K-C Weekly News
December 11, 2015
What you really need to know
HOMEWORK is coming home this week. Your child will receive a sight word ring with four new sight word cards for at home practice. You will also find a letter outlining activities to do with your sight words. Our goal is to recognize them immediately and be able to spell them automatically. Your child's word ring will also have their first and last name on the front card. Please continue to practice printing both first and last name at home using only two upper case letters and the rest lower case!
We have completed our Fall Conferences. Thank you so much for setting aside time to come to school and meet with me to discuss your child's progress. It was really a pleasure to share their many accomplishments with you. Thank you for your continued trust and support.
Please let me know if you are available to assist in our Hour of Code project this Friday, 12/18 from 9:30-10:15. We need three volunteers to help us create code to command real robots in our classroom! email me at stephanie_cohen@needham.k12.ma.us if interested.
Happy sixth birthday to Jim!!
Thank you to our mystery reader, Lily's Dad, Matt. He shared the book A Trip to The Hospital that inspired lots of great stories for our writer's workshop.
LAST CHANCE for December book orders is today!!
Mark your calendar.
12/12 - December book orders due
12/22 - Welcome to Winter Craft Day in Kindergarten. Volunteers needed, sign up here: http://www.signupgenius.com/go/10c0d4bada82ba02-letitsnow1
12/24/15-1/3/16 Winter Break
1/4/16 - School resumes
1/13 - Early release day at 12:15
1/18 - Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day - NO SCHOOL
1/19 - Delayed opening - NO AM KINDERGARTEN, PM KASE in session
What we've been up to.
- We used cuisenaire rods to show different combinations of ten units. We also talked about addition, using a standard equation with the symbols + and =. Your students are working on their own gingerbread addition books!
- We also talked about the symbol for greater or less than, < or >, and have begun to compare numbers using this notation.
- We enjoyed another version of the gingerbread sorry called The Gingerbread Cowboy. This one had some unexpected characters, including javelinas and a coyote.
- We met our third grade reading buddies!! Each kindergartner has a buddy (or two). Third graders brought some great books to share with us and then partners got to discuss and draw their favorite parts of each story.
- Our newest bulletin board is a collaborative painting of a gingerbread house, and a gingerbread boy and girl. Our next masterpiece will be posted next week!
- We created Gingerbread rhyming books and each added a surprise ending to show what might happen if the fox took the day off and somebody else chased the gingerbread man.
Links of the week.
We have practiced printing every almost every letter of the alphabet! Review letter formation here:
http://www2.needham.k12.ma.us/eliot/technology/lessons/fundation_letter_movies/index.html
Ask Questions to figure out the mystery button! (adult assistance needed)
http://www.learner.org/teacherslab/math/patterns/buttons/
Challenge: use our student password (cohen2015) and click on "PLAY a sight word game" in the EVERGREEN issue:
The things kids say. For real.
Student 1: The old man and the old woman will bake a cookie.
Student 2: The cookie will run away.
Student 3: Everyone will chase the cookie.
Student 4: The cookie has cowboy boots because he's a cowboy.
Student 5: They are cookie boots. Because he's a cookie.
Existential questions in kindergarten. Is he a cookie or is he a cowboy? Discuss.