Tuesday, September 22, 2015

September 21

Hello Kindergarten Families!

I can’t believe we are in the fourth week of school already! The Kindergarteners have been doing a great job trying out the strategies and skills they learn in the minilessons!
Brianna Pralitsis, our staff developer from New York, will be joining us at the end of this week. There will be a sub in our room for parts of the morning on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday so that I can partake in staff development with Brianna. She will also be doing some work in our classroom with the kids. This is very exciting for our school! There is so much to learn from Brianna and I can’t waitJ
Upcoming events:
·         September 22nd: No School
·         September 24th: Family Night—Hot Dogs and How to Help
·         September 26th: Simon Cheese Fundraiser
·         October 16th: Math Morning—this date is different from the original one sent out—make sure you mark your calendarJ
·         October 27th: Field Trip to Heckrodt Nature Center

PSC News
·         Information on Saturday’s Simon’s Cheese fundraiser comes home Monday. You MUST use a flyer for NDLC to receive credit for your purchase. Need more for family and friends? Print them from ndlccharter.org/parents/parent-school-committee.php or pick some up at Thursday’s Family Night. See you at Simon’s Cheese!
·          Can you help? We need parent hosts at Saturday’s fundraiser to help greet customers, open doors, and be personal shoppers. Volunteer slots are one hour long – the fundraiser runs from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Sign up now at http://vols.pt/vt9rHf.
·         Learn more about the Parent-School Committee and how you can help at Thursday’s Family Night. Whether volunteering your time and talents, saving BoxTops and Labels or signing up for fundraisers, our success depends on YOU!
·          Join us! The next PSC meeting is Monday, October 5, at 6 p.m. in the school library.
·         Questions? Email NDLC.PSC@gmail.com

WHAT’S HAPPENING IN KINDERGARTEN THIS WEEK
Reading: This week in Reader’s Workshop, the students are working on retelling and saying more and more of the story. We will also learn to use special connecting words, such as then, after, and, & later, to connect the words of a story. Students will focus on words and lines that are repeated by characters in our story so that we can use the exact same words when we retell the books! Towards the end of the week, we will focus on pointing to words in the book that we can read already! This will set students up for the more conventional reading that is coming soon!
Writing: Our writing shifts from writing informational stories to writing true life stories this week. Today, we used a checklist to make sure our informational writing had everything it needs! On Wednesday, I will introduce narrative, or true story, writing to the class. On Thursday, they will do an on demand writing. That means, the students will have the entire writing block to write a true story without my coaching. This allows me to see what they are already doing as writers and figure out what they need to push their writing forward! I am excited to read some of their true stories!
Math: Students will rotate through 4 math centers after a minilesson each day. The minilessons will focus on adding/subtracting, writing numbers 1-5, and comparing numbers 1-10, and shapes. There are four new centers this week:
1.     We have been reading Anno’s Counting Book in math to focus on numbers 1-10 and count the number of items on each page. Students will create their own counting book.
2.    Students will use a comparing mat to show which number is more and which is less.
3.    Students will work with a classmate and counting chips to find the different partners of numbers 1-5. For example, 3+2 and 4+1 are partners of 5.
4.    Students will sort shapes based on different attributes. They could look at the number of edges, number of corners, straight sides, etc.

Word Study: We have four stations that students rotate around throughout the week.
1.      Salt writing: Students will be writing letters in boxes filled with salt.
2.    Students are working with puzzles that match lowercase letters with their uppercase partner.
3.     ABC Busted!: In this game, students pick a card out of a bucket. They tell the group which letter is written on the card. When someone picks up the card with the sticker on it, they are busted! Everyone puts their cards back into the bucket and start over.
4.    Students are using stamps to match uppercase and lowercase letters.

Social Studies: This week, we will begin our School Study unit. Throughout the unit, we will be exploring who the community helpers are in our school and conducting interviews to learn more about what they do! We will be learning about interviews and planning what kinds of questions we are going to ask our school community helpers.

As always, if you have any questions or concerns, please don’t hesitate to call or e-mail.
Thanks,
Molly Santkuyl
(920) 766-6116 ext.3387
Kindergarten Teacher
New Directions Learning Community


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