September 10-
Welcome!
This will be and exciting year for your child and you. I hope it is a productive one for your child and a fun one, too. I will keep you informed by writing a newsletter every two weeks which will be on blue paper, so you can find it easily. We will also have a website for our class for you to check regularly. You will be receiving a consent form for you to sign that your child’s picture can be on the website. Grandparents can see their grandchildren even in another state. It also gives you a chance to see what we do in kindergarten each day. It is a lot of work and money, but I hope you feel it is worth it.
Some children love to tell their parents everything they have
done at school. Others rarely say anything about their day. If your child does
not tell you much about what goes on in Kindergarten, you might ask him/her
these questions. Did you paint today? What was your job today? Did you do an art
project? What story did you hear today? This might illicit some answers on their
part. I want to keep you informed on what we are doing, so you can work with
your child at home on the same things we are doing at school.
Working together, we can help your child be the best!
What we will be doing
For the first two weeks, we will be concentrating on learning the rules of school. This will include-listening, following directions, how to line up, how to take turns, how to share, where to put your work when it is done, how to show others that you want a turn, and classroom rules. The main classroom rules are: take good care of yourself, take good care of others, and talk good care of the things in our room. Most children learn these easily. Some will need to have the rules repeated at the beginning to remind them. If a child is having difficulty even with a reminder, he/she may need to go to the thinking area to think about the rules of the classroom. If after returning to the previous activity the child continues to ignore the rules he/she may lose some or all of their outdoor time that day. We will also be working on the colors red and blue and all their shades, like pink, maroon, baby blue, navy, etc. Also we will cover the numbers one and two, what they look like, how to make them, and how many they are. At home you can use pennies, spoons, toothpicks, etc, to count. Any paper can be used for practice. Unlined paper is especially good early in the year. The back of paper that you have used, can be used by children. They love having their own tablets on which to practice, and you can buy a ream of copy paper for their use. They all need to work on writing their names correctly.
Supplies
School supplies were donated to Key this year. However, the children need something in which to carry their work home. This can be a backpack or pocket folders. We will be using a pocket folder for our alphabet homework which will start in October. These items will also be of help to our class: baby wipes and Kleenex. It would be greatly appreciated if you are interested in purchasing these items.
Dismissal
Please remember to pick up your child on time. A young child gets very worried when he/she is left, and all the other children are gone. In the event of car trouble, please call the office, so we can tell your child where you are. Your child will be in the office if you are late. Remember if you drive, drop your child off at the back door in the parking lot at 8:45 and 3:30 and at the front red doors at 11:30 and 12:45.
Key loves parents!
We love having parents participate in the education of their children. I will be needing a reliable parent to help with cooking each week. This will start the second week of school. Cooking is a favorite time for the children. In order for the children to do their regular activities, in addition to cooking, we need a parent there to help the children. If you can do this, please let me know and we will arrange a time. I prefer Wednesday, but I am flexible. If you would like to help do something else, whether once a week or once a month, please tell me. Some parents can only come once during the year. That is fine also. You will know what your child does each day, our routine, and have a better idea of what kindergarten is like.
You can help your child by:
© Giving him/her love and a feeling of security at home.
© Helping his/her self-reliance by giving him/her responsibility suitable to his/her age.
© Encouraging habits of obedience and respect for authority and property.
© Expressing approval of him/her for their constructive attempts or accomplishments.
© Reading to your child every day.
© Talking with, and not down to your child.
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What we will be doing
We are moving on with our colors. The children know red, maroon, pink, navy blue, baby blue, and plain blue. Now we are on green. Our numbers for the next two weeks are 3 and 4. Writing them will be the biggest challenge. The children need to continue practicing writing their names for about 5-10 minutes a day. Make this a fun time for them to show you what they can do. If siblings are doing homework, they will want to do it too.
You received a paper about Kindergarten homework last week. It consists of reading to your child for 15 minutes a night or one hour per week. All children at Key have homework. The monthly project will be this week also. Next month, our alphabet homework will start.
We are discussing our families this week, and our emotions. Families work together and play together. Each family lives in a different place, and it may be a small family or a large family. Kindergartners can help their families. They can make their beds, gather the trash, set the table, etc. With our emotions, it is OK to feel sad or angry, but we need to express those emotions in acceptable ways. If you are angry, tell someone about it. Don’t hit someone because you are angry with them. If you want a turn at something, tell the person you want a turn. Sometimes, I hear, “He won’t let me have a turn with that.” If I say, "did you tell him you wanted a turn?” they will usually say, “No.”
We are working on the 4 basic shapes now. You might point out things in your house that are squares, circles, triangle, and rectangles. Or you can play a guessing game and say, “Can you find a square in this room?”
