Getting Ready for Kindergarten

Below are helpful tips to help prepare your child for the first day of Kindergarten:

Getting Ready for School
• Establish routines by introducing an earlier bedtime several weeks before school           starts.
• Practice the morning routine of dressing and eating breakfast.
• Review several times with your child how he or she will get to and from school.
• Make sure your child understands and obeys safety rules such as:
        1. Crossing the street only at crosswalks.
        2. Walking on sidewalks.
        3. Remaining seated until the bus is completely stopped.
        4. Listening to teachers, bus drivers, crossing guards, principals, etc.
• Teach your child:
        1. To recite his/her full name, address, and phone number.
        2. To be responsible for and to recognize his/her own belongings. You can help by                labeling ALL of his/her belongings (clothes, lunch box, backpack, coat,                                gloves…).
        3. To attend to his/her own personal needs: toileting (visit a public restroom; this                   enables your child to feel more comfortable with using the restrooms at                           school), using a tissue and washing face and hands, covering nose or mouth                   with arm to sneeze or cough, zipping/buttoning/snapping clothes.
• Choose clothing for your Kindergartener that is “easy on, easy off”. Choose pants with    elastic waistbands if your child has difficulty with zippers, snaps, and belts. Children        should be able to put on their shoes independently if they come off.
• Read to your child daily. Reading increases vocabulary. Read everything, from
   books to signs, even cereal boxes!
• Make sure that your child has time to play after school and on weekends. Now that         your child spends more time in a structured school environment, you should allow           more free time at home for play. Kindergarten homework includes playtime!
• Help your child develop strategies to resolve peer conflicts and to know when it is           appropriate to ask an adult for help.
• Promote the attitude of respect for rights and properties of others.

Supporting the Learning Process
• Be calm and positive when you speak about school in your child’s presence.
• Encourage your child to share school experiences with you. Take an active interest in your
child’s schooling. Ask specific questions about what happens at school each day and how your
child feels about it.
• Treat going to school as part of the normal course of events that will be a positive experience for
your child. A calm, matter-of-fact, positive attitude will best help your child get the most out of
Kindergarten.  Give a kiss and hug, then say, "Have a GREAT day!"  The quicker this morning transition is, the quicker your child with adjust to the school day.

The 3 Little Pigs STEM

We had so much fun today working on a STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) project!  We read The Three Little Pigs.  Then we discussed why the first two pigs were gobbled up.  Afterwards, I presented a STEM challenge; build a house using only 12 Dots (a type of candy) and toothpicks.   They were to build a house that the pig would fit in and would be strong enough that the "Big Bad Wolf Blow-dryer"  would not blow the house down.  The children recorded our pictures and identified the faces and vertices of the 3-D shapes constructed.  They also wrote predictions of what they thought would happen to their house during the experiment.

ABCmouse

We are using ABCmouse in the classroom and now you can use it at home!  A letter was sent home with a confirmation code or password specific to your child.  This is a free tool for your child to use.  You can purchase a full membership, with more options for games and activities, but I highly recommend not doing this.  Your child can work on specific lessons that are assigned (he/she must complete one lesson fully before moving on to the next) and can work on skills in all curricular areas.  This is a great tool to use over the summer, too.

Please contact me if you have any questions.

April

This month is very exciting for our class!

We are finishing up our unit on Long Ago and Today.  We have looked at how people communicated, dressed, farmed, traveled, and even played long ago.  The children have had made many comparisons and have been very fascinated with this.  We are excited to visit Rosehill Manor next week.  This is one of my favorite field trips and a wonderful experience for the children.

Click on the link below to find out more information about the museum.

Rose Hill Manor Park & Children's Museum

After this unit we are switching gears back to Science and learning about plants, what they need to survive, how they grow, parts of a plant and conducting experiments.  We will become scientists and observe changes in plants that will be grown in the classroom, too!

We have been working on long and short vowels during Language Arts, as well as strategies for how to read unfamiliar words and using text clues to define words, understand what is being read, and to infer.  I am amazed at the progress of each child and where they began in August!  Please visit the Language Arts tab, parent tab, and student tab above for more tips on how to work with your child and activities/games for your child at home.

Last but not least, in Math we are having such fun solving math story problems, and representing addition and subtraction number sentences.  We will be visiting 2-D and 3-D shapes, again, and then moving back to story problems sometime in May.

Math and Shapes

The past two weeks have been super fun in math!  The children have been working on identifying    3-D and 2-D shapes, describing them (faces, bases, sides, corners, vertices, etc.), finding similarities and differences and much more!

We have also noticed the different shapes within a solid figure (3-D shape) and have constructed them using marshmallows and toothpicks.

We will revisit shapes later this year and have now moved onto a math unit dealing with counting from any number to 50, representing numbers in different ways, recognizing and understanding numbers, and more.  You can find more information on our math curriculum here:

FCPS Essential Curriculum & Parent Resources 

Silent E

We watched a neat video clip from The Electric Company about the silent E.  You can click the snowflake below to enjoy it while on your snowy weekend!

Homework and Donations

HOMEWORK

Writing Homework Books were sent home on Monday.  Please make sure that your child includes a picture with his/her writing.  Below is an example of a writing piece from a student with a picture on top and words on the bottom half of the page.  Information on how to help your child complete the homework is inside the Writing Homework Book.  Please have your child return it to school every Friday.  Please feel free to ask me any questions.

Little Book Bags will now be sent home every day from Monday to Thursday.  Please make sure that your child brings this book back the next school day.  We will be using it in your child's small reading group instruction.  

Poetry Folders will be going home once each week, either on Mondays or Tuesdays.  Your child is to bring it back the next school day.  

CLASS DONATIONS

We are looking for donations to help create games in the classroom and party items.  A Valentine's party letter will also be sent home soon, be on the lookout for it in your child's folder.

We are looking for:

Gallon sized Ziploc Bags

24 Paper White Bags with Handles (an example of it is below) to put Valentine's cards in

Thank you for your support!