Listening Walk

Today we continued our study of our five senses!  We focused on hearing.  After discussing ways we use our hearing, we conducted a few experiments.  First we closed our eyes and had a friend hide in the classroom and clap their hands.  Using only our sense of hearing, we pointed in the direction of the sound.  After that, we closed our eyes and tried to identify different sounds.  Finally, we went on a listening walk by going outside and listening to the sounds of our playground.  Some of the pictures we drew were wind in the trees, cars from the road, the big kids playing on the playground and birds singing.  It was such a beautiful fall day for an outside lesson!

Monster Squeeze

In math, we have been learning about comparing numbers.  This week, we practiced recognizing if a number is bigger or smaller than another number.  Do practice this, we played a new game called Monster Squeeze!  Here we are playing this as a whole class using a number line and two giant number-eating monsters named Pancakes and Waffles!  One friend thinks of a number and then the rest of us try to guess that number.  If the guess is too big, the monster on the right eats all the numbers up to and including the guessed number that are too big.  If the guess is too small, the monster on the right eats all the small numbers.  We play until the number is guessed or it is the only number squeezed between the monsters!

We also played this game as a math station!  Here we are using the mini version. 



Snacks

Each morning our class enjoys a small snack before going outside for recess.  If you want your child to have a snack during the day, please place it in a separate bag from their lunch.  Sometimes it is difficult to determine which food goes with which time of day.  If possible, please label the snack bag.

Also, as our snack time is only 10 minutes long, please remember to pack one small snack for your child.  Multiple snacks at one sitting may encourage the children to eat too fast in order to finish everything.  Our lunch time is approximately an hour and half after snack, so we only need something small for our break.

If your child has a favorite snack they would like to share with the class, we would love to take donations of community snacks in case someone forgets theirs. 

Thank you!  

Magnetic Letters

Dear Parents,

Magnetic letters will provide your children with many wonderful experiences.

Children need to learn about the shape of letters, as well as how they are alike or unlike other letters.  Ultimately, they need to know that the letters have sounds, and can be put together to make words.

Your children can use the magnetic letters in a variety of ways.  They can play games matching the capital letters with the small letters.  They can work with word chunks/parts and form new words.  They can gain fluency with their high frequency words by scrambling the magnets and making the word again and again.

We would like all of the Kindergarten children to have the opportunity to work with magnetic letters at home and increase their awareness of letters and words.

We recommend a set of lower case letters.  We will be purchasing these sets of letters from a catalog very soon.

Please sign the paper sent home in your child's homework folder and return to your child’s classroom teacher by Thursday, October, 11^th 2012, with your payment (checks made payable to Harlan Elementary School), if you are interested.

Thank you,

Laura Groszek, Reading Specialist

& the Kindergarten Team

Letter Beads

Using letter beads is an excellent way of strengthening our fine motor skills and enhancing our letter identification!  We use the beads to create words, names and letter patterns.

Beginning Sounds

In writing and reading, we have been practicing listening to the beginning sounds of words.  This week, we played several games which helped us isolate these sounds.  Some of the ways we have practiced is to match a picture and it's beginning sound to the corresponding letter, match pictures with the same beginning sound, and sorting pictures by their beginning sounds into groups.

A great way to practice this at home is to find things in your house and ask your kindergartener what sound they hear at the beginning.

Here we are playing some of our sound games!

Gentle Reminder

There is NO SCHOOL tomorrow, FRIDAY, OCTOBER 5.  School will resume on Monday, October 8.