Welcome to KM!

Archive for October, 2010

During our professional development time last Wednesday afternoon, we were introduced to a new handwriting program that we are going to try out this year in KM. Because I had already made copies of my old handwriting notebooks for the kids to use in class, I’ve decided rather than just throw away all that paper, I would send them home for you to use! This is NOT required homework! They are just for your child to use as extra practice if you (and they) want to. If you don’t want to use them at all, recycle them! It is totally up to you how you use them. I would have brought them home for my daughter but she doesn’t need 20 copies of the same notebook! They will be coming home in VIP’s today.

We have completed our unit on Our Five Senses in Science. We have also completed our first Math unit. Time is flying by!

Next Friday we will have PE in the morning as usual. We will also be starting a Yoga class that will take place every other Friday through April. We ALSO will have pictures next Friday. Because of all of the exercising we will be doing, feel free to send a comb or brush in your child’s backpack. Although I’m not good at re-doing  ponytails or braids, etc. I will do my best to help the kids look presentable for their pictures! Have a great weekend!

Well, 1 box has arrived. 1 is still on it’s way and should be here Tuesday. The books that have arrived are going home in backpacks today. The October order is is due by tomorrow afternoon! Thanks to all the parents who placed orders. We earned about 30 books for our classroom from your orders and from coupons I had left over from last year! That’s a lot of books!

We were so excited to see the sun that we took an extra 10 minute recess this morning to burn off some of our pent of energy! Yay for outdoor recess!!!

Today the children completed and illustrated the October poem in their poetry books for morning work, shared books with a partner during reading workshop, practiced drawing all of the parts of a face during writing workshop, and learned about the calming corner in our classroom during Open circle. We will be playing some 5 senses games this afternoon before library and then every one’s favorite part of our day, choice time!

A few children forgot their library books today, don’t forget library is every Thursday and please wear sneakers tomorrow for P.E.!

Today your child is bringing home a special activity for you to play together. Take-Home Games are designed to help parents and children experience a variety of hands-on literacy and math activities together. The activities will give you an opportunity to reinforce important early literacy and math skills with engaging practice.

Included in the Take-Home Games are activities and a set of plastic letters and frogs to use in conjunction with the activities. These materials are yours to keep at home to use with each activity for many weeks. Please take very special care of these letters and frogs and store them in a special place as it costs $10 to replace each set. When we are finished with the activities the set of letters and frogs will need to be returned to school.

Each Monday your child will bring home a new activity to play that week. Please read the activity description and work with your child to explore the activity. You may choose to do the activity just once or you may choose to play the game several times during the week.

These activities are also a great way for you to get to know your child as a learner. Take cues from your child: if he/she seems engaged and motivated, play the game often but, if he/she seems too tired, bored, or frustrated play less often. Be creative! Feel free to make the game more challenging if it seems too easy for your child or less challenging if it seems too hard. And remember, this is supposed to be fun! If either of you are feeling frustrated, put it away! Your child is still very young and works very hard all day in school. It may be too much to ask to keep up that level of attention at home as well.

At the end of the week, please take a few minutes to complete the Show And Tell sheet included with each activity and send it back to school. This form is a way for you to let me know about you, and your child’s, feelings about the game as well as his/her success or frustration with the activity. You may keep the activity cards at home as it can be fun and helpful (good practice) to revisit the activities. 

I hope you enjoy the activities and the time spent with your child as you get some insight into what they are learning in school.

PS The children are bring home the letters today. They will bring home the frogs next Monday. Please let me know if you are missing any letters as the baggies are going home as they were returned to me last year and although I asked families to let me know if they had misplaced any letters, I didn’t have time to double check each baggie! I will get the missing letters to you as soon as I can. Thanks!

Here is a copy of the Show and Tell Sheet in case you misplace it.

We had a substitute Phys. Ed. teacher today. Mr. Niles played some fun games with the kids this morning. We also had Mrs. Arscott visit us this morning to teach us some exercises to get our brains and bodies ready to learn. Ask your child to demonstrate some of the exercises they learned. Our 5N buddies came to read to us this afternoon. We started out with our Time for Kids Magazine which the kids are bringing home today. We are very grateful to have been able to get outside for recess as well!