Category Archives: Kindergarten Newsletter

Kindergarten Newsletter, February 3rd

By Becky Hedlin | Published: February 3, 2012

Upcoming Events/Mark your Calendars:

  • Monday, February 6th:  Mass, 9 am and 100th day Celebration
  • Wednesday, February 8th:  Hot Lunch, Little Joe’s
  • Tuesday, February 14th:  Valentine’s Party
  • Wednesday, February 15th:  Hot Lunch, Arby’s
  • Thursday, February 16th:  P/T CONFERENCES!

Wow!  What a week it has been! Have you been keeping up with all the excitement in kindergarten!?!

On Monday your child received his/her first report card. We look forward to discussing your child’s progress with you at conferences!

On Tuesday we went to Mass for Teacher Appreciation day. The children were all so kind—they had such nice things to say to their teachers!

On Wednesday, we celebrated the STUDENTS with Student Appreciation day. The students and teachers all wore their pajamas to school. It was so funny! In the afternoon, we were visited by our 8th grade buddies who brought a story to share with the kindergartners. Afterwards, we had a fun treat while watching the Bernstein Bears, TALENT SHOW on the smartboard.

On Thursday we had the kindergarten talent show. The children all did a GREAT job. We saw so much talent! Singers, dancers, magicians, football and hockey players—we are a talented bunch! We are just OKAY at some things and GREAT at others things. These are our God-given talents. Let’s share our talents with others! After the show, we discussed how we felt performing in front of our friends.  The children said they were nervous, scared, excited and happy–all appropriate emotions when doing something in front of a large group!  We were very proud of them.  They were surprised to see their teachers and principal have talents too!  Ask your child what talents they saw!  Thursday afternoon we learned how popcorn pops. Then we at the treat while watching a portion of Willy Wonka which is also the play the junior high kids are currently working on for the spring performance.

We wrapped up Catholic Schools Week with the Red and White volleyball games. It was such a fun week in kindergarten. Be sure to check out the website next week for pictures. Boy, Kindergarten sure does ROCK!

Next Week:

We will be celebrating our 100th DAY on Monday. We will do a lot of 100th day activities to celebrate this special day. Ask you child about his/her favorite!

Literacy:

  • Journaling: 2 + sentences
  • Word wall word practice
  • Guided Reading Groups (reading books at your child’s reading level)
  • Reactions: writing reactions to stories we read in class

Math:

  • We continue to focus on ADDITION and creating number sentences. We drill the kids on adding doubles up to five. ( 1+1, 2+2, 3+3, 4+4, 5+5). We ask the kids to explain the strategy they used when figuring out an answer. Give your child a problem. Ask your child to explain how he/she got the answer (counting on? Did knowing the doubles help?)
  • Number stories—tell a story and then figure out if we need to use addition or subtraction to figure out the answer 100 days of kindergarten!!! Do we look 100 days smarter!?! Counting by 1s, 2s, 5s and 10s

Science:

Our senses help to keep us SAFE! How do they keep us safe? We will go through each sense and figure out how we use that sense to keep us safe.

Religion:

We will go back to our unit on the 5 senses. Our senses help us learn more about God’s world. Ask your child about our senses song (hint: I’ve got senses, I’ve got senses…”) and to name the 5 senses.

Posted in Kindergarten Newsletter | Comments closed

Kindergarten Newsletter, January 27th

By Becky Hedlin | Published: January 27, 2012

Next week is Catholic Schools Week!  We will celebrate what makes our school SPECIAL!  Ask your  child what it means to go to a CATHOLIC school.

We hope you can join us at the open house on Sunday.  Following 9:30 Mass (please join us), there will be an open house from 10:30-12:30.  Let  your child show YOU around our school.

We have ALOT going on next week.  Below we have listed the different activities that will be taking place.  Please make sure you read through the activities listed for each day so your child doesn’t miss out on anything! 

CATHOLIC SCHOOLS WEEK EVENTS:

  • Sunday, January 29th:  9:30 am Mass followed by 10:30 Open House.  Bring your friends and neighbors!
  • Monday, January 30th: Report Cards go home
  • Tuesday, January 31st: Teacher Appreciation Day; 10:30 Mass followed by a luncheon-Thanks FSA!
  • Wednesday, February 1st: STUDENT Appreciation Day: PAJAMA DAY and GET UP AND MOVE for all students
  • Thursday, February 2nd:  KINDERGARTEN Talent Show**  and Movie in the afternoon with special treat
  • Friday, Febrauary 3rd:  Red and White Volleyball games for 1st-8th: we will be cheering them on!  Wear RED and WHITE!

** PLEASE READ THE NOTE SENT HOME YESTERDAY FOR ADDITIONAL INFORMATION ON THE TALENT SHOW**

Please make sure you turn in the CONFERENCE SIGN UP SHEET ASAP! We look forward to discussing your child’s progress with you!

Have a great weekend and see you on Sunday at the open house!

