Volunteers

Thank you to all of our parent volunteers who helped to make learning fun in our classroom!
Pictures will be posted next week.:) 
I have throughly enjoyed meeting with each of you during conferences. 
I am excited to meet with more of you on Monday!

Your child will be coming home with their October journal on Monday. Please allow them to share their work with you.  Please return them by Wednesday.

I have finished our shape assessments and will be sending them home next week as well.
You may keep that paper. If there are any shapes that your child can't identify at this time, we will continue to practice learning those shapes during small group or one on one time.

Currently, we are working on sorting in math. This will be our focus for next week as well as numbers 11-20.

Like I  mentioned during conference time,writing is an important task to be doing at home daily. Writing may look different with every child. They are all learning at their own developmental level. We honor this and nature it.
Every child should be drawing a picture and attempting to label their picture with the correct beginning letter sound. 
Some of my friends are moving onto writing 3-4 word sentences.  Again, phonetic spelling is developmentally appropriate.
Writing daily is an important part of kindergarten. One of my parents said that they had their child write a list for the grocery store! Their child drew pears and wrote p, cokes- cookies and drew cookies. This is a brilliant idea!!!

Homework will come home on Monday!

Have a happy and safe Halloween!
Thank you all again for supporting your children and their teacher.
Sara

Parent Connection!

The Internet is a household resource for most people. From checking the news and researching information to connecting through social media, many parents and students are online every day. Join Parent Connection, members of the VBCPS Technology Department and the Office of the Commonwealth’s Attorney for a FREE workshop “Internet Safety and Technology Resources for Parents.” The workshop is being held in the Landstown High School auditorium Thursday, Nov. 5, 6:30 – 8 p.m. Parents will learn how to login to the VBCPS Parental Portal to access student grades, discuss technology resources available to parents from home and gain a better understanding of the division’s Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) plan. Participants will also get tips for protecting their personal information while browsing websites and receive FREE software to install a “Computer Cop” at home. 

This Parent Connection Workshop is free and open to all families. Click here to register or call the Office of Community Engagement at 757-263-1936.

BOOK ORDER

The book order for this month is now closed.

Another one will be going home soon!

Learning and Surprises

Happy Monday!
Today we started off our day with a review of shapes. The children hunted through the magazines for shapes! We described our shapes as well.

Then, we read and discussed The Bumpy Little Pumpkin.


Our I CAN-
I can retell the characters and the setting of a story.
I can identify the author and the illustrator.

We had a surprise Mystery Reader today! Technology has no boundaries! 

Our word we will focus on during whole group this week

Our shared reading this week.

 We continue to make learning about being a good citizen part of our daily class routine. The children are learning about and practicing the first of The Seven Habits. Be Proactive!

Shapes!

Thank you for sending in 3D objects! We have enough for our lessons.
We do need more magazines.
If you have any that you would like to donate we would appreciate them.
Thanks so much!

New Friend!

Mrs. Widman decided after returning in September that she would like to spend time with her family and decided to retire. We wish her well and much fun in retirement. 

I am really happy to announce that we have a new teacher assistant joining us in our classroom. Mrs. Kim Urch!
Mrs. Urch has been a volunteer at Kingston for many years. Her daughter went to Kingston and her son is currently a student at Kingston.
Kim comes to us with much enthusiasm and excitement for teaching. She has taught in a private school in the past. Mrs. Urch has learned how to run small groups for math and language arts with ease.  She has fantastic classroom management and is a team player.
Mrs. Urch is organized and very talented-she is a fabulous artist and photographer to name a few! She learned all of the children's names and  and knew where they sat by the end of day one! 
Mrs. Urch is excited to be part of our class, and we are excited to have her. She brings much love and light to our room. 

Please help me in welcoming Mrs. Urch to our classroom! 

Sara

Reading Phones, Strategies, High Frequency Words

During small group  I introduced the children to the reading phone.  WOW! Was it a hit! I use these reading phones during our rereading time. This tool helps the children with their fluency and expression when they are reading from their independent level books. 
Many kids wanted to know where they could get one to use when they read at home.
Any hardware store.

The children are learning to use their reading strategies each day during small group reading time.
It is so important that the children practice using these as often as possible.  

I am also working with many of my friends on one to one pointing when reading and reading from left to right.  

Ask your child to show you!

 

 

Words, words, everywhere!

The children are learning that letters make words, and they are learning more and more words each new day. 
Currently, it is important that your child can read the following words:
a

am

at

up
can
I

is

Mom

Dad

love

the

go

all
see 
red
orange
yellow
blue
purple

 A great way to test your child's knowledge of these words would be to have them find them while they are reading with you, have them roll them out with Play-Doh, play find that word and or create flashcards with these words on them and the children can find the "hidden words" around the house.
For our friends who are reading,  you make flashcards that include the word in a short sentence.
For example,
see would be on one card  and on the other card or on the back of the card I see cats.

