Tuesday, September 13, 2011

Newsletter From August 22

Thank you to everyone for helping this year get off to a wonderful start! The children are adjusting to our daily routines and getting to know each other. We have a super group of hard workers and good friends!

IMPORTANT DATES:
• Aug. 22~ YMCA after school care begins
• Aug. 24~ Cub Scouts meet after school
• Aug. 25~ Meet the Principal night at Chick Fil~A 5:00-8:00 pm
• September 5~ Labor Day Holiday

LUNCHROOM NEWS: As you know, four choices are being offered this year for lunch. Please take a few moments each evening or morning to discuss lunch options with your child. It will help speed up our morning routine if the children knew what they would like to have for lunch each day. Menus were sent home on Watermelon Welcome. Let me know if you need another one. If your child is bringing a lunch box, milk & juice is available for 50 cents. Thanks!

REMINDERS:
Please help your child remember to wear sneakers on our PE days, Mondays & Wednesdays. Please remember to send a small, healthy snack that can be quickly and independently eaten in the mornings. Sometimes we will continue to work through snack time, so it’s important that you send something that can be eaten neatly. Thank you for using your child’s red Take Home Folder for all communication to and from school. Please initial in each calendar box daily, so I know you’ve seen it. And finally, thank you for remembering to send all money to school in an envelope, clearly labeled with your child’s name, my name, and what the money is for. Thanks!

THANK YOU to Annmarie’s family! They sent a huge bag of supplies and cookies! Thanks for thinking of us! Callie brought in more class supplies, today! THANKS!

Summer Reading Celebration: We shared some of our favorite books in the courtyard on Friday afternoon. We enjoyed cookies (thanks, Annmarie!) and juice while we talked and read with our classmates. Thank you to everyone who brought a book from home!

PTO news: Thanks to all of you who joined our PTO at Watermelon Welcome. Remember to send in your Ingle’s card number. This is one of the easiest ways for our school to earn money. We are collecting Box Tops, Coke lids and codes from boxes, Campbell Soup labels for Education, and can tabs! Thanks for sending these items in.

Homework: At this point in the year, your child’s main homework will consist of working on reading (& spelling) high frequency words and reading daily at home. Beginning next week, I will add math homework. For this week, please look over the following “kindergarten” high frequency words. If your child can easily recognize them for reading, go ahead and begin practicing the spelling of these words. Our main goal now is for the children to be able to read them at first sight; spelling will come later.
a, and, away, big, blue, can, cat, come, dad, dog, down, find, for, funny, go, help, I, in, is, it, jump, little, look, make, me, mom, my, not, one, play, red, run, said, see, the, three, to, two, up, we, yellow, you

I will assess the children on reading (or spelling) these words towards the end of the week.

Also begin to set aside a solid 15 minute slot of time for you and your child to read together. Next week we will begin to bring books home from the class to ready each day. Thanks in advance for your cooperation with homework! Together, we can work together to help your child reach his or her fullest potential!

Language Arts: We will continue to work on letter sounds, letter identification & formation. We are working on beginning and ending sounds of words, writing sentences with spacing between words, and including periods at the end of sentences. This week we are focusing on using our fingers to point to the words as we read, using the pictures for clues, and “getting our mouths ready” as we face unknown words. We are reading stories (fiction) and reading for information (non-fiction).

Math: We’re working on number recognition, formation, and identification. We’re comparing numbers using the terms “greater than & less than” on a number line and number chart. We’re reviewing calendar skills and counting pennies.
Social Studies: We have been learning how routines & rules help us in our classroom community.