 

Posted in Kindergarten Newsletter | Comments closed

Kindergarten Newsletter, January 20, 2012

By Becky Hedlin | Published: January 20, 2012

Upcoming Events/Mark your calendars:

  • Wednesday, January 25th:  Hot Lunch, McDonald’s
  • Friday, January 27th:  Candlelight Bowl-see the school website for more details
  • Sunday, January 29th:  Catholic Schools Week begins with MASS at 9:30 followed by an open house at 10:30.  Come and visit your child’s classroom.  Let your child give YOU a tour of the school! 
  • Monday, January 30th:  Report cards go home!

This Week:

The next several weeks will be VERY busy in kindergarten.  We have our 100th day of school approaching (11 more days!), Catholic schools week events and Valentine’s day all coming up!  Please be sure to read the newsletter and watch for important notes to come home regarding these special events in our classroom!

The children enjoyed our first big snowfall of the season.  We measured the snow and figured out that about 7 inches fell in the courtyard.  We are looking forward to Friday when the next big snow storm arrives.  We can’t wait to see if the snowfall predictions are correct!

The writing center is a busy place in our classrooms!  If you have any stationary, envelopes or stickers to donate, we would appreciate any of these items.  Check out the dollar store for some great deals! :)

The children are now allowed to take library books home.  YOUR CHILD NEEDS TO BE RESPONSIBLE FOR THIS BOOK. Figure out a safe place for this book.  Miss Hedlin’s class has library on E days and Mrs. Bentley’s class has library on D days.

Please check the ACTIVITIES FOR HOME PAGE for updates.

Next Week:

Literacy:

  • The children continue to journal every day, writing 2 + sentences.  Ask your child what he/she journals about! Have discussions about what they SHOULD journal about! 
  • Writing reactions to winter stories–”My favorite part was..” and “My connection is….”
  • Printing:  We will continue to practice writing our letters each week, looking for top to bottom formation and letters starting and sitting on the correct lines.
  • All children should be printing first and last names.  We will be looking for this on ALL papers that are turned in.
  • The children painted some wonderful looking snowmen! They will be asked to write about their snowmen (name, likes, dislikes, etc.).
  • The children will begin guided reading groups where they will be reading books at their own reading level.  Ask your children about some of the books he/she reads at school! Watch for an email with a recording of your child reading his/her journal entry or a book.

Math:

  • We have started addition and subtraction.  We will continue to focus on the following vocabulary:  PLUS, MINUS, ADDITION, SUBTRACTION. We have worked on labeling stories as “addition stories” and “subtraction stories”.  Now, we will begin to write number sentences using +, – and =. This will be our main focus through February.
  • Number writing-top to bottom
  • Count down to 100 days in kindergarten!

Science/Social Studies:

The 5 senses:  We will continue to focus on hearing.  Next week we will explore this sense with several activities on the smartboard.  Ask your child about these hearing activities!

Weather:  Everyday during calendar we take time to describe the weather.  We use words like, “cold,” “snowy,” “cloudy,” “partly cloudy,” “flurries,” etc.  We add to our weather graph each day and draw conclusions on the given month’s weather based on this graph. We begin every day with calendar time–ask your child all that we do during calendar!

After learning about Martin Luther King last week, we will continue to look at other holidays including Presidents’ Day and learn about George Washington.

Religion: 

We have introduced the children to the 5 senses.  We will continue to explore our senses and discuss how they help us learn about God’s world.

 

Posted in Kindergarten Newsletter | Comments closed

Kindergarten Newsletter: January 13, 2012

By Becky Hedlin | Published: January 13, 2012

Upcoming Events:

  •  Monday, January 16th:  NO SCHOOL, Martin Luther King Day
  • Tuesday, January 17th:  Mass (for MLK), 9 AM
  • Wednesday, January 18th: Hot Lunch, Subway

*FIRST REPORT CARDS GO HOME JANUARY 30TH*

This Week:

We had a great first week back!  The children had alot to share with their fellow classmates.  It sounds like everyone had a nice long break! We hope you enjoyed the special gift of your child’s handprint!  They grow up so fast!

Thank you for the fast response to our request for paper towels, kleenex and wipes.  If you have not already sent in the assigned items, please do so when you can!

Please check out the PICTURES PAGE.  Christmas pictures are posted!

Next Week:

Math:

  • We are beginning addition and subtraction.  We will begin with several + and – , more or less etc. games.  Once the children grasp an understanding of the vocabulary- ADDITION, SUBTRACTION, PLUS, MINUS- we will begin to form number sentences.
  • We will continue to practice number formation
  • We will continue to create and read graphs.  Remember, if your child comes home with a graph, ask him/her questions about that graph.  For example, which has the most, least, how many more, how many less, how many more until another group of ten, what does this graph tell us, or simply ask your child to interpret the graph for you.

Religion:

We will begin our SENSES unit next week beginning with hearing.  We learn about God’s world through our senses!

