Spooktackular Week!

We had a "Monster" of a week! 

Halloween week featured Monsters, Onset and Rime, and Counting

Read Alouds:

   

Fundations:

 

C-Cat-/c/ and O-Octopus- /o/

This week we reviewed our vowel sounds and learned the letters C and O. The class is doing a great job discovering words around the classroom that begin with the letters we have learned so far. Our centers bridge our Fundations lessons through added practice.

Centers:

-C and O Alphabet Books.

-C and O Fundations Practice 

-Poetry: The Witch 

-Writing: Narrative Writing

-Listening Center

-Frankenstein Art

-Writing Around the Room

Phonemic Awareness: Onset and Rime

Onset and Rime is the process of dividing one-syllable words. The Onset is the initial consonant or consonant cluster. The Rime is the vowel and consonants that follow. For example the word sun, /s/ is the onset and -un is the rime. 

We called this "Monster Talk". The students created their own monster puppets and playing cards to practice these skills.  Puppets/games went home Thursday for you to play at home. We are in the beginning stages of sounding out words and identifying initial sounds. This will help with reading and writing. 

We will continue to practice onset and rime as well as word families next week. 

Writing:

Every week students write a story about their real life experiences. This is known as Narrative Writing. The class has written 3-4 stories and even shared their writing with a partner and small group. The discussions are filled with questions, compliments, and even extensions to new writing prompts! 

Next week we will spend a lot more time on writing as we begin our first Extended Writing Unit on Narrative. Each student will write their own individual story about a classroom experience. Look out for more information about our writing.

Math:

-We've finished our topic on our counting, reading, and writing numbers to ten.  

-Our next topic, Topic 4 is about comparing and ordering numbers 1 to 10.

-Guiding Questions: What is a ten frame? What group of objects has more? Which Group has fewer? How many fewer? 

-Monster Math games and Monster Math Ten Frames were apart of our fun filled week too!

Halloween Celebrations

Friday Morning we got dressed in our costumes and ready to parade around the school. We went to each Pod and performed our song Witches Brew. We even did two performances in the cafeteria! 

After our parade, we headed back to our classroom to change and have snack.  We needed to gear up for our Halloween Celebrations!! Room 5 hosted Ghost Bowling, Ghost Writing with Shaving cream, Halloween Masks, Ghost Necklaces, and Roll a Pumpkin activity. Room 6 hosted: Build a pumpkin, Feed the Ghost, Pumpkin Ring Toss, Pumpkin Puppets, and more!

Thank you to our volunteers! We appreciate all of your help and celebrating our day with us!

Misc.

-We went to library and heard Mr. Murphy read a story by Peter Brown.

-In computers we created our own pumpkins.

-New Lunch cards are in! The lunch cards feature your child's school photos which should be coming soon!

-Mrs. Davis Read us a story about a Big Green Monster but didn't show the pictures until the end of the book so the students could visualize and create their own monsters. They came out great!

-Lunch and recess routines have been running smoothly.

-We achieved our first class reward!! Our first reward was a movie on Halloween. We have brainstormed a great list of options for our next reward!

Next Week:
-Writing will be a large focus next week. We will think, pair, share and write our own narrative stories.
-We will learn the letters A and G in Fundations.
-Math we will start Comparing and Ordering Numbers 1-10.
-Lots of New Seasonal Read Alouds and Books
-Check out the calendar section on the blog for upcoming days off. November is a "short" month with all of our days off.

Happy Trick or Treating!!

Halloween Reminder

Dear Parents,

Just a friendly reminder that tomorrow, October 30th is our Halloween Celebration. Feel free to come to Fox Hill tomorrow, to see your child participating in the Kindergarten Halloween Parade!!

If you plan on attending, please note the following:

• Please report to the cafeteria no earlier than 9:15
• We will be parading through the cafeteria between 9:25 and 9:35 (please note this is an approximate time).
• Once in the cafeteria, there will be a viewing area where you will stand to watch the parade.
• Please remember that once the children have finished singing “Witches Brew,” we need to continue on with the parade right away, and there will be no time for individual photos with your child.

