Welcome to another great week of Kindergarten! It has been a while since I wrote a newsletter because I was busy with report cards; I met you at conferences and sent home all the PowerPoint slides I created about your student. Please understand that the grades I gave are at the beginning of the year and will go up as we study the concepts more. 

Please sign and return the compact I sent you last Friday if you still need to. We need to keep these on file to stay a title one school. If you need to know what I am writing about, I sent it home with a stapled note attached to sign and return. 

I do have an issue I want to address with everyone. Students are going home and saying things that did not happen or did not happen with the intent that an adult mindset might bring to it. If something happens, there will be a phone call home. The principal or I will notify all involved parties. I care about your children like my own and will not allow bullying, hitting, or spitting in the classroom. We are one classroom family. 

We continued our Gingerbread man’s theme listing and talked about how each differs from the original story. For example, we have a Gingerbread man who makes a mess in our room daily. (The same idea is to Elf on a Shelf but with a Gingerbread man).

Reading– We are working on developing decoding strategies and working with different partners. Our partner helps us learn to read and decode books; so far, we have learned to point to each word, reread when it does not sound correct, and use snap words and patterns to help us read. 

Writing: We started to write stories. I want students to stop writing pattern books and develop a sense of story. We worked on writing in speech bubbles.

Phonics: We practiced our snap words. Please continue working on these words at home. We have worked hard on word families and rhyming.

Math: We learned about weight and how to use different scales.

Social Studies: We are learning about how we are all different but all the same. Next week we will learn about Hanukkah and play dreidel. Next week we will learn about Christmas and Ramadan.

PLEASE TEACH YOUR CHILD HOW TO PUT ON AND TAKE OFF THEIR COAT AND SHOES INDEPENDENTLY.