September 25-29

It's Kaukauna's homecoming week! Here is the information you need:

Upcoming Events: 

September 27: Homecoming Parade at 4:30 (4:00 line-up)
October 8: Ride to Read bike event  10:00-1:00 More info for this awesome event here! 

Here's what's happening in Kindergarten this week:

Reading: This week in Reader’s Workshop, the students are working on retelling and saying more and more of the story. We will also learn to use connecting words, such as then, after, and, & later, to tell the story. Students will focus on words and lines that are repeated by characters in so that we can use the exact same words when we retell the books. Towards the end of the week, we will focus on pointing to words in the book that we can read already. This will set students up for the more conventional reading that is coming soon!

It was so much fun to unwrap the gift of "Old Favorite Storybooks" this week. 

Writing: Our writing shifts from writing informational stories to writing true life stories this week. We will continue to practice planning books and telling stories across the pages. Writers will also work on tapping out words and writing the sounds they hear. This video shows what tapping out words looks like. These young writers are just starting to hear sounds, think of the letter, and put it on the page. That is hard work! Remember to praise your child for their attempts at adding letter sounds to their writing!

Math: Be on the lookout for math games coming home in your child's folder. These games will be focused on structuring. Structuring refers to being able to seeing groups in numbers (i.e. 8 is 5 and 3) and being able to take numbers apart and put them back together. Let me know if you have any questions or need more copies of games!

The minilessons will focus on adding/subtracting, writing numbers 1-5, and comparing numbers 1-10, and shapes. We will explore circles, squares, and rectangles. Mathematicians will use comparing mats to see which number has more/less. The comparing mats look like this:

Social Studies:  We have been digging into what it looks like, sounds like, and feels like to follow the rules in our classroom. Your kiddos have been doing a wonderful job taking care of themselves, being kind, and keeping our room clean and safe. Students will learn that even though we try hard to follow rules, sometimes we will break them. I will introduce our "Take a Break" spot. This area is a place where students can go to get their bodies and minds ready to come back to learning. We like to think of the break spot as a place to reboot and come back to learning.