Literacy:

  • Journaling: With the New Year comes new journal expectations!  We expect all the children to write 2 or more sentences in their journals with a matching picture.  This sentence should include punctuation, correct spelling of word wall words, proper letter formation and sounding out of unfamiliar words.
  • READ, READ, READ!!!! Every night your child should be reading!  This is the BEST way to help your beginning reader. The children are now allowed to check out 1 book from our school library.  How exciting!
  • With the arrival of winter, we will be reading many winter stories.  With this, we will work on making CONNECTIONS.  Connecting one story to another and connection a story to our own lives. 
  • Word wall word practice (focus on number words).  A new word wall will go home in FEBRUARY.

Science/Social Studies:

  • The snow will give us a chance to experiment and explore.  Along with experimenting, we will be measuring the amount of snow regularly.  Children DO NOT NEED to wear snowpants to school.

 

 

 

 

 

Posted in Kindergarten Newsletter | Comments closed

Kindergarten Newsletter, December 16th, 2011

By Becky Hedlin | Published: December 16, 2011

Upcoming Events/Mark your calendars:

  • Wednesday, December 21st:  Hot lunch, Dino’s
  • Thursday, December 22nd:  9 am Mass-Please plan on joining us!  Bring your cameras!  The kindergartners will be singing Christmas songs
  • Friday, December 23rd:  Christmas Break begins.  No school!

This week, we began our Gingerbread Man Unit.  We read several versions of the gingerbread story.  We graphed our favorite story, created a character chart, wrote about the stories and discussed our favorite parts. The Gingerbread Girl was by far the class favorite.  We used  the word “because” to explain WHY this story was a favorite.  Overall, the children liked that the gingerbread girl DID NOT get eaten in this story.  It was a happy ending for all!

Our gingerbread centers this week included a board game (get the gingerbread boy back to his gingerbread house!), gingerbread playdoh and the sorting and graphing  of gingerbread buttons. We also decorated our own gingerbread boy.  In between all of this gingerbread fun, we saw the band concert and the Christmas program.  We were amazed by all the talent we saw on display!

Next Week:

Next week, we will continue to practice for our Christmas Mass  on Thursday.  We will practice in church with our 8th grade buddies each day next week.  Also, as our last week before Christmas begins, please remind your child it is especially important to do a good deed each day!  These are our presents for baby Jesus and this is how we prepare our hearts for His arrival!

 

Posted in Kindergarten Newsletter | Comments closed

Kindergarten Newsletter, December 8, 2011

By Becky Hedlin | Published: December 9, 2011

Upcoming Events/ Mark your Calendars:

  • December 12th:  Dining for Dollars at McDonald’s
  • December 14th:  Band Concert, 7pm (we will attend the afternoon performance)
  • December 14th: Hot Lunch, Little Joe’s
  • December 15th: Christmas Concert in the church (Grades 1-4), 7pm (we will attend the afternoon performance)
  • December 22nd:  Our Christmas Mass, 9am.  PLEASE PLAN ON JOINING US! Christmas Party, 1:30 in our classrooms

This Week: 

We have been busy preparing for our Christmas Mass on Thursday, December 22nd at 9am.  Please plan on joining us for this special Mass!  We will be singing a selection of Christmas songs.  Your child should be dressed up for this day.   

Don’t forget to send in your FOOD BASKET items by next week!  Also, don’t forget to send in 6 stamps for our letters to parishoners! Thank you for your contributions!

Next Week:

We will begin our Gingerbread Unit next week.  We will read several versions of the story including The Gingerbread Boy, The Gingerbread Girl, The Gingerbread Baby, Gingerbread Friends and The Gingerbread Cowboy. We will be graphing our favorite story, writing about our favorite parts, sorting gingerbread buttons, comparing stories using venn diagrams and character charts and much more!

Literacy:

  • We will read several versions of the Gingerbread story aloud as well as listen to some at the listening center
  • We will write about our favorite part in the gingerbread stories, what we are doing to prepare our hearts for Christmas and what we hope Santa brings us for Christmas.
  • Journaling:  Our sentence must match our picture!  We’ve learned a new word.  BECAUSE!  We have a song that helps us remember how to spell this long word.  This is an important word because it helps us to add details in our words.
  • Focus on number words–reading and spelling

Math:

  • We will be sorting buttons by color and graphing our results
  • Roll and tally or create a bar graph using number word dice
  • Counting by 5′s and 10′s–practice at home!
  • What comes before/after?  How many groups of ten in certain numbers?

The children are feeling very comfortable with their numbers up to 100.  This is important as we will start using these numbers in addition and subtraction problems after Christmas break.  Play around with numbers at home.  Ask your child questions like, “If I have 8 cookies, how many more would I need to get to 10?”  “If I am thinking of a number that is GREATER THAN 78, but LESS THAN 80, what number am I thinking of?”  “What number has 6 groups of ten and 3 leftovers?”  “tell me a number that is in the 70′s” etc. 

