Dec. 17-21

 

Last Day!!

It's been a crazy busy week in kindergarten. We have been reading a lot of gingerbread stories and talking about the setting, characters and main events of the stories. Thursday we decorated our gingerbread men and we also went on a gingerbread man hunt while working on counting backward and writing our teen numbers. We have been having a lot of fun playing with the gingerbread playdough. Thanks so much to the families that made the playdough and all the parents that braved the cookie decorating yesterday: Mrs. Hoskins, Mrs. Yack, Mrs. Thippisetty, Mrs. Sajja, and Mrs. Swanson!   Today we will have more fun with some gingerbread activities and our Winter party at the end of the day!!

Here are some suggestions for the time off--
1. Review sight words: If your child can read them all have him or her practice writing them or using them in a sentence.
2. Continue to work on writing sentences with correct spacing. (Thank you cards are a great way to practice this.)
3. Have your child practice writing his or her first name with a capital first letter and lower case letters for the rest. If they have this mastered, work on their last name or their address and phone number.
4. Have your child count by 2's, 5's and 10's as you are traveling in the car or waiting in lines.
5. Work on the math skill of COUNTING ON. (This is when the kids see a group of items--5 paperclips and then they count on 6, 7, 8, 9 to get a total of 9. They shouldn't have to count ALL the items. They should start to recognize groups of 5 or less without counting.
6. Point out numbers that you see and have your child practice reading them and writing them down, especially 2 digit numbers.
7. Talk about math problems that you solve with your child like we are having 4 guests over so we need a total of 8 plates tonight and talk out how you solved it . . . Just one example.
8. While you are reading with your child encourage him or her to retell the story they just heard (think beginning, middle, end or problem/solution)

We will be assessing all our math and reading skills after break . Report cards come out the following week.

Beginning in January, kindergarteners will no longer go outside for recess after lunch (until spring that is). Students will still have recess at lunch but it will be an indoor recess. The reason for this change is because of the time it takes to get snow clothes on and off. We are losing many minutes of instructional time to this task. We also have our specials (gym, music, art) right after lunch on many days. The students do not have enough time to get ready without being late. We will still be going outside at the end of the day for our assigned recess time so be sure to still send your child with appropriate attire for the weather.

I hope everyone has a happy and restful winter break!  See you all January 7, 2013!