January 9-13

I hope everyone had a wonderful and relaxing winter break. I apologize for not posting last week so here is a recap of what we've been working on...

Reading

Last week we covered the sounds /y/, /q/, and /th/. We've been continuing to review all of the sounds we've learned so far with emphasis on sounding words out in order to read them. Today we finished up the alphabet with the letter x and the kiddos were very excited to see the last letter card go up on the wall. I will be conducting assessments this week in order to check in with each child and see their progress. Now that we have finished the first three Fast Track units, we will move on to some "tricky sounds" like long vowels and other vowel combinations. Since these can be more challenging for Kindergarten students, I will typically introduce one new sound each week going forward and incorporate additional activities to practice reading and writing. 

This week our letter of the week is F and our word of the week is play. On Friday we will culminate our F week with "Fancy Friday." Students are invited to wear their fanciest clothes for a fancy day at school. Please make sure that children can still participate in regular school activities while wearing their fancy attire!

Math

We are continuing to focus on "five-groups" and noticing how the numbers 6, 7, 8, 9, and 10 each include a five-group plus extra ones. The children are working on recognizing five-groups in dot patterns on our number cards. They are also using the math manipulatives (number tiles, square inch tiles, tile five-groups, pennies, and penny five-groups to show numbers 6-10 with a five-group and extra ones. We are building automaticity in number recognition as well.

Don't forget to work on your January snowman and send it in by Friday the 13th!