Hello All,
I hope you had a happy Monday and I hope you don't mind that I am sending this a bit early! Dates to Remember: Kinder Bouncing Bears Party- Wednesday the 19th Weekly Focus: Bats/Pumpkins Theme!! ELA- Rhyme, clapping out syllables, beginning sounds Writing- Fixing up a piece of writing we have written this 9 weeks (Author Celebration Friday) Sight Words/Alphabet: Review all previous sight words, letter and sounds for N and D Social Studies/Science- Review of Magnets and the 4 seasons. Math- count, write and represent numbers 0-10. Be able to answer questions about more and less then numbers. MAP Testing: I will be sending home a copy of your child's map scores. I have attached a few informational sheets explaining about what MAP is and how to interpret the scores. If you would like to make a time to conference with me about your child's progress please feel free to contact me! Homework: Family Pumpkin Project- Every 9 weeks or so, I am going to give a family project as homework! These projects will be simple, and designed for you to spend time doing a fun activity with your kindergartner. I would love for you and your child to fill out the "book report" sheet, with your child attempting most of the writing. It would be awesome if you could work together and discuss these questions and coach your child into writing what they hear. Please encourage spaces, nice handwriting and punctuation! Again, I don't intend for this to be stressful! Just an opportunity to do something fun together to inspire authentic writing! I would LOVE to see some pictures of y'all working on this together! Anytime a paper reader comes home feel free to keep it for your child's library! Thank you so much for reading with your children every night! They come into school sooooo excited to pick a new book and tell others about what they have read! Next Week: I want to thank everyone for their generous offers in helping us prepare for our Pumpkin Day on Oct. 28th! I would love to have 1 or 2 more volunteers if at all possible! We will be completing our Pumpkin stations in the afternoon from 1:15-2:30. I have a grand idea of completing this in small groups so every child gets a one on one experience! Thank you so much for all you do for your kindergartner and our classroom. I am so grateful to be surrounded by supportive parents!!! Love, Mrs.Cotton
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Hello All!
I hope this email finds you well! Our learning targets for this week are writing, building and identifying 0-5. We are also learning the letter names and sounds for the letters T and A. In class, we have been talking about beginning sounds. When we do this, we sound out words and think about the sounds we hear! The kids are really starting to catch on! It’s so much fun watching their gears turn while they are making connections to reading!!! We have been reading Chicka Chicka Boom Boom! In science, we are working on observing using our 5 senses. We have also been talking about what scientists do and the different jobs scientists have. Our sight words this week are can and big. We will have another assessment on Friday! J Please make sure to study these with your student! Lots of our kids are already starting to pick out these words in books they are reading!!! They just light up when they realize they know the words!!! I have purchased our homework folders! They will be going home for the first time on Monday! Your student will have a reading log and their first practice reader. Please read this book with them and have them practice reading to you every night. Please record your reading of this book and any others on your reading log. This will be your student’s weekly homework grade. I will check these every Friday. J Also, your child’s library books will begin coming home on Monday if they haven’t already! Open house is on Tuesday from 6-7:15 with a PTO meeting from 5:45-6:00! I am so excited to have families into our learning space! The kids are so proud of everything they have been working on! I know they will be so excited to show off how much they are learning and our different classroom procedures. Our students have been getting so much quicker at getting through the lunch line! Please continue to practice this with your child as you see necessary. As always, thank you so much for your support. I can’t tell you how much it means to me to have such wonderful and supportive parents in my room. I am so thankful for you and how involved you are in our classroom. When I am not with your children I am thinking about them! They mean so much to me and I am working hard to ensure they are loving every minute of learning. IF you ever have questions or concerns, please don’t hesitate to contact me! I can’t wait to see you all at Open House! Love, Mrs.Cotton Good Afternoon!
