Week of October 17 - 21

Dear Parents,

Thank you for a very successful  Parent/Teacher Conference week. I truly enjoyed sitting with you and discussing your child’s base knowledge and talking about where we go from here.  If you have any lingering questions, please email me, ask Ms. Diane, or stop by the classroom. 

Starting... now! you will see a real shift in our academic focus. We will continue to review the letters of the alphabet and numbers 0-10 (with a goal of 30), but we are also going to start learning sight words and begin to interact more with numbers (adding and subtracting).  

Please note the new layout of our blog. The columns on the left and right highlight the spelling words for the week and our math concept for the week. Please review this information with your scholar in conjunction with the work due in the homework packet.  In the footer you will find the polls, archives, and followers. There is a new poll for you to answer, as well!

Sight Words

In 1948, Dr. Edward W. Dolch comprised a list of 220 high frequency words that we find in the English language. This Dolch List is still used today in classrooms across the United States to help beginning readers.  The words on the list are called “sight words” and/or "high frequency words" and they make up 50-70% of any general text. Most of the words can not be sounded out and therefore must be memorized.  It includes pronouns, adjectives, adverbs, prepositions, conjunctions, and verbs. There is a separate list of 95 nouns which students learn as well.  

For the rest of our school year, we are going to focus on the words that have been isolated for Kindergartners to learn. Each week, we will memorize 3-5 words and have a spelling test at the end of the week. During the week, then, our scholars will be responsible for memorizing the given words and be responsible for writing them correctly when I read them out loud during our test. Our first spelling test is on Friday, October 21st.

The column to the left of our blog has the first three words for this week. As you can see, these three are VERY common when we read. During the week, we will be incorporating these three sight words into our daily practices, giving your child every opportunity to see how these words operate.

If you have a chance to research the Dolch List, please pay attention to the Pre-Primer and Primer word lists. As an aside, we will begin to read more of author Jan Brett during the year, and I will be posting her Dolch List on the News Bulletin Board in our classroom so that you can see what words are coming up. Jan Brett is a lovely artist... so I’m using her lists specifically, just because they’re pretty. 

Mathematics

To begin to learn more about the numbers 0-30, we will start to manipulate those numbers for better understanding. Starting next week, we will be working out of an actual Kindergarten math workbook. Everyday will be a different math lesson and the completed workbook will come home, graded, on Fridays. The homework assigned for the week will reflect that work. 

Jumping Ahead 

Starting in December, we will explore some beginning reading. This will consist of decodable books - short (very short!) books that have words the scholars can “sound out.” We are going to set aside some reading time in class for us to learn to pronounce the words in the book.

Business as Usual

Of course, we will continue to do what we do best: learning a new concept and exploring it through art, science, and history. Expect to see some cool art projects come home and new family activities to do for homework. I will be assigning a new big project in November that will be due right before Thanksgiving break. 

Halloween Party

On Monday, I will post a sign-up sheet for our Halloween Party on our classroom's clipboard.  Halloween falls on a Monday, unfortunately, so I hope you are able to participate in some way...

As Always...

If you have any questions, comments, or concerns please feel free to email me, stop by the classroom, talk to Ms. Diane, or leave a comment on our blog.  Please become a “follower” of our blog and “like” our school’s Facebook page, if you haven’t already done so.

Have a terrific week!

Mrs. Stuhr