Help!

Please make sure that you sign up for a conference time.  The slots are filling fast!

The children have enjoyed learning about shapes the last two days. They went on a shape hunt through the school.  They will be creating a class big book with the pictures that they found on their hunt.



We need old magazines for next week's math lessons.  If you have some please send them in.
Thanks so much!

Conference Time!

Today I am sending you a link to sign-up for your child's conference online.
Please be on the lookout for an E-mail from VolunteerSpot.
If you don't see the E-mail, please check your junk mail.
I will hold our first conference this Friday.
Please sign-up!
If you would rather not meet, that is fine too.
I am happy to call you.
Thanks!
Sara

Shapes! Retelling!

I hope everyone had a fabulous time at the race and fall fair! This week we will explore 2D shapes this week. The children will build shapes with lines and curves out of pipe cleaners and Popsicle sticks. We will be discussing the attributes of a square, triangle, circle, and rectangle.
We will also explore 3D figures and discuss how they are similar and different to 3D shapes.
Please send in clean empty cans (no sharp edges), paper towel rolls
, empty cube boxes (tissues), empty cereal boxes.
During small group we will continue to work on reading and retelling.
The children are learning to look at the pictures and get their mouths ready when they get to a "tricky" word.

In writing our goal is to match our pictures to our words.
It is important that your child is sounding out their words when writing.

Farm Fun and News You Can Use!

Save the Date!
Penny Wars begin on October 26th. Please send in coins with your child. More information to come!
October 30th Everyone wear pink to school and bring a dollar to donate to breast cancer research please. 
Monday, November 2nd from 5:30-7:30 Skating Party @ Haygood Skating rink.

Fun On The Farm!

The children are learning to retell stories that they have read using character names.
They are making text to self connections.
We have read this week Noisy Nora and Cat's Colors.
Ask your child about these stories.

In writing we continue to work on adding details to our pictures and labels using sounds that we know. 
Please make daily at home writing part of your routine.

IPADS, WORD STUDY,MATH-HAPPY KIDS LEARNING!

Today Mr. Neihoff introduced the IPAD to every child. While many of our friends have previous experience with this tool, Mr. Neihoff taught the children step by step how to take out their IPAD, how to power it on, how to access PIXIE and use the app.  The children learned how to hook back into the power cart.
The children really enjoyed learning during this small group rotation. Mr. Neihoff will be wiping our IPADS and creating files of language arts apps, math apps, and other learning apps that will support our learning. 

#WEAREVBSCHOOLS

During small group language arts time, we are working on guided writing which includes letter sound. The children are using sound charts to help them when determining what letter to use in their word.  I am also including high frequency words that we are learning from our big books in the sentences as we are writing.

In my small group we are learning how to sort letters and letter sounds.  The children are doing a partner sort in these photos.

WHOLE GROUP MATHToday we counted kids in the pond (our fishy rug).
We practiced writing the number on our white boards that matched the number of children on the rug.  We changed their placement on the rug and discussed that no matter how we move if we have 8 and we move around into a different position on the rug, we still have 8!




Our eight crew

Our 7 crew



MATH STATIONS

 

Telling a story using talk cards and cubes.
"We are saying numbers!"



Number Boards- "I am thinking of one more than 2."
The partner would look for a picture of something with 3 of something  in it.
He or she would say, "I choose 3." They would find the numeral card 3 and match it to the picture.

WRITING TIME

We read the story, RED IS A DRAGON

The class discussed the author and the illustrator. We also wrote a sentence that used a color word.

Some examples that the children wrote and illustrated,

Blue is a bird.

Green is an alligator.

Pink is my dress.

Red is a fire hydrant.

 

We are continuing to work on name writing.

Labeling pictures using the beginning letter sound.

 

WHOLE GROUP READING

Ask your child about the moral of Pete The Cat And His Four Groovy Buttons

We continued to discuss the characters and the setting of the story.

 

SCIENCE:

Tomorrow we begin our unit on magnets.

Please talk about magnets with your child at home.

Our vocabulary words that we will be discussing are:

magnets, north pole, south pole, attract, repel, push, pull

Please feel free to send me pictures or short video clips  (they must be gif or jpeg) of your child experimenting with magnets at home! I will add them to our blog! Let's take learning BEYOND OUR SCHOOL WALLS!

 

 

 



A field trip reminder for went home today. Please fill out the bottom and return it to school no later than Thursday.

 

We are aware of the homework APP concerns. We are in the process of solving the problem.

Please continue to make reading and writing part of your daily at home routine.

 

 

Tomorrow is library day! Please return your library book!

Thank you!