Kinder Spark News
October 2018 Newsletter
October Skills
Fall: Scarecrow
Farm: Apples
Pumpkins: Pumpkin Town
Nocturnal Animals: Stellaluna
Phonemic Awareness
Recognize Rhyming Words
Produce Rhyming Words
Isolate Initial Sound (Beginning Sounds)
Phonics
Yy
Zz
Word Family A
Word Family E
Word Family I
Sight Words
and
go
you
do
Writing
Letter formation, Separate drawing from writing
Letter formation, verbs, sentence frames
Letter formation, finish sentence frames
Letter formation, introduce sound spelling
Math
Sort Objects
Position and Shape
Compare within 10
Name Shapes
Build Shapes
October Dates to Remember
Thursday, October 11: 1st nine weeks report card
Tuesday, October 16: Parent / Teacher conferences
Parent Volunteer Training:
Tuesday, October 9, 2018 @ 8:00 a.m.
Friday, October 19, 2018 @ 1:00 p.m.
Report Cards
WAYS TO HELP YOUR CHILD BUILD PHONEMIC AWARENESS
Phonemic awareness is the ability to hear and manipulate individual sounds in words. Children must first understand that words are made up of separate speech sounds that can be blended together to make words before they can make sense of using the alphabet to read and write. Research has identified phonemic awareness and letter knowledge as the best two predictors of how well a child will learn to read during the first two years of school (National Reading Panel, 2000). Children who develop strong phonemic awareness skills at an early age are more likely to become fluent readers and better spellers than children who do not.
What should my Kindergartener be able to do?
By the end of kindergarten, children should be able to:
- Identify whether words rhyme (hat, mat; sun, bug)
- Provide a word that rhymes with another (“tell me a word that rhymes with ‘sun’”)
- Blend syllables or onset-rimes into a word (cup–cake “cupcake”; /m/ /ap/- “map”)
- Clap or count syllables in a 1 to 3 syllable word
- Provide the first sound in a word (“what is the beginning sound in “fish”? Child: /f/)
- Segment sounds in a 2-3 phoneme word (“Tell me the sounds in ‘hat’.” Child: /h/ /a/ /t/)
How can I help my child develop phonemic awareness skills? To help your child listen to the sound in words:
- Read books and poems that focus on the rhythm of language and rhyme. Books such as “Hop on Pop” or “Sheep in a Jeep” help children pay attention to sounds in words.
- Give your child a noisemaker (such as a whistle). Tell your child to make noise if you say two words that rhyme (cat, cup; sit, mitt)
- Play words games such as “Guess My Word”. “I’m thinking of a word that rhymes with ___. Can you guess my word?”
- Have a sound scavenger hunt. Give your child a bag and ask him/her to find as many things around the house that begin with a certain sound.
- Play “I spy” with beginning sounds of words “I spy something that begins with /t/”. To help your child segment (separate) and blend sounds in words:
- Have your child guess a word that you sound out slowly (sssssuuuuunnnn).
- Give your child 3-5 blocks, beads, bingo chips or similar items. Say a word and have your child move an object for each sound in the word.
- Play Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes with sounds. Say a word and have your child touch his/her head for the first sound, shoulders for the second sound, and knees for the third while saying each sound.
- Jump for Sounds. Say a word and have your child jump for each sound in the word while saying the sound.
PARENT TIPS TO SUPPORT KINDERGARTEN MATH
Give your child plenty of opportunities to count
- Play number games during everyday activities, such as counting the number of steps, the number of trucks you see while driving, or counting the number of items going in the laundry.
- Read the calendar, and determine the number of days until an upcoming event.
- Young children can count the number of items that you bought at the store. If you buy multiples of 1 item (such as 10 cans of cat food), practice counting by 2’s, 3’s, or higher numbers
- Have your child count the change needed to pay for an item.
- Watch your child play to understand her mathematical knowledge. When your child counts, does she touch each object once? Is his voice in sync with his tag?
- Have your child distribute cookies or toys to family members, with each person getting an equal number
Help your child recognize shapes and size relationships
- At the grocery store, ask your child to find items that are triangles, circles, rectangles, and other shapes.
- Ask your child to recognize or stack the groceries you bought by container shape or organize by size.
- Organize a scavenger hunt where your child has to find objects of different shapes
- Make snowflakes using symmetry. Fold a square piece of paper in half diagonally to make a triangle, then fold in half 2 more times. Cut out small diamond or circular shapes from the edges, and then unfold it. Experiment with different numbers of folds and shapes.
Find ways to collect and organize information
- Look around the house to find groups of 2 objects, like pairs of gloves or socks. Look for groups of 3’s, 4’s, and on up to 10’s.
- Have your child help sort the laundry by various categories — by color, or by whom an item belongs to.
- Take measurements for a project around the house.
- Using paper of different colors, make a paper chain with paper strips and tape. Encourage your child to create patterns by repeating colors and numbers of rings in a regular order. This can be done in connection with reading the calendar and counting down days to a special event.
- Collect objects in nature— leaves, rocks, shells and the like. When you get home, sort them by color, size, or type. How many different categories can you find? How many objects are in more than 1 category?
SPARKS LEARNING CHANNEL
- The faculty here at Blackman Elementary has put together some learning videos to help you work with your child at home. You can access the Sparks Learning Channel through the following link:https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCjQp5lyXWfkubPpNuA9Pt3g/videos