MRS. ANDREA H. DAVIS THEME: All About Me
Weekly Newsletter UNIT: Pets
October 9, 2015
Key Measure: My pets depend on me.
Dear Parents,
We had a great time with our Pets unit this week. It’s really been fun hearing about our different classmate's pets. Next week we’ll move right into our unit on Fall Harvest. Please send two apples, any variety and color, with your child onMonday or Tuesday, after fall break.
LANGUAGE ARTS
LISTENING: At the Listening center, we heard the book on tape, Give the Dog a Bone. We watched our first Lollipop Dragon filmstrip about being kind to pets and other animals. We could watch the film again at the listening center as one of the many ‘book on tape’ choices.
SPEAKING: The students will gain valuable oral presentation skills while sharing their pet posters with the class. They are beginning to acquire experience asking questions that pertain to the topic.
PHONEMIC AWARENESS AND PHONICS: As we listen to the big book Allie’s Adventure, we are decoding what we hear to find the beginning sound of the pictures on each page. Ask your child what kind of pet Allie is (cat) and what her owner’s name is (Zack).
WRITING: The students heard the book Cookie’s Week about a pesky pet cat. We are focusing on making our own drawings representational…no rainbow cats or green mice…unless we are making a FICTION illustration.
READING: The students made the book Be Kind to Furry Friends by cutting and putting the pages in numerical order. As part of our reading practice, your childwill be getting to borrowa little canvas bag with 3 books called “Star Readers.” The bag of books will come home in your child’s backpack (startingafter fall break). Read the books with your child until he/she is comfortable with them. You can keep them a day or longer if your child is enjoying reading them.
SOCIAL STUDIES
Cooperative working and playing is a big goal in Kindergarten! Five and six year olds love to make friends, but sometimes don’t know how to keep them. We are learning to use I-messages to tell people what we want them to know, instead of “tattling” on them before talking to them about what happened. It’s OK to “tattle” when a child won’t stop doing something to you AFTER s/he has received an I-message. We are practicing looking the person in the eyes and using their name when giving an I- message. We practice this every day :) I make a big deal about having LOTS of friends in the Kindergarten class, which hopefully diffuses only playing with one friend and excluding others. Let me know if your child is struggling with this.
MATH
We are graphing the different pets that we have at home and we are recording the results on a bar graph. We measured and recorded lots of things in the classroom using a favorite dog snack, bones.
SCIENCE
We learned that dogs and cats can be registered and that they must have shots, just like people, to keep them from getting diseases. Ask your child what you call the doctor who takes care of animals.
ART
VISUAL: We made cats and dogs at the art table.
MUSICAL: Ask your child to sing you the song “Rags.”
MOVEMENT & DRAMATIC PLAY: We moved around the room to the record “Sammy.” Sammy pretends to be different animals and the kids acted those out.
FYI
October 14th Conference Day - No school
October 15th & 16th Fall Break - No school
Thursday, Oct 22nd, reader is K. WORKMAN - 8:30-8:55. Bring 3-4 books
Teacher Collaboration (LATE START FOR STUDENTS) is Thursday, Oct 29th. Kids can come at 10:20. School starts at 10:40.
Friday, Oct 30th the whole school is dressing up as a BOOK character of your choice. More details to follow.
Our 50th Day of Kindergarten Celebration–Tuesday, Nov 3rd. Please dress your kiddo in some type of 50's attire. PLEASE don't feel like you have to buy an outfit!!! Some great ideas for dressing up are jeans rolled up, cardigans, bobby socks, Ked type shoes, pony tails, denim jackets, white t-shirts, etc.
It will be a fun day and we will take lots of pictures!!! Thanks for allowing your child to participate in this fun extension of our curriculum!
Have a great weekend! Andrea Davis