Kindergarten News
Read on for details about what is happening in our world!
Special Photography Project on Tuesday, April 28th!
On Tuesday, April 28th our Kindergarten classes will do a special photography project immediately following the ITBS. Please have your child wear an outfit tomorrow that they would consider “special.” I would recommend dressing your child up, but if there’s an outfit they feel they look particularly good in, this is OK. We really want them to take ownership of this photo session :-)
ITBS Testing continues this week!
Your students are doing a great job focusing on their ITBS tests each morning. Ms. Fichter and I have been communicating with each other after the tests each day, and it seems like the majority of our Kindergarten students are really trying their best! Over the weekend, have some fun with your Kindergartener and make sure they get a great night's sleep on Sunday so they are ready to test again bright and early on Monday morning!
Reminders for Monday and Tuesday as we continue our ITBS testing...
· Students should bring a morning AND afternoon snack with them on testing days. Our schedule will be a little different due to testing and our lunch will be much later in the day. We will have a snack after testing and at the end of the day.
· This test will not be hard. They know this material!
· The only thing they need to remember is that they have to pay attention to the directions and “turn on their listening ears.”
· They will have their own “test station” made out of folders. None of their classmates can look at their test.
· We have to be quiet in our room for the rest of the school who will still be testing. School wide, testing is over at 10:30 am. When the session is done each day, my students will come back to my room and we’ll have snack, enjoy some free reading and writing (Yay!) and get to watch 30 minutes of a video (Hooray)!
It is extremely important that your child is well-rested, has had a healthy breakfast, and is ON TIME on testing days!
TESTING DAY DAILY SCHEDULE
· Each testing day, 8-8:15 am will be restroom, pledge, and “brain-boosting” stretch exercises (the kids know what these are J).
· Get situated in Ms. Fichter's Room/ test booklet distribution from 8:15- 8:20 am
· The whole school begins promptly at 8:20 am with instructions for that the test being administered that day.
· Any child who arrives after 8:20 am (after testing begins) will be directed to the Media Center and will have to make up the missed test another day.
· Relax! Your child gets to show off everything they have learned this year :)
Wednesday, April 22 – Reading I and II (70 minutes)
Thursday, April 23 – Listening (45 minutes)
Friday, April 24 – Math (40 minutes)
Monday, April 27 – Vocabulary (70 minutes)
Tuesday, April 28 – Language (40 minutes)
Homework Packet and Show-and-Tell
Homework Packets are always due on Monday! Please make sure your child brings their Homework Packet every Monday in order to earn credit for their hard work. Your child will receive a shortened Homework Packet this week due to ITBS testing and MAP testing later in the week. Part of this Homework Packet is some online MAP practice! Have fun with your Kindergartener as they prepare for their last MAP tests of Kindergarten.
Show-And-Tell and Prize Box are on Wednesday! This week we will be focusing on money. On Wednesday, please bring a $1.00 bill or $1.00 in coins (they can be any combination of coins!). Your student will show us how their bill or coins equals $1.00. Please also bring a toy that costs only $1.00. We will have fun ‘trading’ or ‘purchasing’ our $1.00 toys and our different combinations of $1.00 from our Kindergarten classmates! This will be a very fun Show-and-Tell experience, don’t miss out! (They will come home with a new toy and $1.00)
Reading Room Reminder
Remember, we visit the Reading Room every Tuesday and Thursday at 9:15am.
Your child is now allowed to check out TWO books each time we visit as long as the books they have checked out previously have been returned. Your child may return both, one, or none from the previous visit. There is no limit to how long your child keeps their books, but remember, they can't check out more until their others have been returned.
Come be a Mystery Reader before our year ends!
Our Kindergarten year is almost over! Come be one of our Mystery Readers! There is a Mystery Reader sign up outside our classroom door for this semester. Please consider volunteering one Friday this year to come visit our classroom and read to our Kindergarten class. They LOVE when we have special visitors :-) If you are unable to come into the school to sign up, please send me an e-mail with a Friday that you would like to volunteer for and I can sign you up!
This semester you can choose to read at 8:00am or at 3:00pm on Fridays. Please circle the time you would like to read when you sign up for a date.
Names in your Jackets and Change of Clothes
Sometimes messes happen in Kindergarten! We always like to be prepared for this by keeping an extra change of clothes in your child's cubby. If not, please make sure to send in a bag (labeled with your child's name) for them to hold in their cubby.
Curriculum Corner...
Our class time will be shortened due to testing for most of this week.
Reading and Language Arts: In Reading and Language Arts this week we will practice all of the skills we have covered in Kindergarten using a variety of Small Group activities. We will revisit the story elements: main idea, setting, problem, solution, conclusion, characters... We will also practice our language skills: writing proper sentences, capital letters, punctuation, nouns, verbs, and adjectives. This will really prepare us for our Unit Assessment coming up AND our MAP assessment coming up.
Social Studies: In Social Studies this week we will discuss how Communities and Technology have changed over time. We are almost done with our last chapter in our My World Social Studies curriculum!! This week and next we will work on the final concepts covered in Chapter 5.
Math: In Math this week, we will complete our Kindergarten Math In Focus curriculum!! We will spend this week focusing on Money and we will continue to look at some First Grade skills (time and simple fractions). We will not take our final Math assessment this week, but we will take these next two weeks to really practice and review and we will take our final Math assessment on Friday, May 8!
Science: In Science, we are having so much fun learning about Plants and Animals. We have learned about the life cycle of different plants and animals and we are now observing them. Our students are FULL of butterfly excitement. We received some painted lady butterfly larvae (caterpillars)! We are so excited to watch them eat, grow, and make a chrysalis. We are also observing some seeds at they sprout, and we planted grass seeds to make some fun and funny looking "Grassy Head" plants! We will continue to learn about plants and animals this week.
Important Save The Dates for this Semester:
April 22-28: ITBS Testing Days
May 4-15: Spring MAP Testing Days
May 7: FSAPS STEAM Day
May 13: 2nd - 5th Grade Picnic
May 14: PreK - 1st Grade Picnic
May 19: Last Blast Carnival at FSAPS
May 20: Ms. Przedpelski's Kindergarten Graduation at 6:00pm
May 22: Last Day of School and Summer Birthday Party!