We do a lot of singing in class. The children enjoy this time. Sometimes they sing well in class, but when they try to sing the song at home they may forget some of the words. They have the general idea, but not all the specific words. In class, with other children surrounding then, they really sing out. We are learning Nursery Rhymes now. The children love reciting them. Nursery Rhymes help with rhyming words, repetition, memorization, and visual memory. These skills are all important to success in school. Ask your child to tell you his/her favorite. For math I use various hands on activities, and a program called Math Their Way. It involves many activities that enable children to learn by doing—hands on. We will have many tubs of materials for the children to use. No activity is more important than any other. Children of various abilities work side by side, sometimes together and sometimes independently. At the beginning we will have free exploration. Some of the items we will use include unifix cubes which come in different colors and push together to make columns; pattern blocks which are different colors and shapes and they fit together to make designs; geoboards which are boards with rows of nails and rubberbands for the children to place over the nails to make various shapes and patterns; “junk boxes” which are small boxes of shells, rocks, glass blobs, colored sticks, keys, etc. that the children count, sort, compare, and make into patterns. I use whole group lessons to teach numbers, shapes, and number relationships.
I hear and I forget
I see and I remember
I do and I understand.
This saying is the basis for our math program.
Show and Tell
Show and Tell is starting. It will be on Friday only. I like for the children to bring something educational, like a bird nest, a science game, etc. rather than toys. They are not to bring toys to school with which to play. They are too easily broken or lost. We can not be responsible for them. They may bring something for our color table. This week our color is green.
Each child needs a backpack or folder each day to carry papers. We are losing papers down the hall. Please be sure to go over the papers your child brings home each day. It show your child you care about his/her work. You can see how your child is doing in class. If there is a problem on a paper, calmly go over it with your child. The two of you can correct it together.
You can help your child by:
1. showing a sincere interest in his/her school work, and going over his/her papers each day.
2. expressing approval to him/her for their constructive attempts or accomplishments.
3. reading to your child every day.
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What we will be doing
This week we will be studying safety. We will discuss being safe at home, outside, and at school. We will especially be learning about fire safety. You will probably hear that you need to check your smoke detector and plan a way to get out of your home in case of fire. The firemen will come and show us their truck. That is always fun. McGruff, the crime fighting dog, will make some appearances discussing ways to be safe. It is fun for me to watch the children’s faces while McGruff is talking to them. They want to hear from him every day, but unfortunately he only comes a few times.We are learning about rhyming words, and we will be saying a lot of them from now on. They are important for learning to read, because the children have to listen carefully to the ending sounds to see if they rhyme. They are training their ears to hear subtle differences in words. You can help your child by making up rhymes and saying them all the time. They can be nonsense rhymes or real ones. Say, “Let’s think of some things that rhyme with apple. Bapple, rapple, tapple. Can you think of some?” Or, using real words-ran, tan, man, fan, etc.
Our web site is up and running. Check now and check back often to see what we do each day, and see your child. It is best viewed in Internet Explorer. If you see anything wrong, please let me know. Sometimes a different size screen or browser makes things look different. It is a lot of work, but I hope you like it. I am not an expert in web sites, so it takes me a long time to get it working.
Keep up the reading at home. One hour per week for Kindergarten. Have your child bring back the reading log when it is full so they can get a treat and a new reading log.
Learning Through Language
Your child needs your support and acceptance as he/she gets older and tries out new language and literacy skills. Here are some things you can try together:
1. Tell and share stories. Children love traditional tales and stories about when you were a child. You could make up a tall tale together.
2. Read books together every day. Talk about the story and pictures. Go to the library together. Get books from the book orders sent home regularly.
3. Make a writing box. Gather things to practice writing: markers, crayons, pencils, index cards, envelopes, and various kinds of paper. Practice can be fun especially if Mom or Dad is writing at the same time on their work.
4. Sing songs together. Encourage your child to teach you songs from school. Or you can make up your sown songs to familiar tunes such as “Mary had a Little Lamb” or “Row, Row Row your Boat.”
5. Recite Nursery Rhymes together. They are especially good because they have rhyming words that they will recognize, and they have a lot of repetition with is good for Kindergartners.
Family Trees
The family trees that the families made are fantastic! We have enjoyed looking at them. I hope you will want to save them. No two were alike. You all did great work! Thanks for the time and effort.
Centers
Our room has many centers. Each newsletter I will cover one of our centers. This time I will cover the art center. We have painting available every day. This is very soothing for some children as they create a picture. We also have other activities involving gluing, cutting, coloring, and designing. This week we will be making traffic lights. They are not creative art, but the benefit is the children will be learning to cut circles, and they have to know which place to put them. They are following directions too. On other projects, they are on their own to design what they like.
What we will be doing
We are still working on colors, but we are talking more about mixing colors. What color do you get when you mix red and blue, etc? We are also working on recognizing the color words. We sing about them and spell them during group time. We will be talking about fall and Halloween which comes next week.
