February 24th-28th

Dear Parents,

           We had a yogurt tasting project for the letter “Y’ and we made a classroom graph of our favorite kind.  We had a great valentine’s celebration, and I would like to thank the homeroom parents for all the hard work they do for our class!  Your help is appreciated!  Thanks for all the wonderful gifts and cards for Valentine’s Day, I really appreciated your thoughtful ness.

        The children did a great job with all of the activities for the anti-bully week, and jump rope for heart.

We are beginning something new with our wordlists.  By this time in the kindergarten year, all the children should be blending successfully with little or no assistance.  Some of the children are memorizing the words on the wordlists and not reading the words.  In order to test this accurately we will only be sending the odd numbered lists home with the children, and I will use the even numbered lists for the report card grade.  By doing this you can still see the type of words that the children will be expected to read.

On to the week of Feb. 24^th to the 28th

Phonics- We will be learning the letter “d” as in duck and dog.  Show and tell will be on Friday as usual.  

Reading- We will be starting the week with the story “Bunny Day”.”  The comprehension skill that will be taught throughout this lesson is “sequence”, and the genre is “animal fantasy”.

Science- We will be working on the Foss science lesson Wood and Paper”, and we will be keeping a writing journal about some of the things that we have learned.  We will also be learning about tools, machines, camouflage, and plant and animal characteristics.

  Math- We will be continuing to learn about subtracting.

    We will have our second oral repots revolved around dinosaurs. The “dinosaur” presentations are scheduled for Monday 3^rd, 4^th and 5^th.  I will send a schedule with your child’s day and name of dinosaur.  I will be evaluating the children on knowing the name, a few facts, and a picture of their dinosaur.  Try practicing it at home so that it will be easier for your child to present their report to the class.  I am looking forward to watching your children shine!

Important dates to remember:

April 3-Kindergration pictures

May 20- Kindergarten graduation at the High School.

May 28-Field trip to the Lokie (May 29^th rain date) May 30-Carnival at NSE.

Remember:

No matter how long the winter is, spring is sure to follow.

 

February 3rd-7th

  Kindergarten news                 February 3rd^th-February 7th

                                                                                                                                                        

*Letter Ee and it’s sounds as in elephant and equal will be our focus in Phonics next week.   Keep practicing the use of the “K” and “C” spelling rule.

*In math, we will be working on identifying numbers up to 20, identifying before, after, and between, and liquid measurement.

*  Our new book for this week is “Seeds”.  The genre is informational text and the comprehension skill is drawing conclusions. The children enjoyed learning about the life cycle of butterflies and they love looking at their baby pictures that I have displayed in the hall outside of our classroom.  I plan on putting thir pictures in their memory books, if that’s not ok just let me know and I will return them now to you.

*Thursday, February 13^th will be our Valentine party.  Anyone who is on the homeroom parent list can help at the party.  I will provide the time of the party as soon as possible.Please let me know if you will be attending.  The children can bring a valentine card  for  each student in our class.  It is good practice to have your child sign(print) their name on each valentine, and I will provide you with a class list of names to put on the envelopes.  A good activity is to have your child address the envelopes themselves(with your help).  This can take a long time so try to work on a few a day until completed.  Don’t forget to include all the students in the class so no one has hurt feelings.   If you are writing the names please print them so that the children can read them.  Remember that we have 3 Josephs and three Kaitlyns(each is spelled differently) .

 

*Next Tuesday weather permitting, will be the 100^th day.  Plan to have your child bring 100 of something to school , and it should be small enough to place on an 8 by 10 graph containing 100 blocks.  Your child can dress up to look like they are 100 years old on this day, but this is an optional activity.

 

*February is National Children’s dental Health Month.  Please encourage your child to brush his/her teeth at least twice a day and to practice good dental health habits.  A tooth brush chart is coming home with your child for this month.  If he/she returns it at the end of the month they will get a treat.

 

I am returning your child’s report card today and you may keep it.  Keep in mind that  each report card period gets increasingly harder due to more subject matter taught.  Also for your child to earn a  “ 4 “ they must be able to  master the skill with out assistance.  I am sending home a copy of the memory word list that I use to test them for the section of the rubric that covers the common core standard CC.1.1.K.D that states : Know and apply grade-level phonics and word analysis skill in decoding words.  The bullet states: Student can read common high frequency words by sight.  The weekly wordlists also are included in this part of the evaluation. 

 

Wordlist # 10 should be in your child’s folder today and the children did a nice job reading the words on wordlist # 9.  Monday will be day # 3 and we will have computer class .