Religion:  You child should be doing a good deed EVERY NIGHT!  Ask your child what good deed he/she shared with the class.  During this busy season, we notice different ways people prepare for the holidays.  In our classroom, we focus on how we prepare our hearts for Christmas.  Advent is time of waiting and preparation.  We are getting our hearts ready for Jesus’ birth by doing good deeds!

Also posted in General News | Comments closed

Kindergarten Newsletter, December 2nd, 2011

By Becky Hedlin | Published: December 1, 2011

Upcoming Events/Mark your calendars:

  • Wednesday, December 7th:  Hot Lunch, Arby’s
  • Thursday, December 8th: Mass, 9 am, Immaculate Conception
  • Thursday, December 22nd:  Christmas Mass, 9 am.  Please plan on joining us!  The kindergartners will be singing on the altar after Communion.
  • Don’t forget to send in your assigned food item for the giving tree food baskets!

This Week:

We hope all of the kindergarten families had a wonderful Thanksgiving foliday filled with lots of family and good food!  Our Thanksgiving Feast was a big success.  Be sure to check out our PICTURES page to see some of the fun we had.  After we ate, we graphed our favorite foods.  Turkey  and ice cream jello had the most, but many also enjoyed the mashed potatoes and pumpkin spice cake!  A BIG thanks to ALL who contributed to the feast. 

We will still be going outside for recess.  All children need to bring hats and gloves to school!  We have discussed the best way to keep hats and gloves together so nothing gets lost.  Watch for your child to be responsible at home with their belongings too.

Food Baskets:  Each child was assigned a food item to bring in for our giving tree food baskets.  Thank you in advance for your contribution!

Next Week:

Literacy:

  • Word wall word practice.  We are now focusing on NUMBER WORDS up to TEN.  We will be practicing words by writing them, playing word wall BINGO, doing smartboard activities, writing on magnadoodles and in salt and playing two new games, word wall go fish and KOOKY stick!  Ask your child to explain these games to you!
  • Journaling EVERYDAY.  The kindergartners are now generating their own topics
  • Word families
  • Phonemic Awareness activities
  • Christmas read alouds–predictions, reactions, connections

Math:

  • Number words
  • Number recognition
  • What comes before/after?
  • How many groups of ten in 63?  85? etc.

Science/Social Studies:

  • We are looking for signs of Winter as the shorter days and bare trees remind us it is approaching!

Religion:

We will be discussing the real meaning of the Christmas Holiday.  In kidnergarten we talk alot about how Christmas day is Jesus’ birthday.  Each day leading up to Christmas break, we will gather around a crib and share a kind deed with the class.  With each kind deed, a new piece of  ‘hay’ will be placed in the crib.  We are softening the bed where Jesus will lay on Christmas day!  What are our presents for Jesus on His birthday?  Our good deeds!  Each day, ask  your child  what good deed he/she shared with the class.

Posted in Kindergarten Newsletter | Comments closed

Kindergarten Newsletter, November 17th

By Becky Hedlin | Published: November 17, 2011

Dear Families,  

We’ve spent the last several weeks talking about all of God’s blessings.  Our kindergarten turkey served as a reminder of the many things we have to be thankful for. We remain grateful for all of God’s gifts-big and small!  The kindergarten team has you, the St. Cletus School Family, at the top of our “thankful list”.  At this time, we especially thank you  for coming together and sending in the items needed to help us put on our Thanksgiving Feast on Tuesday.  We couldn’t do it without your help!  The children, or the Pilgrims and Indians, are looking forward to a bountiful feast on Tuesday!

A few reminders about next week:

  • Monday, November 21st:  We will be preparing for our thanksgiving feast
  • Tuesday, November 22nd:  Mass, 9 am; Kindergarten Feast 11:00 am and last day of school. 1/2 day children are invited to stay all day.  Children DO NOT NEED TO BRING A LUNCH ON THIS DAY. 
  • Wednesday, November 23rd:  Thanksgiving Break begins.  See you back at school on Monday, November 28th!
  • ALL SCHOLATIC ORDERS ARE DUE ONLINE NEXT WEEK!!!

We enjoyed meeting with all of you at conferences last week. Working together, your child has grown and developed into a Kindertastic Kindergartner!   
  
Enjoy the break with your child! Happy Thanksgiving!!!

The Kindergarten Team

Posted in Kindergarten Newsletter | Comments closed

Kindergarten Newsletter, November 11, 2011

By Becky Hedlin | Published: November 11, 2011

The short week flew by! We’ve put away the Halloween decorations and have moved on to talking all about THANKSGIVING. We have so much to be thankful for which we will be talking about everyday leading up to Thanksgiving.  Each day the children will add a feather to our kindergarten turkey.  It’s a great visual for the kids to be able to SEE all that we have!  

We thank all of you who attended conferences on Thursday.  It’s always wonderful to have that time to sit down and talk  to you about your child.  We are proud of your child’s accomplishments and enjoy talking about those with you.  Together we will make this a successful year for your child!

