Dear Families,
Happy week to all our PLE families! Our classroom has been busy, chatty, curious, and full of those wonderful kindergarten “lightbulb moments” that make this time of year so exciting. Here’s what we’ve been working on and how you can support your child at home.
Writing
In writing, we are focusing on stretching out words and writing down the sounds we hear. This skill requires time, patience, and extensive practice. Right now, we aren’t looking for perfect spelling — we’re building confidence by helping students listen for sounds in order: beginning, middle, and end.
You can support your child at home by turning sound-play into small, simple routines.
For example:
- When they want to write a word, encourage them to “say it like a slow turtle,” dragging the word out so they can catch the sounds.
- Have them tap each sound on their fingers and write one letter for each tap.
- If they ask, “How do you spell this?” gently redirect to “What sounds do you hear first? What comes next?”
These tiny moments build big skills, and your encouragement helps them feel brave enough to take risks with writing.
Phonics
We’ve been working on comparing first sounds, and now we’re moving on to ending sounds, which is a significant leap in listening and phonological awareness. Children love practicing this naturally throughout the day.
At home, you can make it playful:
- When reading a book, pause occasionally and ask, “What’s the last sound in this word?”
- Play “I Spy” but with sounds: “I spy something that ends with /t/.”
- Say two words and ask if they end the same: sun and pen, dog and frog.
These sound games help your child tune their ears to the structure of words.
Reading
In reading, we’re practicing simple decoding strategies, helping students become independent thinkers as they work through a book. We discuss using the picture, noticing the pattern on the page, pointing to each word, and relying on familiar snap words to help us read smoothly.
Ways to help at home include:
- Before reading, take a “picture walk” and talk about what they notice — this helps them make meaning.
- Encourage pointing under each word as they read; it helps track print and strengthens left-to-right directionality.
- Remind them to look for their snap words in the text and celebrate when they spot them.
- When they get stuck, instead of telling them the word, prompt gently with, “What would make sense? What sound do you hear at the beginning? Look at the picture — what could it be?”
These prompts mirror what we do in class and help your child develop problem-solving skills rather than relying on memorization.
We are continuing to practice our snap words daily. Reading, tracing, or building them with fridge magnets for just a few minutes each night makes a big difference.
Math
In math, we’re exploring story problems, using pictures and objects to illustrate our thinking. We’re also comparing items to see which ones are longer or shorter, using classroom tools and real-life examples.
You might help at home by using items around the house — shoes, crayons, spoons — and asking, “Which is longer? How do you know?” or creating simple story problems during everyday routines:
“Dad had 3 apples and bought 2 more. How many does he have now?”
Let your child draw the story out or act it out with small items. This brings math to life.
Science
We’ve begun our exciting unit on weather and seasons. The class has been exploring what tools meteorologists use and how we observe daily weather changes. We’ve talked about:
- What a thermometer measures
- What a rain gauge collects
- How to track temperature and describe it using words like warm, cool, chilly, and cold
Each morning, our kindergarten “weather reporter” checks our classroom thermometer and helps the class describe the day’s weather.
At home, your child might enjoy being the family weather forecaster — looking outside, checking a real thermometer, or watching a quick weather update together and talking about what they notice.
iReady
Please continue practicing iReady at home whenever possible. Even 15 minutes sprinkled throughout the week helps reinforce phonics, vocabulary, and math skills we’re learning in class.
Parent-Teacher Conferences
Please ensure that you sign up for parent-teacher conferences if you haven’t already done so. I genuinely look forward to meeting with you on Wednesday and sharing your child’s hard work, growth, and tremendous progress.
Thank you, families, for your partnership and support. Kindergarten is a team effort, and together we make magic happen.
Warmly,
River Eubanks
