Category Archives: Kindergarten Newsletter

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.

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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!

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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!

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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.

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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.

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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!

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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?

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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!’

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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

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Kindergarten Newsletter, October 7th

By Becky Hedlin | Published: October 6, 2011

Upcoming Events/Mark your calendars:

Monday, October 10^th: No School, Columbus Day
Tuesday, October 11^th: Mass, 9 am
Wednesday, October 12^th: Hot Lunch, Arby’s
Thursday, October 13^th: 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

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Kindergarten Newsletter, September 29th

By Becky Hedlin | Published: September 29, 2011

Coming up/Mark your calendars:

October 5^th: - 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 5^th, and BOYS please bring theirs in on Thursday, October 6^th. 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!

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Kindergarten Newsletter, September 23rd

By Becky Hedlin | Published: September 23, 2011

Reminders:

Monday, September 26th: LIL’ cardinal night (for PREk-4th grade students), 6-7:30 (after SC soccer)
Tuesday, September 27^th: Mass
Wednesday, September 28^th: Hot Lunch, McDonald’s. Don’t forget your fruit (especially as we talk about NUTRITION this week)!
Wednesday, September 28th: BRING IN YOUR FAVORITE COLOR APPLE!
Scholastic orders are due next week (online orders only)
Friday, September 30^th: NO school- teacher institute day.
Saturday, October 1^st: Oktoberfest in the parking lot

This Week:

We enjoyed our friendship fruit salad together as a class. We tallied and made a graph to find out what the most favorite fruit was. Ask your child about the results. God gave us friends. They are special! God wants us to love and share with our friends. That’s what we did with our friendship fruit salad! We began our unit on nutrition and worked a lot with the FOOD PLATE (which replaced the food pyramid). We sorted our kitchen foods into 6 groups—vegetables, fruits, grains, proteins, dairy and sweets/oils. We wrote about our favorite food, tallied our favorite fruit and sorted foods on the smartboard into the correct groups. We discussed how much we love chips and cakes and donuts, but it would not be a HEALTHY choice to eat them every day—just once in a while!

Next Week

Our nutrition unit continues with an apple theme! Fruits are an important part of our diet. On WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 28TH, we are asking for each child to bring to school his or her favorite apple (we will send home a paper reminder on Tuesday). We will be sorting, graphing and tallying using these apples.

Math:

Patterns
number recognition
number writing
tally marks (1, 2, 3, 4, 5 makes a bundle! Circle all groups of 10!).
Sort our apples by color and size
make patterns using apple cutouts

Continue to practice these at home! Use the Activities for Home page and Extra Practice page for ideas.

Literacy

letter formation
word wall work
We have finished group 3 and will begin GROUP 4 letters. Reinforce these sounds/actions at home!

Science:

We continue to find out more about our kindergarten pet, Snoopy. Please send in any NONFICTION books that you find at the library. We would love to find out more! We’ll be sure to return the book within a day or two.
Apples–do all apples have the same number of seeds? how do they grow? what do we make from apples?
Nutrition: Healthy eating, using the food plate to create a healthy meal. Discuss what food groups your dinner would belong in. This is a great website if you’re not sure! http://www.myfoodapedia.gov/

Religion:

We will begin our study of Baptism next week. We know we are special to our families and our friends, now we will see that we belong to God’s family since the day we were baptized. Talk to your child about that day in his/ her life. Who are your child’s godparents and explain how these people were chosen. We will visit the baptismal font to see where children first become a part of God’s family. All living things need water to live, water is a sign of God’s never ending love for us. It is used in Baptism and each time we enter our Church we bless ourselves with this holy water. Our unit will continue with a look at living things and all things that come from God. Our creation unit is right around the corner!!! Stay tuned!

After recess time, about once a week, we play a game called, “Mystery Box.” In this game an item is place in a box and the children are given clues as to what is in there! We ask children to come up with a describing question to find out the item. They must be “yes or no” questions. When we tally 20 questions, they are able to guess what they think is in the box. Help your child use words to describe things around your house. This language building game can be very fun and interesting!

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Kindergarten Newsletter, September 16th

By Becky Hedlin | Published: September 16, 2011

Upcoming Events:

Sunday, September 18^th: St. Cletus Homecoming Festivities: Read the following for more information: http://www.stcletusparish.com/school/parents/homecoming.pdf
Tuesday, September 20^th: School Pictures/Dress up day-please send in picture forms before then.
Wednesday, September 21st: Hot Lunch, Subway–don’t forget to send in fruit or veggies on hot lunch days!

We will begin our first unit next week—NUTRITION! With this unit, we will be looking at how to keep our bodies healthy. We will look at the different food groups, study the latest food pyramid (now a plate!), sort foods according to the food pyramid, write about our most and least favorite foods and talk about what we should eat more of and less of. We will be busy! We will end this unit with a field trip to the FARMER’S MARKET in mid October. More information to follow!

The children are showing interest in their beginning abilities to read and write. This is such an exciting time! Be sure to give your child plenty of praise and encouragement when attempting reading and writing tasks. We celebrate their achievements all the time in school! We especially love to do so with a song and dance. Also, don’t forget to use our EXTRA PRACTICE page and print out worksheets for your child to practice name, number and letter writing. Many of the children are showing great interest in doing independent work/practice at home and enjoy turning these papers in. They are proud of their work and so are we!