Upcoming Events/Mark your Calendars:

  • November 16th: Hot Lunch, McDonalds 
  • November 22nd: Mass schedule, 9am and Thanksgiving Feast at 11:00
  • November 23rd-27th: Thanksgiving Break

Looking Ahead:

Please plan on joining us for our Christmas Mass on THURSDAY, DECEMBER 22ND, 9am.  The children will be preparing for the Mass along with their 8th grade buddies.  We will sing a selection of Christmas songs during the Mass.

Next Week:

This will be our last full week before Thanksgiving break!  We will be busy planning for our feast which will be on Tuesday, November 22nd. Thank you in advance for sending in the food items needed to prepare our meal! 

Literacy:

  • We will be reading all about the first thanksgiving and I am thankful books
  • Characters–who are the characters in the story?
  • Parts of a book
  • Writing about what we are thankful for
  • Journaling:  A full sentence with punctuation at the end!
  • Practice reading and spelling word wall words with a focus on color words.  We will be moving on to number words soon!

Math:

  • patterning
  • Teen numbers (recognition)
  • What comes before?  After?
  • Number Writing (top to bottom)
  • Graphing-creating and reading

Religion and Social Studies:

We will be singing songs about all of God’s gifts.  All good things come from God!  We will explore this topic until break.  Ask your child to sing these songs to you! With this we will learn about the FIRST Thanksgiving.

 

 

 

 

 

Posted in Kindergarten Newsletter | Comments closed

Kindergarten Newsletter, November 4, 2011

By Becky Hedlin | Published: November 3, 2011
Upcoming Events/Mark your calendars:
  • Tuesday, November 8th:  Picture Retakes
  • Wednesday, November 9th: Hot Lunch, Subway
  • Thursday, November 10th: 1/2 day of school; Parent/teacher conferences begin at 12:30
  • Friday, November 11th: NO SCHOOL
Looking Ahead:
The kindergartners and 8th graders will be in charge of the Christmas Mass on Thursday, December 22nd at 9 am.  The children will be singing a selection of songs during the communion meditation.  Please plan on joining us for this special Mass!
This Week:
Ask your child how many words are on the word wall in our classroom!  Reading with your child each night, you will discover all the knowledge your child has gained in these last few weeks!  Amazing! This week we began assessing your child on specific skills and will be ready to share the results with you. Together we can help your child have a SUCCESSFUL kindergarten year!
Next Week:
Literacy:
  • We will wrap up the INTRODUCTION of our Jolly Phonics sounds next week.  Once we have completed introducing the sounds, we will continue to reinforce what we have learned.
  • If there is a book your child can read, have him or her bring it to school to read to a teacher! We love when children read to US!
  • Journaling:  The children have started to generate their own topics in their journals.  Coming up with a topic to write about is a difficult task! Our writers love to write about things that interest them!  This gives each child the chance to write at his/her instructional level.  At this point, we expect each child to write 1 complete sentence in his/her journal.
  • Michael Heggerty Phonemic awareness:  Each day we orally manipulate sounds–change beginning/end sounds, isolate beginning/middle/end sounds, listen for chunks, listen for rhyming words, etc.
  • Word wall words/Sight words:  Each week we reinforce these words at center time by writing them in shaving cream or salt, on magnadoodles, whiteboards, with magnetic letters, smartboard games etc.  Don’t forget to practice these words at home! The children are doing a great job with COLOR WORDS!
  • Parts of a book
  • Predictions while reading and making connections to a story– “this story reminds me…..”
 Math:
  • We continue to focus on those tricky teen numbers!
  • Counting aloud
  • Counting on
  • What comes after _____, but before _____?
  • Estimate Jar
  • Tallying
  • Counting by 10′s; we will start counting by 5′s soon!
Religion and Social Studies:
On Tuesday, November 22nd, kindergarten will have a THANKSGIVING FEAST.  Mrs. Bentley’s room will be the Indians and Miss Hedlin’s room the Pilgrims.  We are working together with our room parents so that we have all the food items we need to cook!  Watch for an email from our room moms regarding the feast.  We THANK YOU in advance for your help! The day before our feast we will be busy preparing the meal–mashed potatoes, carrots, jello, corn muffins, turkey and pumpkin cake.  We work hard to make this a child-driven event meaning they will set the table, make their costumes and be the cooks! All month long, we will focus on all the good things God has given us.  Beginning next week, a turkey will appear in the kindergarten lobby.  Each day we will have 2 students write something they are grateful for on a feather and we will add it to our turkey.  We will watch our turkey become covered with feathers with each new grateful thing we add.  Discuss this with your child so he or she has many ideas of the good things in life.   We will focus on giving THANKS throughout the month as we learn about the first Thanksgiving.
We look forward to seeing you at conferences!  Please be on time as we want to talk about your child and things that you can do to help your child continue on the road to success!
Posted in Kindergarten Newsletter | Comments closed

Kindergarten Newsletter, October 28th

By Becky Hedlin | Published: October 27, 2011

Upcoming Events/Mark your calendars:

  • Monday, October 31st:  Halloween party in the morning
  • Tuesday, November 1st:  Feast of All Saints Mass, 9 am
  • Wednesday, November 2nd: Hot Lunch, Pisa Pizza
  • Thursday, November 10th:  1/2 day of school; conferences in the afternoon/evening
  • Friday, November 11th:  No School

Our Halloween party is next week!  On Monday we will celebrate with a party which is being organized by our room parents.  Students MAY wear their costumes, but please DO NOT send your child to school with candy.  Please be sure they are appropriate and that they can be taken on/off easily for bathroom reasons. This week, we enjoyed performing a halloween book, Inside a House that is Haunted for other classrooms.  Ask your child about the experience!

