A Short Week and a Field Trip Means Busy, Busy Children

Last week ended with the 24th day of school.  It is hard to believe we completed the fifth week of school!  We are experts at Kindergarten.  Our day goes by quickly.  We are working so hard at understanding letters and how they fit together to make words.  We are learning words turn into sentences and sentences turn into stories.  Last week, we began identifying nouns.  We are learning that a noun is a person, animal, place or thing.  Look for nouns in your world.

We have become quite good at training our ears to hear rhymes.  We also challenge ourselves to make rhymes.  Some might say we like to rhyme all the time.  To make things trickier, we are also talking about the initial (beginning) sounds of words.  Some children get confused with rhymes and beginning sounds.  Rhymes have the same middle and ending sound.  When working with the children on initial sounds, I do use the word initial and then follow it by saying the words "the beginning sound."

 Obviously, I didn't make it to the reading table last week in a timely manner. So the children took it upon themselves to begin their high frequency word practice without me.  I told you the children were experts at the way Kindergarten works.  This week we will be investigating the letters:  Oo, Pp, Qq, Rr, Ss.  The high frequency words for the week are:  the, little, a, to.  


Since this is a short week, Nancy's Italian Ice will be sold on Tuesday.  Also, if you are buying snack/juice this week, send in $4.00 instead of the usual $5.00.

We will visit the library on Thursday of this week since we missed our library day on Monday.  Send your child's library book to school on Thursday.

 We continue to work with numbers up to five.  We play a lot of games to help lay a strong mathematical foundation to build on.  We will continue to work on comparing numbers and use the terms same as, greater than, and less than.

We need a LARGE package of  regular M&M's (Costco/Sams size package) and two packages of the Jet Puffed miniature FunMallows (the small fruit flavored marshmallows of orange,strawberry,lemon and lime) if anyone would like to volunteer to help out.  Please email me so that we don't have duplicates if you are able to provide these items by next Monday.

Information will be sent home on Tuesday about a directory for our classroom.  Please send it back by Thursday so that the information can be compiled.  Please return the form even if you choose not to participate.

The big, big news for the week is our first field trip on Friday.  If you volunteered to chaperone, I will send an email out on Wednesday giving you directions to the nature center.  The field trip t-shirts will be sent home this week.  Our t-shirt is yellow.  This t-shirt is to only be worn on field trips.  I will send out an email once the t-shirts are in backpacks so you know to look out for them.

 Poetry Journals came home last Thursday so families would have extra time to read and work on learning phone numbers.  I will assess phone numbers the first week of October for report cards so keep practicing at home.  Return poetry journals on Tuesday.  I will send home poetry journals on Thursday of this week because of Friday's field trip.

We had some extra time the other day so we got out Q-tips, old cardboard boxes and some yellow paint.  Who says you need expensive art supplies? We painted some beautiful suns so that we could add some Room 114 sunshine to the hallway.   Check out the artists hard at work right here!

The Queen of Ten came to visit on the 20th of day of school.  The children were quite impressed that her favorite number is 0. She even brought a favorite zero snack to share with Room 114. Thank you for supporting the learning style of Room 114!  Contact me with any questions or concerns.

Upcoming Events:
9.15:  No school for students.  It is a teacher in-service day.
9.16:  Spirit Card fundraiser ends
9.19:  Kindergarten Field Trip to Lanark (Alabama Nature Center) in Millbrook
9:20  Spirit Day (all day long) at the Great American Cookie at Eastchase
9.25:  Teacher Treat Day (K and 5th grades - host)
10.13:  No school for students.  It is a teacher in-service day.
10.16:  Blount Fall Festival