We will be wearing our costumes on the 31st for the fall party. We will also be going to Sam’s Club to sing and show off our costumes on that day. We will be parading through all the other classes to show them how unique we look. It is not necessary to spend a lot of money on costumes. Many can be made with cast offs for free. Please send your child in costume that day. If the costume is too uncomfortable to wear all day, you can send a change of clothes.
We are beginning our study of the alphabet concentrating on one letter each week. Of course, we will be discussing all of the letters, but focusing on that one letter. The children will have homework of cutting out pictures that begin with that letter. This will occur every week. The letter this week is M. Your child will be learning the name of the letter, how to make the capital and lower case Mm, what sound it makes, and some words that start with M. After this week, you will not get a note about what letter we are on, but your child should know because we will be discussing it each day. Remember that we have reading homework each week also. Key is suggesting one hour of reading a week with your child to help him/her become a reader very soon. Your help is essential for success for your child.
A Special Thanks
Thank you to all the parents who went with us to the Pumpkin Patch, I appreciated your help with the children. We couldn’t have gone without you!
Computers
The children enjoy the computer. They are experts at using the mouse now. They have not had to use the keyboard yet. We have used a variety of learning programs to teach a variety of skills—letter recognition, thinking ability, nursery rhymes, motor control, etc. By the way, my email address at home is [email protected] if anyone wants to email me. We also go to library class each week. The children hear stories and then choose a book to keep in our room. They can look at their book or others in our class every day.
The Value of play is Learning
When children build with blocks:
They learn to use their imagination to create something from their own thinking.
The have the satisfaction of being able to make something.
They learn about sizes, and shapes, weights and balances, height and depth, smoothness and roughness.
They are exercising their body.
They learn to play with others.
When children paint:
They are more concerned with the process they are going through than the finished product.
They learn about colors and how they can use them.
They learn to use their imagination and transfer their ideas to paper.
They get emotional satisfaction from being able to express themselves.
They learn how to use small muscle coordination to handle a brush.
They learn to make choices and decisions.
Fun at Home
You and your Kindergartner can
have fun a learning time at home doing some of these things. Sing songs
together. Share your favorites and let your child teach you some songs from
school Make a collection together of leaves, buttons, baseball cards, or
fabrics. Help your child notice similarities and differences which are important
to note when learning to read words. Talk about color, size, shape and texture.
Use a tape recorder. Listening skills are important. Record and play back songs,
stories, funny voices, and sounds you collect from around the house like running
water, the washing machine, and the blender.
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What we will be doing
We are finishing our work with colors next week. This week we are on gray, and next week purple. The children know about mixing colors, many different color names, and the importance of color in Kindergarten. We are studying apples this week as part of fall, and the things that happen in fall. We will be learning about the first Thanksgiving. It is a busy time. Please help your child keep up with homework. We have 15 minutes of reading at home at night, and cutting pictures of the letters we emphasize. So far we have covered the letters M,S, B, and T. This is very helpful in learning the sounds of the letters.
The Block Center
When children build with blocks:
¨ They learn to use their imagination to create something.
¨ They have the satisfaction of being able to make something.
¨ They learn about sizes and shapes, weights and balances, height and depth, smoothness and roughness.
¨ They are exercising their body.
¨ They learn to play with others.
Some Things Worth Remembering About your Child’s Education
1. Attitude and ability are both essential for school success. Sometimes, we underestimate the importance of attitude. For a healthy, rested child who is excited about learning, there are unlimited possibilities.
2. When you ask your child, “What happened at school today?” and the response is “Nothing,” it doesn’t mean nothing happened at school. What it probably means is,” I just don’t feel like talking about it right now.” Take the hint and wait a while. Then re-phrase the question, maybe, “What stories did you read today?”
3. Parents are the child’s first teachers, and more often than not, they teach by example. When children grow up in homes where books, magazines, and other written material are in evidence, there’s a good chance that reading will become an important part of their lives. Children love to have parents read their favorite books over and over again.
4. A successful school day begins long before the bell rings. A home plan that streamlines morning departures also smoothes the way for the start of classroom activities.
What I Love About Teaching
1. Every day is different.
2. Watching children grow.
3. Wonderful volunteers.
4. Doing something that can help make the future a happy time in lots of lives.
5. Hugs.
6. The freedom to be creative and inventive.
7. Noticing lots of little amusing things.
8. The chance to show young people they’re important.
Does your child know these things?
up and down in and out
front and back beginning and end
tall and short high and low
near and far long and short
day and night left and right
Try them in different ways with your child!
Important items we are working on now
We are working on important information that all children need to know. This includes their full names, parent’s names, birthday (month and day only), their address, and phone number. We are spending two or three days on each of these hoping everyone can learn them in that length of time with your help. You can check with your child to make sure that he/she knows these items before we cover them in class.
December 2-