We are now accepting orders for Scholastic ONLINE.  Orders should not be submitted later than December 2nd so we will be able to receive our orders before Christmas break.  Just as a reminder, the website for ordering is   http://clubs.scholastic.com/  .  You should sign in with your user name and password or if you have not registered yet, please do so using the following classroom code: H2NGF.  Once you pay for your books, the order is sent to me and I submit it to Scholastic.  This allows us to get extra bonus points which means more books for our classroom.  If you would like to order books that will be given to your child as a present for Christmas, just let us know and we’ll send them home in a sealed brown bag.

As the weather gets colder, please consider using the pick-up line at dismissal.  Your child is ready for this independence.

Next Week:

 

We will be starting assessments next week and will complete them the following week looking at all areas of learning.  We look forward to sharing that information with you at conferences.

 

 

Literacy:

Do you see your child using different strategies for reading?  We can sound out words; we can use the words we know to figure out the words we don’t know and using pictures to help us read!  We also make predictions as to what we think may happen in a book that we have never read before.  Have your child read with you each night!  Look for the word wall words.  This practice is fun and you can see all your child has learned in a short amount of time.

 

Math:

  •  tally marks
  • numbers with proper formation. 
  • Counting…Practice counting with your child, as well as giving clues like’ “I’m thinking of a number after 19 but before 21.”  Visual memory is so important for ALL learning and this game helps develop this skill.  
  • graphing:  creating and reading graphs
  • Counting on from certain numbers

Science:  We will wrap up our discussion on PUMPKINS.  Ask your child about what we did with our pumpkins and discuss the results (do pumpkins sink or float?  why? what happened when we used the scale?). 

 

Religion:

 Our Thanksgiving unit begins right after Halloween.  Next week we will talk about Saints as we prepare for All Saint’s Dav.   What did the saints do?  How can we be saints in our actions and in our words? 

 

Posted in Kindergarten Newsletter | Comments closed

Kindergarten Newsletter, October 21st

By Becky Hedlin | Published: October 20, 2011

Upcoming Events/Mark your calendars:

  • Tuesday, October 25th:  Mass, 9am
  • Wednesday, October 26th: Hot Lunch, Dino’s
  • Monday, October 31st:  Halloween Party put on by our room parents in the morning
  • Thursday, November 10th: Parent Teacher Conferences
  • Friday, November 11th: NO school

Next week is Red Ribbon Week. You received a schedule of what is happening each day.  As a reminder:

  • Monday:    Shade out Drugs-wear sunglasses to school
  • Tuesday: Mass
  • Wednesday: Red Punch at Lunch
  • Thursday: Crazy socks day
  • Friday:  Bring your banana to make a banana split

Our Halloween party will be on Monday, October 31st.  The room moms have fun activities planned!  Thanks in advance to the parent volunteers.  Children ARE ALLOWED to wear their costumes to school.  Please make sure your child can take the costume on and off for the bathroom.  Also, please DO NOT send candy to school with your child.  We will have a fun treat at our party and we are SURE your child will get plenty of candy trick-or-treating that night.

Special THANKS to Mr. Schuler for coming in and speaking to us about FIRE SAFETY. Ask your child what he talked to us about.  Most of the children seemed unsure about a MEETING SPOT in case of a fire.  Please review this with your child.  We will be asking again!

The conference sign up sheets went home this week.  Please be sure to turn this in by 10/28.  If we do not receive your sheet, you will be assigned a time.  We look forward to meeting with all of you!

Next Week:

 Literacy:

  • Word wall word practice with a focus on COLOR WORDS–review at home!
  • Jolly Phonics:  We will wrap up GROUP 6 next week
  • Parts of a book–cover, title page, dedication page
  • Predictions while reading stories
  • Naming characters in a story
  • fiction vs. nonfiction 

Math:

  •  Graphing:  If  your child comes home with a graph, be sure to ask him/her questions like, “how many more_____ than _____?  How many altogether? How many more until another group of ten?
  • Counting
  • Counting on from certain numbers
  • What comes before ___?  What comes after ___?
  • Patterning using halloween items and pictures

Science:

  • Pumpkins!  Pumpkin life cycle, will a pumpkin sink or float? Parts of a pumpkin

Religion:

Our creation unit wraps up next week.  Help your child see the beauty in all of God’s gifts.  We will go to Mass as a school family on Tuesday.  Talk to your child about the areas in our Church.  We make a Church visit every week.  We explore and pray together in the quiet.  God speaks to us in the silence.  When you and your family go to Mass, have your child show you the areas of our Church.  Let your child see you praying and saying prayers as a family (at night, before meals, etc.)  We have looks at crucifixes and at the rosary regularly.  Does your child have a crucifix in his or her room?  Do you have a rosary to show your child?  Our Catholic faith can help us in happy and sad times.

