DIBELS Scores...

You will be receiving your child's DIBELS scores in the next couple of days.  This is a short video on how to read your child's scores.  If you have any questions please let me know.  I hope you all are staying warm!

Let's Have Fun...

This week we will be continuing with our Reading Street program and reading The Lion and the Mouse.  We will be focusing on the main idea (or theme) of a story this week.  We will also continue to work on blending words.  This is one of the areas where we need to continue to concentrate on.  I have noticed students know their sounds, but they are not fluent with the sounds enough to blend the words.  Our sight words will remain the same this week (they, of, you).  Please take some time to review all of the sight words nightly for about 5 minutes.  This is important and will help with your child become fluent in reading.

This week in math we are continuing our work on subtraction.  I did notice some confusion with addition and subtraction and a few children getting these two skills mixed up.  Please continue to work on this skill throughout the week.  We will be working with subtraction with various manipulatives...food works great and so do coins!  In addition, please make sure you allow your children to do the writing.  We want you to help your child with the learning; however, it is important for them to do the work.

We go to book fair this week on Wednesday and Thursday at 12:00!  It should be a great time!

Have a great week!

Fun...Fun...Fun...

We are beginning the 3rd quarter this week (oh how time flies when we are having fun).  We have completed all of our assessments for the 2nd quarter and report cards will be coming home in the next week. In addition, your child will receive one of three scores on their report card.  The three scores are proficient (P), making progress (M), or limited progress (L).  This basically means if your child can do the assigned skill listed with no help he/she will receive a P, if he/she is making progress towards the skill listed they will receive a M, or if he/she is unable to complete the skill independently or is not making progress then your child will receive a L.  Please do not be discouraged if they receive an "L" because progress may have been made.  We will discuss this more at conferences.

This week we will be continuing on in our reading street and discussing the differences between today and long ago.  This always allows for some great conversations to occur about what we had awhile ago to what we have today.  You may want to take some time and talk about how school was different for you.  We will continue to work on blending words.  The children are doing this extremely well and I am impressed with how well they are learning their sounds and words.  We have three new sight words this week (they, of, you).  I have noticed the word "like" and "me" have been somewhat difficult for the children.  Please take some time to review the sight words nightly for about 5 minutes.  We are working extremely hard on our writing too.  The children need to be able to write a sentence with spacing, upper/lowercase letters, and punctuation by the end of kindergarten.

This week in math we are going to work on subtraction.  The children will be working with numbers up to 5.  We will practice drawing a picture and crossing out what we are subtracting. We will then move into writing number sentences. I did notice the number sentence is what confused many children during the addition chapter. Please take time to review number sentences. You also have probably noticed that your child has been bringing home unfinished or partially finished math pages. This is for you to do at home and review what we are doing in class.

Have a great week!

Learning Time...

This week we will have our DIBELS assessment.  I am looking forward to seeing the results of how the students are performing.  In addition, we will review these scores with you at conferences or send home the scores with your child.  If you receive your scores and you have a concern please do not hesitate to give us a call and we will talk with you about it.  Please remember if your child did not make the benchmark this may mean we will want to do some intervention with your child to help them in a particular area.  Furthermore, if your child made the benchmark closely, we may want to continue an intervention because we want your child to be strong in all areas.

We will continue into reading street this week.  We will be focusing on the letter Ff and the sight words look and see.  Another word, which is not a sight word, but is important is and.  We will be introducing this word to the children as well.  We will be continuing our work with story plots (beginning, middle, and end) and the characters in a story.  The children will also be working on their writing.  We are looking for children to have "control" over their writing.  This means the words and letters are on a line, legible, and spacing.  Every morning your child will have a chance to practice this skill.  You can see how your child is progressing when you check their folder nightly.

In math, we will be reviewing addition.  We are working with making number sentences and combinations of 10.  In addition, we are working with word problems.  The children have been doing a great job with addition, but I would like to see the children become a little more fluent.  One of our standards is children need to be fluent with addition facts of sums less than 5.  This would mean 5+0, 2+3, 4+1, 1+4, 2+2, 1+3 etc.

Have a great week!

Its Cold...

I sure miss seeing the kids.  Please make sure to stay warm and if you do go outside, bundle up!  I look forward to hearing from the children on what they have done over break!

January...

We are moving right through Unit 3 of Reading Street!  This week, we will be reading, “George Washington Visits”.   This story correlates very well with our question of the week: How is life today different from life hundreds of years ago?  The children will also be introduced to the concept of cause and effect as well this week.  However, we will continue to review the setting, plot, and characters of our stories!  Our Amazing Words for this week are: celebration, sprinted, barn, blacksmith, arch, and soldier.  I think the children will enjoy thinking about how different life was without television, computers, iPods, iPads, and the x-box.  It should be a fun week for discussion!  

In addition, we will be reviewing the letters Dd and Kk and their associated sounds.  Both Dd and Kk are short, quick sounds; therefore, please do not allow your children to add the “uh” sound.  This can create difficulties for them when they segment words.  We will also be introducing two new sight words: “see” and “look”!  

We are planning to continue our work with our other sight words this week and using them to create awesome sentences!  Students will revisit the basic elements of writing sentences this week as we continue our new morning routine.  The children are now required to come in and read a sentence, write a sentence, and draw a picture to show comprehension of the sentence.  Students should be able to show you how they start a sentence with a capital letter, use two finger spacing between words, and end their sentence with a punctuation mark.  Please continue to encourage your child to be writing at home on their days off.  

In math, we will be taking the Chapter 5 test on addition.  You will see the results of this test next week.  After the test we will be moving into subtraction.  The children have done a good job with addition.  Many children are doing well with having cubes to help them complete the problem.  Our hope is to have children doing many addition problems mentally by the end of the year; therefore, please continue to work with addition.  A great site to help you with addition is: http://goo.gl/NgnVA and http://goo.gl/njGoF.