It's Pumpkin Time!

We are all about pumpkins this week and last!  We have been reading several books about pumpkins and learning about the pumpkin life cycle too.  Last week was all about learning about the pumpkin and how it grows.  This week, we are using those facts to share with others.

In class, we have officially talked about every letter of the alphabet and learned about the correct sounds that the letters make.  We are now using that knowledge to start trying to spell simple words.  A great thing you can practice at home is how to spell consonant vowel consonant words (for example, cat, pin, ham, etc.)  See if your child can do that with you orally.  If it is a struggle, it is okay!  We have just started encouraging that in the classroom.  :)  The next step after this is to try and write them down as we say them and finger spell them too.  Have your child show you how to finger spell a word just like we do during our OG time in class.  Everyone does a great job with this and I am starting to see it carry over to their writing.

Speaking of writing, we have started our writing workshop in the classroom.  This is a time where we talk about writing as a whole group, the children break out into groups to write on their own or with an adult, and at the end of our workshop, we share some of the work that was completed during this time.  At the end of every month I will be sending home the children's writing from this time.  Tomorrow is the first time this will happen.  Some helpful things to look for when going through these are:  does my child have a story for just about each day (sometimes a story can carry over a day), is there a complete thought on the paper, does the picture match what the words are saying, is the picture detailed (at least five kindergarten colors and a detailed drawing.)  The past couple of weeks we have been working on adding spaces in between our words as our classroom learning target.  This is something that will continue all year long.  :)  Tomorrow we are going to move on to using a capital letter at the beginning of a sentence and lower case letters in the middle of a sentence unless it is a special word.  If you do not see this in your child's writing, I am not concerned at this point in the school year.  I just like to give you an idea of what we have been talking about this month and give you ideas of what you could encourage your child to do at home with writing as well.

We are moving right along with math in class too!  Today I sent home a paper that was double sided and we call them home links.  The purpose of these pages is to help inform you about what we are learning about in the classroom and to provide extra opportunities to practice math at home.  If a paper asks your child to return them to me, you do not have to do that.  I will also be sending home four books that contain all of these as well.  They come with our math adoption and you can keep them at home for your reference.  Last week we talked about finding patterns all around us, practiced using  teen numbers, and practiced using positional words (over, under, next to, etc.)  This week we are introducing coin names, practicing teen numbers again, practicing writing numbers, and creating a number grid.

Wow!  This was a lot longer than I wanted and I am sorry about that!  There are a lot of new things happening in the classroom that I wanted to share with you.  I have also posted a couple of pictures of the kids doing daily 5 activities in the classroom.  Have a great week!