 

Please check out our ACTIVITIES FOR HOME PAGE.  It has been updated!  This is your child’s ‘homework!’ :)

Posted in Kindergarten Newsletter | Comments closed

Kindergarten Newsletter, October 14, 2011

By Becky Hedlin | Published: October 14, 2011
Upcoming Events/Mark your Calendars:
  • Wednesday, October 19th:  Hot Lunch, Little Joe’s
  • Friday, October 21st:  Dress Down day for 1st-8th to support Breast Cancer Awareness; we can still participate by bringing in a $1!    
     Despite the rain, we had a wonderful time on our field trip to the Farmer’s Market.  Talk to your child about all the interesting things we learned and the fun things we saw!  The bus ride is always a highlight!! :)   Quiz your child–what vegetables grow ABOVE ground?  BELOW ground?  What part of the plant are you eating when you have broccoli? Carrots? Potato?  Lettuce?  Each year, the farmers are wonderful to our children.  This year, they donated a large pumpkin to each of our classrooms, gave each child an apple and a homemade cloth backpack and also some great bargains on the items we did buy.  Only 1 more week left to visit the LaGrange Farmer’s Market–stop by if you can and look for our THANK YOU note!  Also be sure to check out the picture page to see some of the fun we had!
 
Religion:
Our Creation unit will continue through next week.  Help your child see all of God’s goodness through the blessings we receive each and every day!  We will go through this this unit over the next few weeks.
 
The full day children began our year long service project with the leisure loafers last Thursday.  Throughout the year, we will visit the Leisure Loafer club in our school gym once a month.  We will sing to them, bake for them and make them pictures!  God asks us to share our love with others.  That’s exactly what we will do! Your children bring many smiles to the Leisure Loafer members! Check out our picture page to see some of those smiles! :)
 
Science:
Our farmer’s market trip concluded our NUTRITION STUDY, a topic we will revisit often throughout the year.  
 
Fire Safety:  We look forward to a visit from Abby’s dad who will talk to us about firesafety. This is a good time to talk to your child about safety in your home.  Do you have a meeting spot outside your house in case of a fire?  We will be asking your child!  Thanks in advance to firefighter Schuler!
 
This Religion unit integrate well with a science unit of study!  We are watching the season change and looking for the beauty in God’s world at this time of year.  Help your child collect leaves.  Put these leaves in between heavy books to flatten them and have your child bring them to school.  We will explore them in many different ways next week. 
 
Literacy:
We read a morning message each day.  The morning message lets the kids know what is happening in school that day.  Within the message we look for our word wall words and we use our Jolly Phonics skills to decode words that we do not know.  We look for chunks and try to sound out words.   They can also can use the words that they DO know, to figure out the words they DON’T know (context clues).  As you read to and with your child daily, help your child see YOU using these skills.  Good readers use many strategies!  We are teaching your child LOTS of ways to enjoy a book. 
 
Jolly Phonics:  We took a short break from Jolly Phonics this week due to our busy schedule and will pick back up with GROUP 6 next week.
 
Journaling:  Write the sounds you hear; draw a picture to match your words; write the date at the top (10-13-11).
 
Math:
  • Number sense and number recognition will be an area of work this next week. 
  • What comes before?  What comes after? 
  • Patterning (halloween pictures), sorting
  • Graphing-most, least, how many more?  how many until another group of ten?
  • Estimating 
     
Posted in Kindergarten Newsletter | Comments closed

Kindergarten Newsletter, October 7th

By Becky Hedlin | Published: October 6, 2011

Upcoming Events/Mark your calendars: 

  • Monday, October 10th:  No School, Columbus Day
  • Tuesday, October 11th:  Mass, 9 am
  • Wednesday, October 12th:  Hot Lunch, Arby’s
  • Thursday, October 13th:  Field trip the LaGrange Farmer’s Market

This Week:

We  had a great time making applesauce last week–be sure to check out the pictures!

Fall is here!  We enjoyed a week of BEAUTIFUL weather and are beginning to see more and more signs of fall. As we notice changes happening outside, we are also noticing changes happening in our classroom.  The children are working hard and making so much progress in their learning. Each day, the children are excited to share with us words that they now recognize in books.  If your child can read a book to you at home, have your child bring the book to school so he/she can read to us!  We say to the children, “Three then me” which means read it three times at home before it’s brought to school.  Rereading books will help with fluency; even if it seems your child is memorizing parts of the book, that is OKAY—this will only help with CONFIDENCE!

