Parent-Teacher conferences are this Friday, December 2nd and next Friday, December 9th. Please be prompt and know that I only have 20 minutes to conference with you. With 20 students and 2 half days, it doesn’t leave much time for long meetings. I will keep my clock handy and keep the conferences on schedule. At the conference, I will
review your child’s progress over the first 13 weeks, give you your child’s report card, and let you know where we are headed for the next 13 weeks. I am looking forward to seeing everyone again and sharing about your child. I am sending home a reminder of when your conference is tomorrow with a copy of this newsletter.

Thanksgiving
I hope everyone had an enjoyable Thanksgiving with family last week. At school, last Tuesday, we enjoyed the Kindergarten Feast. The Feast was a chance for the entire grade of kindergarten to come together in the Café for snack. The students chose whether to attend the feast as a member of the Wompanoag tribe or come as a Pilgrim
boy or girl. The students made a hat to represent their character. On Monday, the students shook tubs of heavy cream until it turned into butter. Each classroom also mixed and baked their own cornbread. The butter, cornbread, and popcorn were shared at the feast. Each student also designed a patterned placemat that was given as a gift
to another student. The classes each sang a song to the group as well. 

Name Writing

Almost all the students can now write their first and last names neatly and quickly. If your child is still struggling with this, please practice at home. You can make it fun and practice with magnetic letters. Have your child build his/her name on the refrigerator and then write it quickly after.

Sight Words
Now that most students know the alphabet in both upper and lowercase and can match most sounds to those letters, we will be working harder on learning sight words. A good foundation of sight words is crucial for a child to unlock the key to reading and writing. You will begin to see more sight word activities come home. I also refer to these words 
as Popcorn Words, since they “pop” up all the time in reading and writing.

And some of the students already know at least 15 sight words and are ready for reading books (or are already reading books)! Everyone learns at a different pace and in kindergarten we have to work hard to accommodate the variety of learners.

Letter and Numeral Formation
Correct letter and numeral formation is very important and I try to correct it and work on it as much as possible. However, sometimes correcting every letter or number gets in the way of an activity (like journal writing or playing a math game) so you may see reversals or poorly formed letters. This is typical for five year olds. Proper handwriting
is important and is being addressed. You can also work with your child at home if you notice a letter or number that is a particular struggle for him/her.

Math
Most of the math we do in Kindergarten is through manipulatives and games. I am sure you have seen plenty of the dice roll game sheets come home. The children love to choose this activity in their free time. We also play a lot of board games and card games to learn about numbers and sets.

Our class is starting work on a unit in mathematics called What Comes Next? The focus of this unit is constructing and extending patterns. Throughout this unit, students will be working toward these goals: Copy, construct, and extend simple repeating patterns such as AB, ABC. The children have also been measuring and comparing their names to
their friends’ names with their Name Ruler. And we are always working on counting sets of objects.

I have included a few sheets with a more in-depth review of what we have been working on and how you can follow up at home.

As always, if you have any questions or concerns please let me know via a phone call, email or at our conference!

Sincerely,
Diane Alsup

Happy Thanksgiving, Everyone! 

Thank you to Mrs. Carrier, for taking most of the pictures and putting together the slideshow! I really appreciate it. I added a few more pictures from Mrs. Biery as well. Thank you to all the wonderful chaperones for your help! The children got to really experience life in the fire house! 

Here are some pictures from our Chase Farm's field trip. I hope to add more pictures to it from the other chaperones who were along.   Updated Pictures!!!

Hello Everybody,

Fundations
 We have spent the last two weeks practicing the “sky line” letters on white boards. t, l, b, k, h, and f. I have included an individualized sheet of the letters your child knows and the ones he/she still needs to practice. Please have your child practice writing these letters and identifying them around the house.  You can make the practice fun. Have your child draw the letters with his/her finger in flour or sugar or shaving cream. Invest in magnetic letters for your fridge. Name a letter and have your child pull it down out of the collection of letters. This is a fun way for your kinder to practice spelling out his/her name too. You can also write the letters on index cards and place them around your house. As your child walks by, he/she has to name the letter. 

We will be moving on to the “Plane Line Letters” this week. i, r, n, m, p, q, j.  I will keep reviewing the previous letters as well.

Name Writing
The name writing is looking better and better! Keep practicing at home. 

Writer’s Workshop
This week we kicked off our Writer’s Workshop. To get the Kindergartners to see themselves as writers, I launch the Workshop by following the steps in the book Teaching Writing in Kindergarten. The book's "First Six Weeks of School" chart breaks down writing instruction week by week with attention to specific literacy skills.  Analyzing the chart, one can see the gradual time shift from teacher-directed lessons to increased student autonomy.  Beginning with a method to teach sound-symbol relationships, the author addresses everything from pencil grasp, letter formation, and word spacing, to linking words and phrases and all the stages of spelling development.

Space Man  
Each child got to meet their own “SpaceMan” today. This clothespin astronaut is used to help the students put spaces between their words. We are writing sentences with the two sights words I and am.

Math
In math, the students are exploring all our manipulatives. They are also practicing writing the numerals 0-10 and counting out and drawing amounts to match those numerals.

We're Going on a Field Trip!
 Kindergartners will be going on a field trip to Chase Farms in Macedon in October.  Our class will be going on Thursday, October 6, 2011.  The bus departs at 9:00 AM and returns at 10:30 AM.  

We will be going on a wagon ride to the pumpkin patch, picking a pumpkin & gourds, going through a corn maze, petting/feeding goats and picking/sampling some raspberries.  Please have your child dress appropriately for the weather and bring two plastic grocery bags inside each other labeled with your child's first and last name.  

Picture Day
School Picture Day is October 5th at 10:20AM.