Kindergarten Monthly
February 2012
Our monthly newsletter will be posted on our blog, as well as on the Kendall webpage. To access the monthly newsletters on the Kendall webpage, please use this address, http://kendall.ipsd.org/Subpage.aspx?id=722, and then click on the tab “newsletters”. Please check the blog at the end of the month for the next month’s information! Your child’s teacher will put a week in review on her own classroom blog that will be written with the children and it will go over what was learned that week.
Look What’s Going on…
Literacy
During the course of the school year, your child will be involved in many language arts projects. These projects will be both group and individual efforts. Some will come home and others will stay at school to be used for reading practice. All the projects are designed to extend literature, expose your child to print, and provide enjoyment.The literacy focus skills for February will be to ask questions to monitor comprehension, to check for understanding during reading using the strategies of reading ahead, using picture clues, rereading and using context clues, to use aides (KWL, webs, and graphic organizers) to locate generated information.
In February we will be learning one sight word each week. The sight words for February are in, it, you and have. A complete listing of our sight words should have come home with your students in their popcorn tubs.
In February we will be learning about the letters I, L, H and B. Please continue to review the Jolly Phonics sounds as well as our “letter of the week”.
We will be reading books relating to our literacy focuses, such as Imagine, Jamaica’s Find, Miss Bindergarten’s 100th Day, Happy Hedgehog, & some nonfiction books about bears and butterflies. Which story is your child’s favorite?
Writing Ideas
When your child is writing at home, please remember to encourage capitalization at the beginning of sentences, spacing between the words and correct ending punctuation. We thank you in advance for your continued support at home. If you are interested here are some additional writing topics:
I like to pretend, I feel silly when, I know how to, I just love, If I were older I would, I’d use a magic wand to, tell about your favorite game, what do you think is funny, I like to play, what do you want to be when you grow up.
Writing is a great way to express yourself.
Math
Please continue to practice counting by 5’s and 10’s at home.
This month, we will review the penny and the nickel and start to measure and compare time.
We will introduce 2-dimensional and 3– dimensional shapes as well!
Social Studies & Science
This month the students will be learning about some very famous presidents! In honor of President’s Day, the students will be learning about George Washington, Abraham Lincoln and Barack Obama. The students will learn information about the three men and how they helped to shape our country! The students will listen to non-fiction books about the men and complete fun activities.
In Science we will continue our unit on Magnets!! We will be doing many whole group experiments and some individual exploration.
Reminders…
· Parents, as winter rolls around and your child(ren) are dressing warmly in boots, coats etc., it is a great time to practice independence with tying shoes, zipping coats, zipping backpacks. Independence in these skills makes the transitions between school, recess and home much more smoothly. Thank you for your assistance at home.
· Stop, Walk & Talk
We continue to encourage and model the stop, walk and talk method for students. Students are becoming more comfortable using these methods to assist them when they come to a difficult situation with a friend. They are also doing a great job following the Patriot Guidelines.
Wanted…
ONE HUNDRED DAY NEWS!!!!!
Monday, February 6th marks the 100th day of Kindergarten!! Can you believe your child has been in Kindergarten for 100 days? Time flies by when you are having fun!! It is time to celebrate. We are asking the children to begin a collection of 100 objects. Ideas for objects are: paper clips, buttons, beads, pencils, barrettes, baseball cards etc. Please make sure the objects can fit into a large Ziploc bag and food items are not allowed. Please assist your child in gathering the items, but they should be able to do most of the counting themselves. Have fun and make groups of 5s, 10s or 20s. An additional note will be coming home next week as a reminder (an example is on the back). It will be great fun to share all of our 100 collections!! Thank you!
*Children are invited to share Valentine’s Day cards with their classmates!
*We will have the kids create bags at school for their cards.*Please have your child print their name only on the cards they are sharing and bring them to school on February 14th.
*Food or candy items sent with Valentines will not be distributed to students.
*Parties are at 2:15 on Tuesday, February 14th.
Open House
Open house provides your child with a special opportunity to share his or her classroom and school with their family. There are daytime hours (if you can’t attend the evening) OR evening hours for you to attend open house with your child. Open house is on Thursday, February 9th at the following times:
2:30-3:00 (if unable to attend in the evening)
7:00-8:00 (Evening time)
We look forward to seeing you there!
Important Dates…
February 6 – 100th Day of School!!
February 9 – Open House
February 14 – Valentine’s Day parties
