Ms. Lu's Kindergarten Class
A newsletter about what's going on with our star students
All About Me
Hello! My name is Amy Lu and I am a kindergarten teacher at Jackson Elementary School. I graduated with a Bachelor's degree in Teaching and Learning, focusing on early childhood through 6th grade, from the University of Houston. I am very passionate about teaching and I try to bring enthusiasm and fun to my classroom to help promote learning. I love teaching, but I learn something new every day, just as the students do.
Our Lesson This Week: The Butterfly Life Cycle
This week for science, we learned about the life cycle of a butterfly. I first explained to the students how different organisms go from being a baby to being adult in very different ways: mammals, reptiles, amphibians, and insects all go through their life cycles differently. I then showed them an activity that explains a butterfly's life cycle. This activity works well because it has very good visuals to show the students what the butterfly life cycle looks like and what stages the caterpillar goes through to become a butterfly. It also provided little pictures of the caterpillar, chrysalis, emerging butterfly, and butterfly that can be cut out and put in order of the life cycle, making the activity very hands-on, which helped the children learn the material more successfully. The students had a lot of fun learning about how a caterpillar becomes a butterfly. They were so amazed!
Online Educational Game
We have made a milestone of getting past sounding out single consonants, and now we are getting into sounding out consonant clusters! We have been identifying words and sounding out the beginning letters of the words and identifying what consonant cluster each word starts with. A game we have been playing in class is called “2 Letters” online at the Mr. Nussbaum site. This game is really good for students because it requires the children to think very hard and will help them develop their reading and spelling skills because while they are identifying the word from the picture, they have to think about how to spell and read it as well. This ties in with our reading lesson in class that has to do with identifying and becoming proficient in consonant clusters. The students are really enjoying this game and are learning a lot, so I hope that you will take the time to allow your students to play this game at home, so that they can get more practice on consonant clusters.
Writing Contest
There is a writing contest going on at Jackson Elementary School! It's called the
Young Voices of America Exercise Their Creativity Short Story Contest, and I really urge your students to get creative and submit a short story to the contest. Since the students are so young, you, the parents, can type or transcribe their story for them as they tell you what they want to write. Just encourage your students to get creative and come up with a short story to submit to the contest. It will be both a fun and learning experience for both you and your kids!
Classroom Rules
Here is the list of our Classroom Rules. You may review them with your students if you would like.
- We listen carefully when Ms. Lu is speaking.
- We raise our hands if we have any questions. We do not just yell them out.
- We respect others by being kind with our words and actions.
- We respect school property and others' personal property.
- We work and play safely.
- Most importantly, we have fun!
The students have been getting the rules down pretty well, but it would be really helpful if you were to review them with your students.