Help your child be independent! Now that they are grown up kindergartners, please use our drop off and pick up system. The children are ready! Also be sure your child is emptying out his/her own backpack. Find ways that your child can be RESPONSIBLE!

Religon:

We are special to our friends! This is what we will focus on next week. On Wednesday, September 21st, we will be enjoying a friendship fruit salad together. Please have your child bring in a small bag with his/her favorite cut up fruit on this day (no earlier please). After we put our fruit together, we will have one big friendship fruit salad. We will graph our favorite fruit and discuss the results. A paper reminder will be sent home on TUESDAY reminding your child to bring his/her favorite fruit. Any fruit allergies, just let us know!

Our friendship chains are growing each and every day! The children are doing kind things for their friends and teachers every day. Ask your child if he/she has put a link on our chain.

Math:

Patterning using A, B, C and D to label
Sorting
Writing numbers up to 20 (focusing on teen numbers)
Graphing (more/less than)
Graphing our favorite fruit from our friendship fruit salad

Science/Social Studies:

Nutrition: We will look at the new food guide, the FOOD PLATE (replaced the pyramid last year). We will look at the different food groups and talk about healthy and unhealthy eating. We will discuss how our taste buds change over time—just because you didn’t like something when you were little doesn’t mean you won’t like it now. Always good to TRY new things! We will write about our favorite foods and use magazines and newspaper ads to cut out and sort foods. Please help us out by sending in FOOD ADS any time next week!

Literacy:

Printable books: Your child will be coming home with printable books . These contain the word wall/sight words that we are working on. The children have been instructed to find a ‘lucky listenter’ at home to read to. Read our handout on ways to help your child with reading.
Journaling: Write the sounds you hear!
Word Wall/Sight Word Practice: using magnetic letters, salt/shaving cream trays, smartboard activities, I spy with flashlight on the word wall, marking words in printable books and our morning message.
Phonemic Awareness Activities
Jolly Phonics: We completed Group 2 this week and have started Group 3 letters. Be sure to reinforce sounds/actions at home!

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Kindergarten Newsletter, September 9th, 2011

By Becky Hedlin | Published: September 8, 2011

Friendly Reminders/ mark your calendars:

Please be sure to turn in your HOUSE page by Monday, September 12^th, if you have not done so already. We’d like to start sending it home next week!
Please send in your Kleenex/paper towels/baby wipes if you have not done so already!
Tuesday, September 13^th: 9 am Mass with our buddies.
Wednesday, September 14^th:Our first HOT LUNCH. Don’t forget to send your child with a piece of fruit!
Tuesday, September 20^th: Picture Day! Watch for picture day forms to come in the Wednesday envelope.

This week:

The children are settling very nicely into our classroom routines. One way you can help at home is by encouraging your child to take charge of emptying his/her backpack and folder. We are still noticing some papers that were supposed to be emptied coming back the following day. We talk a lot about how CARDINALS are RESPONSIBLE. Help your child be RESPONSIBLE at home by encouraging him/her to empty out his/her folder!

Center time continues to go well! Each day the children rotate through various centers related to the skills we are learning. Ask your child what centers he/she visited this week!

Next week:

Religion: I am Special to my family! This is what we will be focusing on in Religion.

Science: We are watching the seasons change and are beginning to feel fall in the air! The children have also been introduced to our class pets, Snoopy, the guinea pig and Chuck, the fish. We are learning and using new vocabulary such as, “prediction,” “observe,” and “experiment. The children were also introduced to nonfiction text.

Math:

Patterning using A, B, C, D
Sorting by color and shape
Counting
Naming groups “more than, less than, or equal to”.
Number formation up to 10. We will use our poems to help us. For extra practice at home, click HERE–turn in to your teacher for a sticker!
Tallying-bundles of five and circle groups of ten. Ask your child to show you at home!

In Jolly Phonics, we will continue our GROUP 2 SOUNDS (c/k, E, H, R, M, D). Your child will be coming home with their Jolly Phonics sounds today (Friday). An extra copy is available on the website. Please go through the sounds from group 1 together.

Each day we complete a letter page together. In kindergarten, the children are taught to form their letters from the TOP to the bottom. Look for this at home!

Literacy:

Name Writing: We will continue to practice writing our first names. All names begin with a capital letter, the rest lower case. We will focus on correct formation of the letters. Click HERE to make practice worksheets at home (type your child’s name, go to PRINT PREVIEW,Select 125%, and then print PAGE 1 only)
Word wall/Sight Words: We are adding new words to our word wall each week. Your child came home with a list of those words. An extra copy is available on our handouts/extra practice page. Throughout the week we will be writing those words, making them with magnetic letters, forming them in shaving cream and salt trays and playing word wall games.
Journaling: Draw a picture and write the sounds you hear!
Parts of a book–title page, dedication page, author/illustrator

After next week, we will begin our first big unit on NUTRITION.

Have a great weekend!

The Kindergarten Team

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