Week 5 Highlights!

What a great week!

We began our week with a visit from Mr. Packer.  He will be joining our class to introduce our weather unit in science.  During his visits, we will be examining and collecting data on our October weather.

During our Shared Reading, we focused on the nursery rhyme, The Itsy Bitsy Spider. We used this poem to explore letters, sounds, rhyming words and print concepts.  We also introduced one new sight word this week.  Our new word is the.  Please practice identifying, reading, and writing our sight words with your child at home.

In Reader's Workshop, we began bend two, reading old favorite storybooks.  We learned that readers can read stories they have heard a zillion times by looking at the pictures, remember the story, and read.  We also discussed the importance of making our words and pictures match.  Take a peek at our kindergarten readers practicing partner reading.

Our Read Aloud of the week was The Dot by Peter Reynolds. Our comprehension focus was identifying character, setting, and main event.  We also retold our story by sorting pictures by beginning, middle, and end.  Please ask your child to share with you three details from our story.

During Daily Five word work stations this week, we identified and matched letters in rice, composed name and alphabet puzzles, used play-dough to trace upper and lowercase letters, matched upper and lowercase letter puzzles, and used wood pieces to make uppercase letters.  We also introduced the writing table and label it!  Please ask your child what was their favorite word work station this week.

This week during Writer's Workshop, we practiced story book writing!  We discussed getting ideas for stories and practiced story telling.  We reviewed stretching out words to write even more sounds. 

In Whole Group Math, we introduced numbers 6 and 7.  We practiced identifying and counting quantities in various configurations. We began our second round of Math Tubs.  During our second rotation, we will practice one-to-one correspondence, writing numerals, shape identification, subitizing, making shapes, and playing Bump.  Please ask your child what was their favorite math tub this week. Take a peek at our kindergarten mathematicians!

We ended our week with Science.  We began our first science unit, Trees and Weather.  We took a nature walk around Irving School and adopted a classroom tree.  We can't wait to see how our tree changes during our kindergarten year.

Upcoming Dates

• Monopoly Math Night--October 2nd--6:30-8:00pm
• Walk to School Day--October 3rd
• Irving Fun Run--October 11th
• Morton Arboretum Field Trip--October 18th--more information to come
• Irving Book Fair--October 22nd-25th
• Fall Parent-Teacher Conferences--October 23rd-25th 
• Please do not forget to sign up for a Parent Teacher Conference.
• Halloween Parade and Party--October 31st--PM Only