks. 

We will be going on two field trips this year - in October, to Greenspot Farms and in February, to the Children's Museum of the Desert. For these field trips, we are asking each family for a one-time generous donation of $35 for the entire year. This will cover the cost of both field trip and bus expenses. Thank you so much for your support! Here is the link to donate on Dollar A Day: Dollar A Day Link

Spirit Day at ILCS is Tuesday, September 11th. Wear red, white, and blue! 

I am so excited to announce our room mom for the year, Amanda Raymond. 

Amanda is Evan's mommy and will be our room mom this year. She will be sending monthly ParentSquare updates, as well as helping in the classroom with Friday centers, and special events/parties we will have throughout the year. Her contact information is: 951-237-6690 and araymond4@yahoo.com. I will also put her contact information in the "Room Parent" tab of our website for future reference. 

What Are We Learning This Week?:

Sight Words: YOU, AND, IT FRIEND.

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

Word Family: AT - like in bat, cat, rat, sat, fat, etc.

Reading: We will continue to read books about apples and Johnny Appleseed. We will also read lots of funny books by Mo Willems. Students will continue to read little books in class that include sight words and letter teams. Some of these little books came home on Friday. Please keep them inside your special home book box that you shared those first weeks of school and practice reading them every day! More paper books will be coming home throughout the year - if they have a big star or stamp on them, that means your child has read it for me fluently and they can now keep them at home! We are reading a new class book this week titled, "The Apple Tree". We will learn all about the life cycle of an apple as we practice reading our sight words of the week.

Writing: We are continuing to write (or draw pictures) of what we know and what we love. We are working hard on our writing goals that we have learned so far: finger spaces, punctuation, and uppercase at the beginning. We will go over these and more of our goals at our Parent Workshop as well. We will also learn a poem this week that will help us with our penmanship: Some letters are tall, some letters are small, and some letters fall. Please reinforce neat penmanship when writing at home, reminding your children to write within the lines and always start at the top!

Math: This week, we will continue learning our 3D shapes - cone, cube, sphere, pyramid, cylinder, and rectangular prism. We will learn to describe 3D shapes by their faces and vertices. We will also continue to practice number identification, number writing, days of the week, months of the year, shapes, and counting on/"Popcorn Counting".

Leadership: For the month of September, our whole school will be focusing on the first R of ROAR: Respect. We will discuss ways that we can respect ourselves, others, and our school. 

PLEASE SCROLL DOWN TO THE HOMEWORK POST TO SEE ALL OF THE HOMEWORK FOR THE WEEK.

Homework: September 10-14

Flashcards: Please make flashcards for our sight words (YOU, AND, IT, FRIEND), our letter team of the week (WH) and our word family (AT - bat, cat, mat, pat, 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. 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: Keep working with your child on skills such as blending, segmenting, rhyming, syllables, and sound switch. We will go over many of these skills at our Parent Workshop. 

Reading: Reading at home is SO IMPORTANT! My hope is that you are reading TO your child every night and discussing the stories you read. when reading with your child, have them point out the front cover, back cover, spine, title, author, illustrator, and title page. My hope is that your child is also playing on Smarty Ants for 10-15 minutes at least a few times a week. On Friday, your child brought home some of their little books we have been reading in class. These little books can live in your special book box that you made together. Practice reading these each night, having your child point to each word, get their mouth ready for the first sound, and look at the picture to help them. 

You can find the link for Smarty Ants on the right side tab of our website. Our class username is: JCBESS@INLANDLEADERS.COM and our password is: READ.

Writing:  Keep writing, writing, writing! Write your name (uppercase only at the beginning), write your sight words of the week, practice writing your ABCs, write short sentences, write in the tub with bathtub paint, write words in daddy's shaving cream all over the bathroom mirror - have fun and be creative! Remember, we learn to write by WRITING! 

Math: The students have been working hard on math goals - Our math goals in class so far include Counting to 30, Counting to 50 or Counting to 100 (depending on where the student is at), writing numbers to 20, identifying numbers out of order to 30, and recognizing and describing shapes. Please work at home on these skills. Remember to also go over our "Daily Math" practice pages that we do every morning in class - take a moment to go over these practice pages to see if there is anything specific your child needs to work on. 

This week, we will continue to learn 3D shapes and we will discuss positional words in relation to our shapes. For example:  the sphere is behind the fence, the cube 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
10. 
    

 Math homework every week also includes Dreambox. My hope is that your child is logging onto Dreambox at home and playing for 10-15 minutes at least a few times a week. 

Our school code for Dreambox is X2we/inlandlcs

QR Codes: Download and print those QR Codes each week from ParentSquare and have your child work on those at home!