I apologize for not posting at all last week...meetings almost every afternoon kept me busy.
Both classes are continuing to do a great job. We are running our regular schedule full swing now with phonics and math lessons everyday.
Reading and Writing
So far we have covered the letters m, a, s, d, t, i, g, p, and o. After every 10 lessons, I do individual assessments with the kiddos to check in and see how they are doing with remembering the letter sounds. I will start those tomorrow and continue on Friday. Based on those assessments, we may go back and review some of the sounds, or we'll continue on with the next set of 10 lessons. We cover a new sound each day and in addition to the 26 letters in the alphabet, we cover some digraph sounds as well like /ch/, /sh/, and /th/. So far the kiddos have been doing a great job. They are eager to participate in the lessons and they love to see Alfie (both in puppet form and in the short video clips that are part of the curriculum). This past week we started to "sound it out" and read words containing the letter sounds we have worked on so far. This is a huge step for Kinders and leaves them feeling like real readers!
Each lesson also includes a writing component. At this point, we practice writing the letter of the day that we are focusing on and the children also focus on writing the letter of the week. Pretty soon, the children will be writing whole words. Because the letters we introduce are lower case, I'd like you to encourage your children to use lower case letters when they write, especially in their names. We call this the "school way" and that is what we practice tracing during morning work and what the children are asked to do on their homework. The "school way" means only the first letter of the name should be an uppercase letter. Many of the children are still writing their names in all caps, so I'd like to see them incorporating the lower case letters that we have learned. It's a process because they are used to writing their name a certain way, but that is the goal.
Math
We have been reading Anno's Counting book which is a wordless counting book in class. Each page displays a picture that showcases a particular number (0-12). The children look at the illustrations and identify what they can spot in the picture that shows the number on that particular page. We have also been working with the math trays to work square inch tiles and pattern blocks to show different numbers. When the children get their tray ready, the put their number tiles in order from 1 to 5 at the top and then the counting objects along the bottom. We pull one number down into the center of the tray and then they are asked to show that number with either the tiles or the shapes. We have been working on making different arrangements to show each number and talking about how the number of items doesn't change just because you move them around. We have also been working on number partners so the children are asked to show what numbers go together to make the number we are working on. If we are using both red and blue square inch tiles, they might use 3 red tiles and 2 blue tiles to show 5. 2 and 3 are partners of 5. This is building the foundation for addition and for quick recall of basic facts. The children have also started bringing this into our finger work. I will show a number card and ask the children to show me that many fingers. If I show the number 5, sometimes a child will show 5 fingers on the same hand, but they are starting to show different ways to make 5. This is really cool to see!
Sight Words
This week our sight word is "the." Last week our word was "we." The kids love to learn the weekly song that helps them remember how to spell the sight word. Other activities we do to help the children remember the sight words and practice reading them are sight word books, die cut sight words, stamping sight words, and dot art sight words with bingo stampers. The children also practice reading books that go with our reading program that have controlled text and include the sight words that we focus on. One book that many of the children have been reading and mastering is called We Can. The book contains both words and some pictures as clues to help with more challenging words. The text is repetitive, which is perfect for beginning readers. As part of "Travel Tuesday" children work at a book box station where they choose a book, read it with a funky finger, read it with a whisper phone, read it to a stuffed animal, and then read it to me. This is great for gaining fluency and building confidence. I love hearing them read!
Homework
So far homework consists of a weekly reading sheet and a letter of the week sheet. Math will be added soon. All assignments are due 10 days after the pages are sent home. When I send math pages home, I will staple them to the reading page and all of the pages are due on the date written/stamped on the reading page.
Special Events
I will be doing parent teacher conferences on Wednesday October 26th, Thursday the 27th, and Friday the 28th. If you have not signed up for a time yet, please email me or give me a call and we can put you on the schedule. I always encourage parents to bring their children along for conferences, but on Wednesday, I will be conducting conferences during the school day while a substitute is in the classroom with the children. Fall conferences are a time for me to share progress so far which includes Fast Track Phonics Assessments, DIBELS scores, and informal math observations. We will also discuss behavior based on the stick system. There will be no school on Thursday the 27th and Friday the 28th.
Our field trip to the Pumpkin Patch will take place Tuesday the week of conferences (10/25). If you have not returned a permission slip yet, please do so! I encourage parents to come as it is a very fun day.
I hope you feel caught up now! I will try to make sure I get in at least one post a week :0)
