Theme: Building Community

*Naming Our Class: Choosing a class name is a wonderful way to build community. Our names come from the book, Brown Bear, Brown Bear. This is a good book to use because most of the students are familiar with the rhyming words and the animals in this story. Did you know you can sing the lines of this book to the tune of “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star?” We use torn construction paper to make a banner and then everyone signed it. The banners are hanging in the hallway. We also made flags and we went on a parade today.

Literacy
*We can recognize the alphabet letters Aa-Hh, both capital and lowercase. We are writing them in the air and on our individual chalkboards.
*We read the Morning Message every morning.
*We read all the environmental print sheets and they are displayed in the classrooms. Thank you for sending them back to school.
*Many of us are recognizing our name in print and the names of our friends in print. We are learning how many letters we have in our first name.
*We are water coloring our own Brown Bear books. Next week, we will read them together before we bring them home. We will look at the printed words, move from left to right…pointing to each word as it is read.
We will make many little books this year. Try to save as many as you can. Read them together and soon your child will have the confidence and the ability to read them independently.
*As you read books with your child, look for individual alphabet letters your child recognizes, talk about spaces between words, look for those punctuation marks, count letters in words and count words in sentences. Reading to your child and letting your child read to you are the best ways to build strong readers and writers.

Mathematics
*We are counting “How many days of school?” in many ways each day. We are learning about place value using a ten frame.
*We are learning about sorting. We will be sorting by colors, shape, and size. The parent letter for chapter one is in the Friday folders. As we begin each of the 12 chapters in our math program, a parent letter will be sent home. As we finish each chapter, the student workbook will come home.
We have worked each day on adding something new to our calendar time. We do days of the week, months of the year, counting days of school on one hundreds chart, and using ten frames. We are off to a great start!

Handwriting
We have been practicing writing our names on sign-in sheets. Name writing is a very important skill to practice at home, too. Remember, only the first letter of a name is capitalized and all the others are lowercase. We are learning to write our names on lined paper. We have special names for all the lines. We call the top line the sky, the dotted line the fence, the bottom line the ground, and the underground is below the bottom line. Keep practicing name writing at home.

Word Wall
In our classrooms, we have our Word Wall. They have everyone’s name on it. We add high frequency words to the wall, too. In kindergarten, we have 36 words we need to know by the end of the year. This week, we put 2 words on the Word Wall…yes and no. Please practice recognizing and spelling these words with your child. The Word Wall helps us to “see” our important words every day.

Good Books
The Kissing Hand by Audrey Penn
Chrysanthemum by Kevin Henkes
Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? by Eric Carle
Miss Bindergarten Gets Ready For Kindergarten
Library Mouse

Choice Time
This week we had the opportunity to experience several centers: legos, blocks, writing, puzzles, playdoh and more. We are learning to work together and we are taking responsibility for our room by cleaning up.

Special Events/Announcements
Thank you to all the families who came to Curriculum Night this week. Knowing students goals for reading, math, writing, and behavior are very important! If you could not make it, your child will be bringing a folder home with the information. If you could return the Family Art Projects in September that would be great!!!