Here is our weekly update of happenings in our classroom! A few have asked about being volunteers and our sign up is almost ready! I am so excited to have parents that are so excited to help!!! Weekly Focus- In math, we are working on numbers 0-5. Please help your child at home by counting objects and practicing to write those numbers! In English Language Arts, we are focusing on the letters S and M. We are practicing what their names are and what sound they make! In social studies, we are talking about community helpers! We have been reading books, finding pictures and talking about all the jobs that make our communities run so smoothly! Tomorrow our students will be writing about what they want to be when they get older! During our brainstorm today they had so many AWESOME ideas!!! In science, our focus has been 5 senses! We have just skimmed the surface on this topic and will be diving in deep with a popcorn activity next week for fun Friday! Sight Words- The words on blue paper that came home today in your Wednesday folders are your student’s first 2 sight words! They will be tested on both of these words Friday. Each week your student will have 2 or 3 words to add to their sight word stack to practice at home! These words are such an important part of beginning to read. I am dreaming of getting a more sturdy plastic bags for these words and placing their names in vinyl on the bag so it stays with your student the whole year long! If you can, I would be so appreciative of 1 or 2 dollars from each student to make this dream come alive! Lunch Number- If your student is a frequent buyer, I have sent home a lunch number practice sheet. Our lunches will run much smoother and your student will get food much faster if every child knows their lunch number by heart! Thank you so much for helping me on this one! In addition, if your child brings lunch money, our new procedure is taking money directly to the cafeteria in the morning. This is also very helpful in getting our student through the lunch line quickly! Water Bottles- Our water fountains are very far away! I am very nervous about sending student to the water fountains frequently. If you child likes to drink water during the day, I would soooooo appreciate you sending a water bottle that they can open and close independently! As always, if you ever need anything or have questions do not hesitate to email me! Our students are catching on so well to our routines and procedures!!! They even earned a Mr.Potatohead Dance party today!!! I am going to have the “cat party” song stuck in my head all night!!! Until Next Week! :) Mrs.Cotton Good Afternoon!
It’s been a GREAT week in kindergarten! We have been sorting, writing, reading and learning our school core values and guidelines. I want to start out by thanking everyone for their generous donations to recess! The kids are having a ball! (literally) It’s so exciting to see them pick up a jump rope and learn to work cooperatively together to make it go round and around! Today a few students learned 4 square and I have a feeling it’s going to be a favorite!!! I wanted to let you know that our first Wednesday folder went home today! Please sign and return it to your child’s backpack tomorrow! I will be giving them a sticker if they return it on time! Inside of the Wednesday folder I have included a blank piece of cardstock. This cardstock is your child’s first “homework” assignment. Please help your child to fill both the front and back with pictures or fun memories. This will be laminated and will live in your child’s writing folder to serve as inspiration for writing! In addition, I would LOVE if you started to read with your child for at least 20 minutes a day. Bedtime is the perfect time to sit down and unwind with a book together! Some of my fondest memories are piled up in bed reading chapter books with my mom and 2 sisters until we were well into our teens! Soon we will be sending readers home for your child to create their own “libraries” at home! They are always so excited to call these books their own and it’s one of my favorite times every year! School is really starting to pick up and our students are learning procedures so well! Next week I will be starting our “no more letter of the week” phonics program. Each week, 2 students will serve as the “letter expert.” They will bring home a letter expert bag and will complete the components of the bag at home. They will return it so we can add the pieces to our “reading wall” in our classroom. From then on, that child will be that expert in our room! Class dojo is so much fun for our class! I have had a TON of kids earn prizes and points! I have sent home a paper invitation to dojo in your child’s Wednesday folder. If you are still having issues connecting, please contact me! I will be starting to accept parent volunteers very quickly! I will email a link to sign up for days to volunteer in our classroom. One of the days I will have a volunteer most often will be Wednesday afternoons, in order to prepare Wednesday folders! In addition, I will be adding some days for other ‘fun’ activities where extra hands would be very appreciated! J Once again, please do not hesitate to email me with questions or concerns. Your children are my priority! If you notice that I have forgotten to add an email you request be on our weekly email, please let me know! I am still working out the kinks! I am so thankful to have a room full of supportive parents this year! Lara Cotton Hey Scotties! I wanted to share some updated pictures of our classroom before things get started! :) Here is our room right before meet the teacher night!!!! I am so excited to get this year started!!!!!
First off, I wanted to show off some of our beautiful classroom and building elements! This building is truly a school of the future! We have so many elements built in to our school that will help to enhance and engage our students learning! Here is our learning space on the day of the #mahaffeyreveal ! I am SSSOOOO glad to be plaid! I cannot wait to post our learning space after it is completely set up! |