Gropp's Greatest Group

November 1-5

 

 

Dear Parents,

November is here!  We will begin a unit on the first Thanksgiving!  We will learn about the Pilgrims and Native Americans.  It will be exciting to make connections by comparing and contrasting what life was like long ago to how we live today.  On Friday, the lighting in our classroom will be a little different and we will visit our class garden outside to harvest our snack. Please do not send in snack with your child on Friday. 

The letter of the week is O.  We will be working on CVC (consonant-vowel- consonant) words with the letter O in the middle. 

In math we will continue matching numbers to sets for 0-20.  On Monday, we will fill in a November calendar with numbers 1-30.  Please place the November calendar in a place where your child can mark each day off.  We really need work on saying the day, the month, number, and year.  (Monday, November 1^st, 2010).  On Thursday, we will go to our detective spots to work on a problem independently.  Detective badges will be presented to our cadets who use pictures, numbers and attempt to write words to back up their thinking.  

Shapes are so cool!  At school we will be making connections to objects in our world that are solid (cubes, spheres) and flat (triangles, squares, rectangles, and circles) shapes.   Can you say, “quadrilateral?”  It’s a difficult word for a 5 or 6 year old to say but we can tell anyone that it is a shape with four sides or four angles. 

GREAT NEWS!

We have announced another character kid for the month of October!  Responsibility was the focus for the month.  Samantha Carlsen is a fine young lady that takes care of herself and her friends on a daily basis.  She has a positive attitude, is dependable and is proud of her school.  ROCK ON SISTER!!!!

SAMANTHA CARLSEN - CHARACTER KID FOR OCTOBER!

 

Have a great week!   
Mrs. Gropp and Mrs. Dupuis

October 25-29, 2010

Thank you all for attending your child's conference!  I was so happy to talk with each of you about the progress your child is making. Kindergarten is so exciting!

Math

In math we are learning about 3D shapes. Today we talked about cubes and where we see them in the world.  We talked about the difference between squares and cubes and about the similarities. Then, we made a cube!  We continue to learn about numbers and work on problem solving. Ask your child about the tall teens and what they do.

Literacy

This week we are working on the letter Bb and the sound it makes.  We will be writing in our journals and doing author's share.  Our students love sharing their writing!  They will bring home a rubric about their writing each time they share. Ask them to explain how sentences begin, how they end and how many sentences we should write.  Kindergarten words should be spelled correctly and other words are sounded out. 

Reminders!                        

• T-shirts are due by Friday, October 29, 2010. We will be tie-dying them in class and sending them home with washing instructions. It is important that each child have a white t-shirt so that we can wear them on Field Trips.  Please send in a shirt that is big enough for your child to grow into during the year. Kindergartners grow a lot!

• This is Red Ribbon Week.  We will be talking about keeping ourselves healthy and what good things we can do to accomplish this.  We will have some activities on Friday about Red Ribbon Week.Your child will bring home a red ribbon on Friday.

• Keep working on letters, numbers to 30 and sight words!

October fun!

Tonight is Keheley's Fall Festival.  It is from 5:00-7:30pm.  The weather should be great, so come enjoy your community and friends.  See you there!

Math

In math we are continuing to work on shapes, more than and less than and problem solving.  The students enjoy using the SmartBoard to do their math each day. We love it too! 

Literacy

Next week, we will be working on the letter Hh and the sound it makes.  We continue to work on writing, color words and sight words.  Please continue to work on the word and letter caterpillars that were sent home. Return them when your child knows all of the words. We will double check their progress at school.

Reminders:  Please arrive on time to your child's conference. We have set up conference so that parents with more than one child will have consecutive conferences. You should make childcare arrangements for your child; this is a parent only conference.

We have early release all week next week. Students are dismissed two hours early each day. ASP runs until 6pm each day, as well.

Please send a white t-shirt with your child's name written inside the collar.  We will be tie-dying these for our field trips and sending them home with directions how to complete the tie-dye process.

Your child should bring a healthy snack and water each day!

Welcome to our blog!

 

 

Welcome to our kindergarten blog.  There is a lot of information about what we are doing, when we are doing it and what you can do at home to enhance the classroom learning.  Please read completely each week as the blog is posted so you can keep up to date.

There is a kindergarten blog that has general information, our standards for each nine weeks and a kid's corner where they can go and play some games that we use in class. We are still working on that page, and it will be updated as more websites are added. To find it, go here.

Math

In math we are learning all kinds of things. How to be a good problem solver is one of the biggest!  We are working on our problem solving skills using pictures, numbers, and words.  As the students learn how to do each part, they earn part of their problem-solving detective badge.  When they get all three parts, they will be a full-fledged detective and can proudly wear their badges!  

Next week in math, we will be starting to learn about shapes.  Using manipulatives, we build items out of shapes, talk about how many sides each shape has and learn the proper names for shapes.  Ask your child to draw a quadrilateral for you. You might be amazed at what he/she knows!  We will also talk about three dimensional shapes like sphere and cube.

  Reading

During our literacy time, we are doing small group reading. Your child will be bringing home a book to read aloud to you. Please have them read it to you as many times as they'd like. We have one student who read it to her mom, her grandmother, her siblings, her houseplants and even the deer on the wall!  She is very excited about learning to read.

Over the next three weeks we will be learning the letters E, H and B and the sounds that go with them.  We know that good readers read from left to right and top to bottom and learning that writing works the same way. We have been doing an author share a few times a weeks and the kids LOVE it. 

Continue to work on the sight word and letter caterpillars that came home this week.  Send them in only if your child knows all of the words and can read them in a snap. We will be double checking their progress.

Character Kid!

 
Congratulations to Brady O'Connell, our first character kid of the year!  Brady was chosen because he shows integrity each day.  Our character words for September are honesty, trustworthiness, self-control and justice/fairness.  Brady is always fair to his friends and shows self-control in every situation.

Picture Day

Picture day is Wednesday, October 13.  This week order forms came home for fall pictures.  To receive pictures, you must pay in advance, by October 13. Be sure to look your best that day!

Conference week and early release

Conference week is October 18-22.  We will release students two hours early each day that week. "Lunch" will be 9:37-10:07am.  Have you returned your conference form?  If not, please do so in order for us to make sure your time works for you.  Your child should not attend this conference. Please arrange for someone to look after them at that time. I look forward to meeting with each of you.