We finished up our color week last week by learning how to read and write the color words blue, purple, pink, and brown.  We read lots and lots of colorful stories, including Pinkalicious, Purplicious, Harold and the Purple Crayon, Brown Bear, Brown Bear and Little Blue Truck.  We continued to work on foundational skills like identifying the cover, knowing where to start reading and which way to go, and identifying sight words, familiar letters and the purpose of the author/illustrator.  Here's some of the books we enjoyed this week! 

I'm so proud of the students for how well they are doing with literacy centers. I've almost finished my initial assessments and will begin small group instruction soon!  Next week, the students will get new centers, and more choices at each center!

In writing we wrote the color words each day, and practiced drawing pictures of things that represent each color.  We also worked on our sight words of the week.  This week our focus was on the words a and see.  Today we wrote a sentence with our words.  I'll be keeping most of your child's writing in a portfolio and I will show it to you at parent teach conferences.  After that, I'll send home bundles every month or two.  We continued to work on handwriting this week with more straight letters.  Next week, we'll start diagonal line letters like X, V, Y, K, Z, A, M, W and N. Next week we will foucs on drawing pictures of characters, and using details and five colors in our pictures.  We'll also continue to label our pictures with the beginning sound of each item.  

In math this week, I introduced the counting jar.  We will use it in class to practice developing 1 to 1 counting.  Soon, your child will bring home the jar and get to fill it up and practice counting household items.  Then, they'll bring it to school to share with the class!  Today was our last day of our current math centers, and everyone got to pick their favorite.  Next week, we will have new materials to practice making patterns, counting, sorting or making shapes. 

This week in Science we continued to study and graph the daily weather and temperatures.  We watched two weather videos, one fiction, and one non-fiction.  The students are really improving with their ability to use vocabulary to describe the weather conditions and symbols.   

Kindergarten is a great time for your child to learn to tie their shoes!  Students can practice at home and have a chance to show me if they can tie at the end of each month.  We'll induct new members to our club each month, and those students will be able to help me tie the 40 laces we sometimes have in the classroom! If your child knows how to tie shoes, they will get a "liscense to tie" card and prize.  Don't worry, sometimes it can take several months to get it, so just keep trying!  

Thank you to Isaac's family for the playdoh donation this week.

 I can always use fresh playdoh so if you see a good deal on it at the store and wish to donate, it would be greatly appreciated.  Or, make a science/cooking experiement at home and try one of the homemade recipes!  We use playdoh A LOT in Kindergarten so I'm appreciative to any and all donations.  I could also use donations of toys you no longer wish to have at home.  Things like bocks, marble run, board games, puzzles, and other similar items are great for rainy indoor recess days and choice centers time.

This week we had our first class meeting.  We'll have these regularly every other Friday, and on an as needed basis. Class meetings are a great community building tool, and I use them to celebrate happy things, good character, and discuss issues that come up in class.  This week we talked a lot about what we loved best about Kindergarten and how happy we feel when someone asks us to play or includes us in a recess game.  Our issue for the week was about tattling, so we came up with times when it's okay to tell a teacher, and times when we should try to work out an issue with a classmate, or ignore an unpleasant behavior.   

We also had our first birthday club yesterday.  We celebrated our two September birthdays, Allyson and Jayden.  I'll contact you at the beginning of your child's birthday month to give you more information about the date and time of the birthday celebration.