 Next Week:   (10/10- 10/14)

Literacy:

  • Journaling
  • Finish Group 5 of Jolly Phonics and REVIEW; we will not start a new group next week due to the shortened week and the field trip.
  • Our new word wall was sent home this week.  These are words that we will focus on (reading and writing) from now until the END OF NOVEMBER.
  • Name Writing

Religion:

  • Thank you for helping us learn about BAPTISM by sending in a memento from your child’s special day.
  • Creation-  God’s gifts in our world.  All good things come from God!  Help your child see the world around us as a the gift that it is!

Math:

  • Focus on teen numbers
  •  tallying
  • making groups of ten
  •  organizing large groups of items
  •  number writing
  • graphing

Science:

We will wrap up our Nutrition unit with our field trip to the La Grange Farmer’s Market.  Anne Whiteway from the market will be coming to speak to the children on Tuesday about fruits and vegetables—how they are grown, whether they grow above or below ground, etc. The children are excited for the trip—they will each be allowed to buy a small item at the Farmer’s Market.  The cost of this item was included in your field trip fee, so please do not send your child with extra money.  Special thanks to the moms and dads that volunteered to be chaperones.  Make sure your child dresses for the weather—we go rain or shine! 

Things to ask your child about school:

  • What is the mystery box?
  • What is the morning message?
  • Who did you play with at school today?
  • What centers did you have today?
  • Tell us about your church visit (on Fridays).

Have a great weekend!

The Kindergarten Team

Posted in Kindergarten Newsletter | Comments closed

Kindergarten Newsletter, September 29th

By Becky Hedlin | Published: September 29, 2011

Coming up/Mark your calendars:

  • October 5th:  - Hot Lunch, Chipotle

                              – Field trip permission slips due along with $4.00

                              – Last day for scholastic orders to be entered online

                              – Hearing and vision screening is next week for the kindergartners

  • October 13th:  First field trip the the LaGrange Farmer’s Market! 

THIS WEEK:

This week we continued our nutrition unit focusing on APPLES.  We learned about the different kinds of apples—red delicious, golden delicious, granny smith and mixed.  We talked about our favorite kinds of apples and graphed and sorted them.  We discussed our favorite way to eat apples.  Ask your child what his/her choice was.  What was the class favorite?  On Thursday, we rolled up our sleeves, got a little messy and made applesauce!  We tried it and graphed whether we liked it or not.  Ask your child about the results of all our graphs!  We also learned new songs about apples and read fiction and non fiction books all about the delicious fruit.  We were very busy this week!


We are so proud of the children and the progress they make each and every day.  We are always looking to celebrate new accomplishments in the classroom, whether that be for adding a link to the chain for the first time, figuring out how to make a troublesome letter, finding a word wall word in a book or learning how to hula hoop!  There are so many “firsts” in kindergarten and we hope you have as much fun celebrating your child’s achievements as we do!

NEXT WEEK (October 3rd-7th)

Literacy: 

  • Our Phonemic awareness program is going great! Research tells us that hearing sounds of the letters is one of the first steps to reading!  Sing songs, play games with words, this will help your child to become a good reader.
  • We’ve introduced INITIALS to the children–ask your child to show you his/her initials
  • Top to bottom handwriting
  • Name writing (focusing on first name)
  • Journaling-picture at the top (details, details!) and word (s) on the bottom
  • Word wall word practice (morning message, magnetic letters, smartboard activities, magna doodle writing, salt/shaving cream words)
  • We will finish group 4 letters, and move on to group 5 letters.  Please note that we are starting to practice “sounds that are made using TWO letters”.  These are much trickier to learn–we will practice daily!
  • Parts of a book

Math:

  • Number writing and number order, 1-20.  The children are having trouble with those tricky teen numbers!  Help your child count and recognize these numbers early and often!
  • tallying–bundles of five and groups of ten
  • Graphing (reading and creating)-more than/less than–how many more?
  • sorting and patterning

Science:

  • We will continue our unit on Nutrition and wrap up our study of apples.
  • Watching for signs of fall!

Religion: 

Baptism is a time when we became a part of the church and God’s family.  Next week, we are asking that the GIRLS please bring in a memento from their Baptism on Wednesday, October 5th, and BOYS please bring theirs in on Thursday, October 6th.  A paper reminder will be sent home the day before. This memento may be a picture, a candle, something special received on this day, etc.  Make sure your child’s name is somewhere on the item, or it is placed in a bag with his/her name.  After your child shares, the memento will be put back into his/her backpack. Please be sure to discuss baptism with your child.  Who are your child’s godparents?

***Please make sure your child’s last name is written somewhere on the tag of his/her gym sweatshirt AND coat (as the weather begins to change!) .  Currently missing is a small gym sweatshirt (a child accidentally took this and we have an extra medium size here at school) from Miss Hedlin’s class .  If you feel like your child mistakenly took the wrong size sweatshirt, send it in so we can exchange it for the medium :)   Names on the sweatshirts will help us avoid any more confusion.  Thank you!***

As always, send as an email with any questions you may have!

Posted in Kindergarten Newsletter | Comments closed