Mr. Stahl's Kindergarten...

Wednesday, February 22, 2012

Sight Words...

Here is a list of our sight words up to this week. Please continue to practice these words each week. In addition, please check the "Family Ties" for up to date information on new sight words.

Sight Words

Monday, February 20, 2012

Continuing On the Fun...

I hope the children enjoyed their time off of school. I know the A class only comes on Wednesday this week and the B class only came once last week; therefore, we are continuing our learning from last week. This allows the children to have all the same lessons as each other. We will work with the story "My Lucky Day" in Reading Street. We will also be concentrating on final sounds in words. Children should be able to isolate the last sound in a word and tell you the corresponding letter. One area Miss Todd and I have found to be troublesome for some of our children are the sight words. These words are progressively becoming harder and next week we have new ones. Please make sure to take 5 - 10 minutes to practice sight words, especially on the "off days." This will allow the learning to continuing and to allow your child more practice on these words. We will send home a full list of all sight words up to date this week for your reference.

In math, we are working with teen numbers and building numbers. Children should be able to read and write numbers to 20 and be able to compare these numbers. This helps us as we will begin addition and subtraction in the coming weeks. We want this skill to be "automatic;" therefore, your child should be able to see the number and state it in less than 3 seconds (this is the same for letters and sounds).

On Friday we will have our fun day. The A class had their Friday Fun Day a couple weeks ago and this will be the B classes turn. We will be jumping rope for "Jump Rope for Heart" and taking a trip to the school library to learn about books and how books are arranged. We encourage you to take your child to the local library for another experience. Your child can even get their own library card.

Thanks again for making this such a great year and I am looking forward to the continuation of the year!

Fun Friday...

The "A" Class had their Fun Friday a couple of weeks ago and they were able to take a trip to the W-T Elementary Library and went to the gym for Jump Rope for Heart. We had a lot of fun. This friday will be the "B" Classes turn for their Fun Friday adventure!

Sunday, February 12, 2012

Valentine's Fun...

This week is a short week and it is Valentine's week. The 'A' class will come on Monday and Wednesday and the 'B' class will only come on Tuesday. We do not have school on Thursday, Friday, and the following Monday. This week we will begin the next week in Reading Street; however, it will take us two weeks to complete because of the long winter break. Students will bring home their "Family Ties" reading homework on Monday and Tuesday this week. Please take some time to do the activities over the next week. In math, we will be working with teen numbers. After assessing the children for the first time, I have noticed many children are having difficulty with reading the number 12 and writing the number 20. It is required for third quarter to be able to read numbers up to 20 and write numbers up to 20.

We will also be having our Valentine's Day Celebration on Tuesday and Wednesday beginning at 1:45. We have notified parents who volunteered to send in materials already. If you have not been notified, we will not be needing anything at this point. I do appreciate your willingness to help out and may be called on in the future. Please remember to have your child send in 25 Valentine's signed by your child on Tuesday or Wednesday.

If you have any questions feel free to ask. Thank you for all of your support!

Tuesday, February 7, 2012

Valentine's Day...

Valentine’s Day Celebration

We will have our celebration on Tuesday (14th) or Wednesday (15th) from 1:45 – 2:30. Please send in 25 Valentines to be handed out on that day. Please have your child sign them, but please do not address them to a specific person. We will also be making our Valentines bag at school. We are asking for you not to send in anything extra in to our party. This is important as we have various food allergies in our classroom.

Sunday, February 5, 2012

WOW...Lots of Learning...

Children Working Together at the Computer Center

First, I cannot believe where the time has gone. This year is flying by and I am amazed ever day how much the children are learning. Second, I want to thank the parents who came last week to conferences and I look forward to seeing the parents who are coming this week. We had a very packed schedule and we are having to have some phone conferences. We will be making these phone calls throughout this week.

This week we will be moving into Reading Street Unit 4. We have a new question "What can we learn from our adventures?" I think the children will really enjoy this particular unit. We are introducing new sight words "are, do." Some children are still having difficulty with our previous sight words "they, you, of." Please continue to practice these sight words at home as we continue to practice them at school. The expectation is children should be able to say the sight word within 3 seconds of seeing the word. We are working with comprehension by identifying the characters, setting, and main idea. In addition, we work on retelling and sequencing the story. These are all great questions you can ask your child as you read various stories at home with them.

We are continuing to work on our writing every morning. Children are suppose to be able to write a complete sentence with spacing, upper/lowercase letters, and punctuation. Most children are doing well. The most common error we have noticed is spacing. The children will start off well, but as the sentence continues their spacing diminishes. We are also requiring the children to write their first and last names on papers. Children must be able to write their first and last name correctly for 3rd and 4th quarter. This requires children to have an uppercase letter and lowercase letters. In addition there name needs to be controlled, which means on a single line and not extremely large.

In math, children will be assessed on modeling numbers up to 20. This entails children to build a random number up to 20 on a double tens frame. The children have practiced this throughout January and February and we feel confident they should do well. Furthermore, we will be assessing children on the ability to compare 2 numbers. Children will be required to identify the larger or smaller number of a given set. We have been working on this skill through the learning game "Top-It" or "War." Lastly, we will begin introducing one more and one less to the children. This will help prepare children for addition and subtraction. Students will explore this skill through various math games.

Once again, I cannot thank you for all of your support at home. A lot of this learning could not occur without the home-school connection! You all are wonderful :) If you have any questions please feel free to email or call!