October

Newsletter – Issue 1

What Do We Do All Day?
We have been busy in Kindergarten! My goal for my newsletters is to let you know what we’ve been doing, what to expect for our academics in the next month, to inform you of upcoming events, and to remind you about things going on in the classroom.
During the month of September we’ve been working on rules, routines and procedures. We focused on a different alphabet letter each day and learned sign language for each of the letters, sounds and pictures that go with each letter. We have been working on handwriting focusing on letters, sight words and phrases to help us build sentences. We’ve also been learning to stretch out words. Your child is learning how to make a “magic line” to represent a unknown sound. As we begin to master letters and sounds there will be less magic lines. In math we’ve been focusing on sorting objects and looking at what is the same and different and building a number and having our partner match it. We’ve also been learning to write numbers to 10, count to 20 (and beyond), and see a group of dots and be able to quickly recall the number (this is called subitizing). Last week we started to learn how to use our Centers (Word Work Drawers, Writing, Math Tubs, Listening and Reading). A computer program called I-Read will become part of our classroom learning as well (this program allows students to work at their own pace). We have been very busy learning the structure of our classroom!
What Are We Going To Do Next?
This is ONE of my favorite months (I love all the months for different reasons)! This is where all the hard work of September starts to pay off and we begin to take our focus off learning rules, routines and procedures and we begin to soar into our academic learning. We are going to continue to work on the procedures for Centers for a few more weeks because this has just begun. But I want to explain to you the structure behind Centers. Let me take you through our day:
Morning/Afternoon Meeting: Calendar, review of sign language with letters and sounds, phonological awareness skills (rhyming, segmenting words, manipulating sounds – say cat without the /c/ - syllables, etc.)
Writing Instruction: We are focusing on handwriting currently. We daily use our white boards and dry erase markers to practice forming letters and writing sight words (I also refer to them as heart words – words we know by heart), and phrases we may use in writing. We’ve been then transfering the practice into little books. We made an “I see a _____” book where they had pictures of animals from which they can choose. We also made a “I like the ______” book. They had a model of the phrase in front of them but had to stretch out the last word on their own. We will continue to focus on writing complete sentences with heart word phrases throughout October. We will later start to work on opinion writing. The goal by the end of the year is to be able to write opinion, informational and narrative pieces.
Reading Centers: The students are broken up into four groups based on skills (working on letters and sounds and learning to name them fluently or working on learning to read). During this time students will be working on the computer (I-Read) on instruction at their own level, working in Centers or working at the Teacher Table. When they are at Centers the students have Word Work drawers that have different activities and different skills and levels, Math tubs with a variety of number sense games, Listen to stories on tape or read books with a stuffed animal, and a writing center where they draw a picture and label it (or later write a sentence). There will not be a lot of paperwork that comes home for centers because there are a lot of hands-on activites as well as dry erase games that students can reuse many times.
In our day we also have Milk Break, