Our Kindergartner

Jillian is learning a lot of new things in school and I am so proud of how hard she is working.  She has made several new friends and says her favorite part of school is lunch-time. I write her a note every day and she has so much fun trying to "read" the note with her friends. :-)

Today was my first day to volunteer in her class.  Jillian was so happy to see me and it was great to see what they do in the morning.  While I was in the classroom ( I also went to the copy-room) they did alphabet stretches, the name game, and talked about the weather and date!

"Kindergarten News" (the newsletter to parents):

Language Arts: 

• The high frequency word wall words that we have learned so far are; "see", "I", "and", "like", "a", "am", & "the."
• MClass assessments have been completed. Reading Groups are just beginning.
• We are learning to sequence the beginning, middle, and end of a story.
• We are studying the characters and setting of stories.
• We are learning the difference between all of the uppercase and lowercase letters.
• We are learning to put spaces between words.
• We have been reading environmental print.
• Writers' Workshop has begun with a focus on learning to use detail in both illustration and in writing.  We are learning to ask: "what did you see, hear, touch, & taste?" We are also learning to label our work and to make various lists.

Math:

• We have been learning about sorting.
• We have been making graphs.
• We are practicing counting using one-to-one correspondence.
• We are working on number representation. Using tally marks for example.
• We are practicing writing numerals.
• We are using positional words including top, bottom, middle, above, & below.

Science:

• We have been studying weather
• The children have made weather sticks.
• They will begin to measure wind.

Social Studies:

• We are practicing the Pledge of Allegiance.
• We are learning about the American flag and will create a class flag.
• We are studying many of our national symbols including the Statue of Liberty, the bald eagle, and Mount  Rushmore.
• We have also focused on how families work together and the importance of working together in the classroom.

Jillian has come home at least a couple dozen times with a "Proud Panther" sticker (sometimes even two) for her good behavior  while at school!  

Hooray for our Jillian!