School Family Update Sept. 19th

Alot happened this week. Students participated in their first fun run. We celebrated Owen, Fernanda, and Matthew's birthdays. We also said farewell to our friend Matthew as he will be going to a different school next week. He will be missed. Below is what we've been working on in academics.

Reading
Students participated in literacy centers for the first time this week! They did very well learning the routines which include finding their centers and working independently. Students visit 2 centers each day. The centers are: listening, creation, writing, pocket chart, library, Activboard, ABC, write the room, computer, and game center. The students enjoy them because they think they are playing. They also have the chance to move around more which all kindergartners need!

Next week is letter A week. We have so many fun apple activities next week we will be skipping centers. However, we will return to centers the following week. Please have your child bring an apple (any color) to class on Monday. We will be tasting them and discussing describing words in writing. We will make apple pizzas and write the recipe on Friday. Morning work activities will all be apple themed. In reading, we will identify words that start the /a/. We will also be discussing the -am word family.

Writing
Students finished their handwriting journals today! They will take them home next week. Hopefully you can already see the progress in their handwriting. Next week, we are focusing on our narrative unit and the components of a sentence. Students will be learning:
- Sentences are made up of words that have spaces in between them.
- Sentences start with a capital letter and the rest are lower case.
- Sentences have an endmark.

Students will continue to write daily and practice stretching their words. We do not tell students how to spell words but can help say the word slowly to hear the sounds. The goal is for students to get at least two sounds per word.

Science
We started our first science unit which if physical properties. Students are learning different ways to describe and sort objects. Students sorted and compared heavy and light objects in the room. Students practiced sorting by color, shape, size, and other attributes with varoius manipulatives.

Next week, students will learn words to describe an object's composition. Is it wood, plastic, paper, fun, etc? There will also be a floating and sinking experiment.

Math
This week students continued working with 2D and 3D shapes. We played a game called shape detective where I gave clues about a shape, and the class had to guess which shape it was. This is a fun review game to play at home. Students should be able to name shapes and describe them with number of corners, number of sides, and flat/solid.

Next week, we will spend more time comparing 2 shapes with similiarites and differences. While I am working in small groups on this concept, students will be working collaboratively to sort shape information. On Wednesday, I will begin assessing math unit 1. Copies of the completed assessment will be in the next signed papers.

Other
Pictures of our first center rotation, STEM day, and Fun Run will be shared in the near future.

Thanks for stopping by!

~Mrs. Daugherty