January 11th 2019
Dear KA Families,
Welcome back to school! These two weeks have been marvelous fun and full of learning. Students are getting excited about the challenges that are arising in Math, and ELA. In this smore you will find academic updates, and reminders. We also have a new Community Time we are very excited to begin! We hope to see many of you soon!
We have missed KA over break, and are very happy we are back together.
Warmly,
KA Teachers
ELA
In ELA we continue to focus on our topic of weather. Now that we learned facts about weather we have begun to apply that to reading fiction books. This week we read "Come On, Rain!" We did a deep dive into how the weather affects the characters. First we focused on the beginning of the text when the weather is hot and dry. After we focused on the end of the text, which is after the rain, and the weather is cool and wet. Students finished this unit on Thursday by responding to the text with a writing piece telling teachers how the weather affects how Mamma felt before the rain and then after the rain. Next week we will being focusing on story elements within a text. We will start with the story Brave Irene, telling the characters, setting, and we will move into retell. Retell is telling the story in your own words using the transition words first, next, last. This is something you can do with your child at home when reading the books. Ask them to tell you everything that happened in the story after they read their books!
Math
IB
Students are beginning to verbally distinguish the difference between a good and service. They learned that a good is something that we buy and a service is something that someone else does for us. Students worked as a whole group to sort pictures that were either a good or service. This week, students will begin to take ownership of these important concepts through a "money system" in which students will be able to earn money by doing a service in the classroom and using their earned money to buy a good in the classroom. Kindergarten teachers are excited to see students understanding of this concept grow and what they money system will bring for them!
Phonics
We have begun our second unit in phonemic awareness by continuing to working on the beginning and ending sounds in words. We are now focusing on the middle sound in a (CVC) word. Students will learn how to blend and read three-sound in short vowel words. In the next two weeks, we will be concentrating on the CVC words that begin with the consonants F, l, m, n, r, and s as they are easier to blend. Students will be practicing the correct formation of uppercase letters by writing them in their workbooks.
Music
Updates and Reminders
Book Baggies
Orange Folders
Big Sing
Community Family Share Time
A Sign up for Community Family Share Time will be coming soon! We are excited to invite our families into the classroom to share about their community/culture/identity with our students. The goal of the share is for students to learn about the diversity in our classroom community. The time slot will be 30 minutes long, but you're only expected to "share" for about 10-15 minutes. We hope that you will begin thinking about what you would like to share with KA! Below are some ideas as how to share: 1. Bring in artifacts, such as: flags, pictures, figurines, artwork, or food (that is child-friendly, easy to eat/distribute, and nut free) that are representative of your culture/community/identity. Artifacts that are not fragile and can be handled are ideal! 2. Bring or play some child-friendly music that represents what you are sharing. If the song is in another language, please bring in the lyrics and/or the English version. 3. Bring in a child's storybook that represents your culture or your family community to read to the class. 4. Lead a simple activity that allows students to create their own artifact or symbol. 5. Teach a dance, song, hand game, or movement activity. 6. Teach phrases like: greetings, farewells, counting, colors, foods, eating language, days of the week, season/weather words