  

Jan.27th-31st

                                                                    Kindergarten News- January 27^th-31st

Next week after we finish the letter Z we will be learning the letter “C” with a /k/ sound as in cat and candy.  We will learn the K and C Spelling rule.  The rule is that we spell the /K/ sound with the letter “k” when the sound is followed by the letters e, I, and y.  We spell the /k/ sound with the letter c when the sound is followed by the letters a, o, and u and any consonant.  For example:

K before e, i, or y                                                            C before a, o, u, or any consonant

Keg       kid    milky                                                             cat    cot     cup    clip

Friday will be show and tell for the letter “C”.

Wordlist # 9 will be tested this week and wordlist # 10 will come home in the communication folder.

Reading- We will continue the book “See How we grow”.  Its genre is “biography” and the comprehension skill emphasized is “cause and effect”.  I did a bulletin board revolved around this book.  I put your child’s baby picture on the front of a card, and on the inside put their school age picture, and then compared how the children are growing and changing.  The other kindergarten children had fun guessing who the children were on their baby pictures.  Early next week we will begin the story “Farfallina and Marcell”. 

Math- We have begun topic # 7 which concentrates on addition.  They will learn the vocabulary words join, plus sign, sum add and addition sentence.

Report cards will be distributed on Monday January 27^th.  Please sign and return it in the original envelope as soon as possible.  Remember that this is an assessment on the common core standards that must be met by the end of your child’s kindergarten year.  I am sending home the rubric so that you can see any areas that you child needs to improve.  Please make sure the rubrix is returned also.

Reminders and dates:

100^th Day- The 100^th day of school is just 7 days away!!!  Please practice counting to 100, and don’t forget to send a bagged collection of 100 items to school on Wednesday February 4^nd.  If you want your child to share their collection with the class, please let me know.  The children can dress like they are 100 years old.  This is not next week, but I wanted to let you know ahead of time so you can prepare.

The Valentine’s Day party will be held on Monday, Feb.13^th. Please make sure that everyone in the class is included when sending valentine cards.  I will send a list next week with the children’s names to help you do these.    

Monday will be day # 3 on the school rotation and we will have computer class.

Have a great weekend!!!!!

January 20th-24th

                                                                                                              Jan.-20^th to the 24^th

           Monday January 20^th is a teacher in-service day, and Martin Luther King Jr.‘s birthday observance so there will be no school for the students.                          

^{Next week in Phonics we will be learning the consonant letter “Z” as in zebra and zoo.}  

Reading-We will begin the book “Farfallina”” which is classified as “animal fantasy.  The children will be learning about plot in the lessons this week.  One of the common core standards for kindergarten requires that the students learn about setting, characters, and plot for any story.

Science- We will learn about animal behavior, and how things change as they grow.  The characters in this story are a caterpillar and a goose.

Math- We will have the topic #6 test next week, and then move on to topic # 7.  The common core standards covered in this unit revolve around addition and subtraction.  We will be using objects, fingers, mental images, and drawings to name a few, and we will be solving addition and subtraction word problems.

 Tuesday will be Day # 5A, and we will have music class.

Report cards will tentatively be distributed on Friday, January 24rd, 2014.  They are on an e-schoolbook template and are standard based. Remember that this report card is not your typical report card based on grades.  We use a scoring rubric which has the standards that are expected to be met at the end of kindergarten.  The goal is to score a 3 which means that they have mastered the standard.  If they have a 2 or a 1 it just means they have to keep working hard to achieve mastery by the end of kindergarten.  Some of the standards are not taught during each marking period and will have an NA which just means we it wasn’t covered this time.  I am sending the rubric home for you to see what your child needs to work on, and you can also see what they will be expected to do by the end of kindergarten.  It never hurts to look ahead to give your child a head start!!  Please return the report card (signed) and the rubric as soon as possible. 

 Have fun working on the United States project on this long weekend.  It is a fun and educational way to learn about some of the states in our country. Oral report activities are also part of the common core standards required for kindergarten. You can go on You-tube and find some cute songs about the fifty states. Thanks to all the parents who are helping “prepare” the children for their first oral report. 

Have an “utterly” great weekend!!!!                                                          Mrs. Bernosky

 

                                             

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Dear Parents,                                                                                               from:   December 20^th, to January 2^nd

         The week began with a rocky start due to the nasty weather conditions, but it got better as the week went on. We made little decorated Christmas boxes of Santa and reindeer and fill them with hugs and kisses (chocolate ones.)We wanted to show our buddies how much we appreciate them!  The reading buddies loved the gifts that they received from the kindergarten children.   

We played   “pass the present game” as I read “ T’was the Night Before Christmas” on Thursday, and every time  I read  the word “the” they had to pass the present to the child on their right.  When the book was finished, they all opened the present from me that they were holding.  They also got a ring pop and a certificate for a book from scholastic.

 We got our tickets punched by the conductor “Mrs. Potts” (who by the way really works on the train in Jim Thorpe) and she wore her train outfit and brought her real ticket punch.  The children loved it!!  The movie was a hit.   We had cookies and hot chocolate just like in the movie.   

