Kindergarten News

• Earlier this week I sent home a sheet summarizing your child's beginning-of-year assessments. Please let me know if you have any questions. Parent-teacher conferences will be held October 31st & November 1st (there is no school for students those two days). I will send out a sign-up sheet October 4th.
• We are going on a field trip to the pumpkin patch October 15th! Permission slips are coming home in TOYS folders today. There is a place on the permission slip to indicate if you would like to chaperone.
• September 23rd: NO SCHOOL (PD Day for teachers)
• September 30th-October 4th: Homecoming Spirit Week (see below)
• October 4th: Homecoming
• October 9th: End of First Quarter
• October 10th & 11th: NO SCHOOL (Fall Break)
• Mark your calendars for our winter and spring music programs: Wednesday, December 4th at 6:30 p.m. and Wednesday, April 9th at 6:30 p.m.

Monday: Millie

Tuesday: Olivia

Wednesday: Penelope

Thursday: Victoria

Friday: Happy Birthday, Zoey!

Homecoming Spirit Week is September 30th-October 4th: Here are the spirit/dress-up days:

Monday: Comfy Clothes/ Pajamas

Tuesday: Twin Day

Wednesday: Class Color Day (wear your green class t-shirt)

Thursday: Hollywood Day

Friday: Bluejay Spirit Day (your child can also wear his/her Homecoming shirt if you ordered one)

The Homecoming Game is Friday, October 4th! This is a fun event for all ages! They will have inflatables, food trucks, etc. before the game starting at 5:00. Come cheer for the Bluejays!

We will learn about the changes that happen with each season, especially fall! We will read several books and poems about fall.

We will also have our first visit from the Dickerson Park Zoo through a program called "Animal Encounters." The zoo will visit once a month, starting Monday. Each month they will bring different animals and focus on a different theme. The theme for September is "Animal Needs." Thank you to Greenwood GPA for funding this program for our class!

We started Guided Reading/ small groups this week! All students are in a small group, and I meet with each group about three times per week. Some students are reading books. Some students are working on letters, letter sounds, print awareness, and some of the other foundational skills needed as they begin learning to read. The groups change frequently, as all students progress at different rates. At our parent-teacher conference in October, I will talk with you more in-depth about where your child is, but do not hesitate to ask if you have questions in the meantime! It is so exciting to see students beginning to read!

Here are some of the concepts and strategies we will be working on:

• Sight Word: my
• Pointing to the first letter of each word when reading
• Looking at the picture and thinking about what makes sense
• Telling what we have learned from a non-fiction book

We have been working on adding details to our illustrations to help tell the story. Next week, we will continue to work on saying words slowly and writing the sounds we hear. Ask your child to sing the "If You're Stuck" song (pictured below, to the tune of "Frere Jacques"), and have them show you how we say a word slowly.

We will continue to write personal narratives... true stories about "small moments" from our own lives. One of the goals of writing at the beginning of kindergarten is helping students to see themselves as authors.

Here are the concepts we will be working on:

• Correct letter formation and sound for the letters Pp, Ff, Ii.
• Phonological Awareness Skills, like hearing first and last sounds, changing parts of words, counting words in a sentence, and recognizing rhyming words

We have been talking about writing our names the "kindergarten way," starting with a capital letter and the rest of the letters lowercase. Many children learned to write their names in preschool in all capital letters and this can be a hard habit to break. Please help your child practice writing their name the "kindergarten way" at home.

Our goal next week is to make and continue patterns. Here are some of the ways we will practice:

• We will make patterns using LOTS of different materials in the classroom (toys, foam shapes, beads, cereal, etc.)
• We will go on a "pattern walk" looking for patterns in and around the school
• We will make patterns with sounds and motions
• We will make and continue different types of patterns (AB, AABB, ABC, etc.)

Kindergarten Instructor

Email: abbylowe@missouristate.edu
Location: Greenwood Laboratory School Missouri State, East Harrison Street, Springfield, MO, USA
Phone: 417-836-5620