January 21st

I hope you all have a terrific weekend and enjoy the extra day off from school.  

Last week we spent time sharing our Family Snowman Projects, reading and listening to different snowy stories, and comparing and contrasting some of these stories.  We learned about Venn Diagrams to help us organize our thinking after reading two different versions of The Mitten.  The children did a terrific job sharing what they remembered from the stories. 

During math, we wrapped up our unit on place value and 'tens' and 'ones'.  We will, however, continue practicing reading, writing, and building those tricky teen numbers each day!  This week we will begin working on adding numbers together.  We will use pictures and manipulatives to help us with our learning.  I will also be sending home practice flash cards for each child.  The goal is for the children to know these facts quickly by the end of kindergarten.  Please keep the facts in your child's folder for safe keeping.

During writing, the children are learning all about revising and editing their true stories.  Last week we used post it notes and blue pens to help add more to our stories through pictures and words.   This week we will learn about writing and publishing our very best stories. We are trying so hard to make our stories easy to read. The children are growing so much as beginning writers!

Our Word Wall is also growing. Each week we continue to add three new words to our classroom wall. We also practice reading and writing words in the same word family.  Ex: at is on our wall. We are reading and writing bat, cat, hat, sat...  Try doing this at home too! :)  I will send home a copy of the words we have learned so far.

Later on in the week we will begin learning all about penguins. We will read fiction and nonfiction stories. We will also create some fun penguin projects to go along with our penguin theme.

Report Cards will be uploaded to BC@Home at the beginning of February.  I will be sending home notes regarding conference times.  Please return the note and I will schedule conference times according to the responses I receive.    

*We will celebrate Friendship and Valentine's Day* on February 14th at 12:00 in our classroom.  A note will be sent home with additional information about our next classroom event, but I wanted to make you aware of the date in case you wish to attend.  

Thank you so much for your support.

Sincerely,
Eileen Browne :)

Welcome 2014!

Happy New Year!  I hope you all had a wonderful break and were able to spend quality time with your family and friends.  I am looking forward to seeing my 'kindergarten kids' again this week!  

This week we will spend time gently easing back into the routines of our kindergarten day. We will practice our reading, writing, math, and listening skills as we read stories about snowy weather.   We will read Lois Ehlert's Snowballs and Ezra Jack Keats' The Snowy Day to help us with some of our learning this week.  We will also begin reading Jan Brett's  The Hat and The Mitten.  We will talk about main characters, settings, problems, solutions, as well as the beginning, middle, and end of stories.  We will also work on some fun snowy projects to go along with our reading!

Please check your child's folder for our January Family Project.  The children love sharing their work with their classmates.  All projects will be displayed in our kindergarten hallway for our school to enjoy.  Thank you for your support with our monthly projects. 

I am looking forward to a fun week in our kindergarten classroom!

Sincerely,
Eileen Browne