  I sincerely hope you liked the Christmas ornaments that the children made for you.  Someday, and it goes fast, believe me, you will look back at these keepsakes and wonder where the time went when your little one was in kindergarten.  I also hope you enjoyed the reindeer food, the polar express bell, the book, and the cookie plate for Santa.  We were busy elves this season!

Thank you so much for thinking of me at Christmas.  The wonderful gifts were not necessary but deeply appreciated.  Your children know what the “love of giving” means because they couldn’t wait for me to open their gifts.

We will return to school on January 2^nd, 2013, and it will be day # 5 on the school rotation.

Phonics- We will be working on the new letter Kk, as in kite and kangaroo.  We are learning a new rule in Phonics for the letter “K” to help the children decide which letter to use when spelling words that have the /K/ sound.  We learn “K” first because K always has the /K/ sound; c borrows the sound from k.  The rule is that we spell the /K/ sound with letter k when the sound is followed by the letters e, I, or y. (example-keg, kid. and milky).  We spell the /K/ sound with the letter “c” when the sound is followed by the letters a, o, u, or any consonant. Example cat, cot, cut, and clip.

Math –We will be learning to count to 100, find patterns on the 100^th chart, and count by 10’s to 100. 

Reading- We will begin reading “Little Quack”. The genre is animal fantasy, and the comprehension skill is “plot”.  We will be reviewing the letter “r” in this book.  The children will learn about how people, plants, and animals grow and change.

We will be testing when we return from break because the report cards will be tentatively given out on January 21^st. I have included a list of the sight words that I will be testing the children on for the second report card period. Try and review them during Christmas break.  Keep writing with your children over break, so that they don’t forget how to do it.  They are becoming great authors.  I will be testing word list # 7 when the children return from the break                                                                                                                                                      .

MERRY CHRISTMAS and A VERY HAPPY NEW YEAR!

                                                Mrs. Margaret Bernosky

December 16th-20th 2013

          December 16^th to December 20th

 

Dear Parents,

The week of December 16^th to December 20th will be a busy time in kindergarten.

In Phonics we will be learning about the letter K as in kite and kitten.  We have already introduced the memory word “from” and that can be practiced at home.  We are working on our wordlists and you should have wordlist # 7 in the weekend folder.

In math next week we will finish up topic #5, and begin #6. In this topic we will be learning about counting to 30 and then continuing on to 100 which is expected in kindergarten.  This is something that you can work on at home. The students are learning about trapezoids as we work on our daily calendar.

Our Reading next week might take us to a new story “Little Quack”, and we will cover such things as hibernation, putting things in order, and fact or fiction, to name a few. The social Studies concept is “taking on responsibility”.  We did not get “Little Panda” finished this week, so we begin next week with that.  I showed the children a wonderful web site that they can actually watch the Pandas at the San Diego Zoo with the help of their panda cam.  Just go to the San Diego zoo web site, and you will see a place to click on the live cams.

  Please notice that December 17^th is non - rotation day due to the concert that we will be attending at the H.S.   Monday, December 16^th will be day # 5 and we will have music class.

The kindergarten community service project will end on Friday, December 20^th.  Thank you to all the families that already generously donated.

Thursday December 19^th we will have a PTO sponsored show with Rand Whipple. 

Friday December 20^th we will have an early dismissal.  Lunch will be at 9:15, and we will enjoy hot chocolate and Oreos while we watch the Polar express in our pajamas.  Dismissal will be at 1 o’clock.

Have a cold weekend!

 

                         

November 18th-22nd, 2013

                                     Kindergarten News                                                  November 18^th-22nd

 

 Phonics

  We will begin learning the letter “S” as in sun and snake.  Wordlist #3 was sent home today in the communication folder, and it will be tested at the end of next week.  Please practice all week blending the wordlist words so that your child can find success reading them.

Math

We are working on ordering numbers through ten. The (standard) is for the children to be able to count forward beginning from a given number within the known sequence (instead of having to begin at one).

Reading

We will begin the story ”A Bed for the Winter”.  The genre is informational text, and and the comprehension skill is sequence.  The skill taught in our last story was “main idea”.  A good way to help your child with this is after reading a story together, discuss what the story was about.

FYI

.  There will be no school on Nov. 18^th due to an Act 80 day.  Parent-teacher conferences will be held from 12:00-6:00pm.  I am sending a second form in your child’s folder with your conference time on it because I accidentally skipped the time on some of the original forms.  Sorry!!!!

Monday November 18^th is the kick off for the Bowl for Kids Sake Event, Check your child’s folder for the fundraiser packets.

Pick up for the Fall Book Fundraiser is from 4:00PM to 7:00PM in the school gymnasium on Monday, November 25^th, 2013.

We will have show and tell for “S” on Friday.

Tuesday, November 19^th is day # 2 and we have Gym class.  Please remember sneakers! 

Have an incredible day!