Maillet's Kindergarten Newsletter
Week Of January 19th
Highlights from last week....
This week we were not only busy learning, but also it was a week of assessing. I tested all of your children and now have their new reading levels. Most of our friends are really moving. I will send home your child's level with their behavior chart this week. Your child should be at a level C right now. If they are not quite there, I will be working with them individually to get them as high as they can go. If your child is beyond a level C. I will be working with them to push them to their highest level. Please continue to practice sight words and reading with them at night. The books that I am sending home will be a level below their reading level at school. This is because at school, their level is "instructional", which is the level I use to help them move forward. The level below is their independent level so that they should be able to read these books by themselves or with little assistance. I hope this makes sense.
In Math, we finished our math assessment on length, height, and volume. Your children did well. We moved onto the second half of the module and we compared if there was enough.
In Science, we continued to study the states of matter: solid, liquid and gas.
In our Second Step program, we continued to learn about our own feelings.
A peek at our learning this week....
In Phonics, we will really practice recognizing beginning and ending sounds, rhyming words, writing words using letter sounds, tapping out words and sounding out nonsense words. I will be focusing on a skill a day and reinforce the skill by playing games.
In Reader's Workshop, we will continue with the strategy of using multiple clues when we come to a tricky word. A strategy that good readers use is to think about what we read. When we sound out the letters in the word and the word we say doesn't make sense or sound right, we will learn that we need to stop and do some reading work. We need to ask ourselves, "Does that make sense?", "Does that sound right?" and "Do the letters match?" Because this is a newly introduced skill, we will be working on this skill for a few weeks before we can move on. If your child masters this skill before we move on, I will work with them independently to challenge them at their level.
In Math, we will continue to compare using words more, less, fewer, same as and equal. We will also complete our second round of MAP testing to check our progress.
In Science, we will be studying the states of matter: solid, liquid and gas.
We will perform an experiment with ice this week.
In our Second Step program, we will continue to learn about our own feelings.
More information
Many parents are excited to receive a daily update on their children's behavior during school. To summarize, our friends have been working really hard to control their bodies and follow the rules of the classroom. As part of our preparation for first grade and building independence, our children have been performing a self assessment after each station rotation. If at the end of their rotations, they did not put up four fingers consistently, I write a note home on the progress report and ask that you sign it. If they did what they were supposed to do, I will put a smiley face on the report. The children feel empowered and are working really hard to earn smiley faces each day!
SUPPLIES NEEDED
Many parents are asking what the class needs for supplies. We could use some Clorox Wipes and paper towels. Thank you in advance.
FLASHCARDS
Please practice letters and sounds with your child nightly! Thank you!
Sanders Street School
Email: vmaillet@arrsd.org
Website: www.arrsd.org
Location: 314 Sanders Street, Athol, MA, United States
Phone: 978-249-2410