Some other reminders:

• Please send in your child’s costume in a bag. Students will be changing out of their costumes after the parade.
• It would be helpful if your child’s costume can be worn over his/her clothes☺

Thank you in advance for your support, and we are looking forward to a spooktacular day!

Volunteers

Thanks for volunteering to help us celebrate Halloween. As you may already know, our view time for our Halloween parade will be from 9:25-9:35 in the cafeteria. Once we are done singing we ask volunteers to sign in at the main office and report to Pod 1 for further instructions.  Volunteers will be assigned to a room and an activity. We are excited for a fun filled day and appreciate your time.

We're going on a leaf hunt...

Pumpkins, Leaves, and Listening

We are continuing to embrace the autumn weather and fall theme. This week we focused on pumpkins, leaves, and even started to talk about Halloween. 

Read Alouds

    

FUNdations

This week, students learned their first two vowels, i and u. Vowels are very important in our reading and writing. They are special sounds that happen in your mouth rather than pushed out.  Below are our sound cards. Notice how the vowel cards are pink rather than yellow for consonants. Each week brings new letters and sounds but we continue to say, write, and use all of the letters we've learned thus far. 

 

I-Itch- /i/ and U-Up- /u/

Centers

-Students are getting to 3-4 work centers a day. They have a workboard to help guide them to each table and there are teachers at centers to help when needed. While other times there are independent center work which can be completed without assistance.

-Some of these include:

-Spooky and Halloween Syllables 

-Letter/Fundation writing practice.

-Letter books (Please have your child read you their book when it comes home)

-Poetry- 5 Little Pumpkins
-Poem Review

-Writing
-Writing around the room: T,B,F

-Letter Detectives-Letter recognition/Sorting
-Rainbow U

-Art: Pumpkin painting, Bat Pointillism with hot colors 

-Listening Center **New this week**- Students use an i-pad to scan a QR Code to listen to a story and fill out a response sheet as a follow up activity.  They love the opportunity to use our classroom i-pads and learn how to be a 21st century learner along the way!

Math

-Topic 3 is focused on counting, reading, and writing numbers 6 to 10. The class is picking the lessons up quickly and easily. We practice counting every morning. Counting to 100 is a Kindergarten expectation. They should be able to count by 1's and 10's to 100 by the end of the school year.  

-Counting is an activity you can do with your child while running errands, eating dinner, or even in the car on the way to school.

We're going on a Leaf Hunt

On Thursday, we took advantage of the warmer weather and went outside on the playground to search for some colorful leaves! The students selected a few leaves to bring back to the classroom where they "Investigated" their leaf. We talked about the size, shape, and color of their leaf. We even explored how many coins/pennies could fit on the leaf.  On Friday, we used our leaves to do some leaf rubbings. What a great experience!

Book Fair

Thursday we visited the library book fair. Mr. Murphy did a great job transforming the space into a real book store! I hope the wishlists help organize yourself and your child for our visit. If you have any questions or would like more information on how to purchase a book online please visit Mr. Murphy's blog: https://foxhillmediacenter.wordpress.com/

Halloween

Information for our Halloween celebration and parade was sent home earlier this week. It is also posted in the blog. If you have any questions or concerns please let me know. It will be a fun filled day. Students will travel through the school to show off their costumes and sing some songs. When we return to the classroom students will change back into their clothes and rotate through the Kindergarten classrooms to do Halloween themed activities and games. Please remember to pack your child's Halloween costume in a bag. 

Compliments & Whole Class Goals

-Mrs. Johnson recognized our class over the loud speaker. She was VERY impressed with our Hallway behavior. She observed our class in the hall walking to lunch, recess, and buses. She noticed how quiet, straight, and responsible our class was in the hall.  It was a very special honor.  To recognize these special compliments and reward students for their positive behaviors, we started our class reward system. Every time we receive a compliment from another teacher or staff member in the building for our positive behavior as a whole class we add a piece to our class thermometer. Once we reach the top our whole class will be rewarded with a special reward (ie extra recess, pajama day, show and tell, etc.) 

-We will continue our individual behavior system too. 


FYI: There is a student in Kindergarten who is looking for their lost North Face Jacket with Initials NK on the Tag.  Please keep your eyes out of this. Thanks in advance!