Kindergarten Connection ~ January 24th

Welcome back!

The children reported that their vacations were packed with fun, family and friends. All of the children agreed that vacations are great, but being back in school learning and playing is great too. 
January proves to be a magical time in kindergarten as the students’ academic and social skills really take off!

We can rotate independently through literacy and math groups! Ask your child to teach you all about the stations: Guided reading, word study, computer/iPad, ABC (phonics), FUNdations, Writer’s Workshop, number study, partner games, teacher games, Workplaces and math exploration.

Literacy Highlights

We can read and write the listed high-frequency words quickly. Make a word wall in your home and encourage your child to practice reading and writing these words often. Hunt for high frequency words in books and magazines. Write a note/letter to someone special. Write a story about an important moment or event. Make time to read and write with your child everyday. These are the words we know in a snap: I, am, a, can, the, we, see, will, he, she, it, is,in, no, yes, on, have, like, look ,you, are, love, me, for, my, so, go, off, big, little, here, up, and, an, if,Mom, Dad, cat, dog, going.

We are learning how to put two sounds together to read and write initial blends in words such as flap,trip, brick, frog... We learned the –ake spelling pattern and discovered that –ake is in make, snake, cake, lake, rake, fake, bake and Jake. We noticed that the e at the end of these words is silent and helps the first vowel a make it’s long sound.

Math Highlights
Our focus this week was on creating, representing and solving addition and subtraction problems in multiple ways. Just for fun, play adding and subtracting games with your child using pennies and beans. Ask your child: How many different combinations to make 5 or 10? What happens to a group when you add or subtract 1? Encourage your child to justify his/her math reasoning with words, objects and equations.

Counting, counting and more counting! We are working hard at counting on from random numbers, counting backwards from 20 and skip counting to 20 by 2’s. We are also working on identifying before and after numbers. In addition, we are learning how to use graphs to collect and analyze date.

  

Science Highlights

We are deep in our weather unit. Ask your child to describe the day's weather to you. Talk about why we have different weather conditions and how weather impacts our lives and choices. Study the weekly forecast with your child to look for weather patterns and changes.

This book inspired us to create a winter village setting on our classroom bulletin board.

We are learning how to form uppercase letters the kindergarten way!