Our Class News
January 15, 2015
This Week
This week in reading we learned about cause and effect. Ask your child to identify cause and effect in the readers he/she brings home in the book bag. Good stories to read for cause & effect are: If you give a Mouse a Cookie series, Five Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed, The Napping House, The Snowy Day, The Runaway Bunny & Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day. We learned the sound for ch and the sight words are & now. During writing we focused on using characters, setting & events in our stories as well as sound spelling, spaces & punctuation/ capitalization. The students have a checklist to use when journal writing reminding them of the important things to do when writing.
In math we continued our study of the numbers 16-20, learning how to build them with ten frames and write them. Ask your child to tell you about playing I have, who has with numbers.
In science we continued to learn about weather. We made a KWL chart last week about weather. We listed all the things we already Know about weather, listed all the things we Want to know about weather and have been spending time finding the answers to our questions and writing the answers on the Learned column of our chart. Ask your child to tell you some of the ways we found our answers.
Show & Tell
Food is okay and we can use it for snack if applicable. During this time we will focus on phonics as well as "public speaking" - using complete sentences, projecting our voices, body positioning, etc.
Reminders
Please...
-return your child's report card envelope
-sign your child's behavior calendar nightly
-read with your child every night and sign his/her reading log
No school Jan. 19
Aimsweb testing Jan. 20-23
Practice phonics on starfall
Some students still need to practice letters and there are great games for that as well. Most of the site is free. There is a paid portion which we have at school but there are lots of great things on the free section. www.starfall.com
Raz Kids e-book access
Go to www.raz-kids.com/login/mhoelscher0 and click on your child's name. There are books leveled specifically for your child to choose from. Your child can take quizzes to show understanding of the book. You can download an app for tablets and mobile devices. I will be sending a paper home with further instructions on setting up parent notifications via email if you like.
Mrs. Hoelscher's contact information
The school number is below, but feel free to text or call me at (512)426-6190 when something important comes up.
Email: mhoelscher@taylorisd.org
Website: http://kindergarten-classro.thj.taylorisd.schoolfusion.us/modules/groups/integrated_home.phtml?gid=4282656&sessionid=f5ef724e0b082d551dbd1ba36e0690cd
Phone: (512) 365-7114
Things we've learned so far...
You can reinforce these things at home for review.
Language
Phonicsall 26 letters/ sounds; ch
Sight words (read & write/spell)
like I the a and see can we to yes no come me with my boy girl
Decoding strategies (figuring out unknown words)
point to the words
use picture clues
sound out the word
beginning sound and what makes sense
Comprehension
characters
setting
events in a story (B/M/E)
predictions
author's purpose
author's group information in ways to help us understand (informational texts)
making connections to something in the story or another story read
identifying topic of an informational book
cause & effect
Math
Numbers (identify, build & write) 0-20
Comparing numbers 0-20
Sorting & organizing data
creating graphs
addition/ subtraction
Social Studies
- why people work
- needs vs. wants
- why we have rules
- community helpers
- Verteran's Day
Science
- science tools/ lab safety
- hand-washing/ germs
- recycling
- 5 senses
- force & motion
- magnets
- properties of matter
- weather