Upcoming Fun...

We have some upcoming fun taking place. On Tuesday and Friday we will be having field day from 9:30-11:30. Please have your child dress appropriately. They should wear shorts, t-shirts, and gym shoes. I would hate to have to hav eyour child sit out during one of the events for not being dressed appropriately. In addition, I would recommend sending in a water bottle for these days as well. This will allow them to get a drink of water when they need it. The children should have a lot of fun!

On Thursday (5/31) and next Wednesday (6/6) we will be having our graduation celebration. The celebration will begin at 9:30. The children will be on stage singing some of our favorite kindergarten songs from this year! Please have your child dressed appropriately for this show. In addition, please do not have your child wear flip-flops. Flip-flops can get caught on the risers and the children can easily trip over them as they are moving around on the stage.  Your child may continue the celebration with you after the graduation celebration!

I am looking forward to the upcoming fun in kindergarten! It should be an exciting time these next two weeks! It is amazing the end of the year is here. I look back and think about how far we have come this year! Thank you for all of your support at home, the progress would not have been made without you!

Kindergarten Fun...

Lots of Fun...

First, I want to ask everyone to please do not let your children wear flip-flop sandals to school. We go outside everyday for recess. The children love to run around and play with their friends. Flip-flops are creating some injuries because the children are tripping over them or not walking correctly and their toes are getting scraped up. Thank you for your help in this matter.

We are continuing to study "how things are built" in Reading Street. We are working on reviewing our sight words. Please remember these words must be read in less than 3 seconds. This should be automatic. A few weeks ago we sent home a list of the sight words (if you need an extra copy please email me and I can send another one home). We are also working hard on our writing. We are working towards two sentences on a page and adding detail. For example, instead of saying "I see the dog," I could say "I can see the big brown dog." We are also working on writing about our reading and learning. We have planted plants at school and are writing about what plants need and other fun facts.

In math, we are continuing to work with addition and subtraction. We are also pairing this with surveys/graphs. We are gathering information and creating a graph. We are analyzing the graph and finding out information.

Upcoming Events:

Field Day: May 29 (B Class) and June 1 (A Class)

Graduation: May 31 (B Class) and June 6 (A Class) at 9:30

Graduation...

More Learning...

The end of school is fast approaching, but we are still learning and working hard in the classroom.  We just completed Unit 5 of Reading Street and will be moving into Unit 6.  This particular unit has a lot of review and preparation for 1st grade.  We will begin to review all sight words learned this year.  Your child should have brought home a sheet last week with the sight words listed.  You can continue to practice these at home.  We will be assessing all the sight words and your child needs to know them to receive a Y on their report card.  Many children are doing well; however, the words "where, what, come, was" are words which the children confuse often.  The unit theme is building and we will be delving into the question "What are different ways of building?" and we will be reading "Building with Dad."

We have been working on DIBELS this past week and will continue this coming week.  We will send home results once we have all children tested and the results are placed in the computer system.  We will try our best to send home results during the week of May 21st.  After reviewing some of the results, we are very pleased.  We want to thank you for your help at home.  Please continue to practice letters, sound, and just reading for fun!

We have been working hard on story writing in our writing time.  The children are doing a great job developing a story with a beginning, middle, and end.  Some children have written non-fiction pieces about plants and some have written narrative stories about themselves.  We want all children to be able to write a simple story with a beginning, middle, and end.  We are encouraging some children to be developing stories with 2 sentences on each page.  We are also looking for capital letters, punctuation, and spacing.

In math, we have been working really hard with addition and subtraction.  The children are doing a great job with these concepts.  I have seen some children begin to complete problems mentally.  This is a great skill and we are trying to work on all children to develop their mental math.  We will also begin to look at graphs and take surveys of specific topics.  We will use the graph and analyze what we gather.  This will allow us to do some addition and subtraction within the graph.  We will also write sentences about the graph.

Have a FANTASTIC week!

Summer Reading...

The Clermont Count Public Library is offering a summer reading program from June 4 - August 4.  The program can be completed online and in the library.  In addition, it is set-up for all ages (children younger and older can participate too).  Check out the link below for more information and Happy Reading!

http://www.clermontlibrary.org/srp2012.shtml

Sight Words...

Sight Words

May Flowers!

This week we will be learning a lot in kindergarten.  We will be completing Unit 5 in Reading Street.  We will be reading "This is the Way We Go to School."  We will be working on the comprehension skill drawing conclusions.  We will culminate the unit by going back to the big question "How do people get from here to there?"  We will pull all of our knowledge from Unit 5 and transportation to answer this particular question.  I hope the children have been coming home telling you about their learning in Reading Street and I hope you have seen improvement in their comprehension ability.  We have also been working hard on story writing.  The children have been writing stories all week and are making final copies.  It has been a lot of fun to read the children's writing and listen to the stories they have written.  The children have come a long way in the writing development.  We will be using these stories to help us with their writing assessment.  We will be assessing letter formation, spacing, punctuation, capital letters, and spelling.  When we assess for spelling we are looking to see if the children write what they hear; therefore, if a child was trying to write the word "monkey" we would expect the child to possibly write "muke."

We are currently still working on our sight words: where and come.  Please continue to work on these words.  In addition, we will be sending home a list of all sight words which should be mastered by the end of Kindergarten.  The words on the list are words we have been working on all year.  Your child should know these words in less than 3 seconds and should not try to sound them out.  Also, we are working on letter naming fluency (speed), letter sounds, and segmentation.  We will be sending home a new practice sheet this week.  We have our DIBELS assessment beginning next week; therefore, we want the children to do the best they can!

In math, we are continuing our work with addition and subtraction.  We are working with stories which delve into both addition and subtraction.  The children have to be able to determine if the story is an addition or subtraction.  We are also working on having the children identify the addition symbol and subtraction symbol as they are working.  This helps the children look to see what they are suppose to do before thinking they must add on everything or subtract on everything.

Finally, we are beginning one of my favorite units in science.  We will be working with plants.  The children will begin to learn about how plants live, grow, and the parts of a plant.  This will be what our centers revolve around over the next 2 weeks.  All the children will plant a seed and watch the first stages of a plant.  We will label a plant at our art center.  We will work with various seeds to help us with our addition and subtraction at the math center.  At our writing center the children will be writing about plants.  This helps children begin to develop a non-fiction writing piece.

I hope your children have as much fun this week as I plan on having!  Enjoy the week...

Story Writing Fun...

We have been working on stories...here is a sneak peek of our videos on our youtube channel (http://www.youtube.com/mrstahlkindergarten)...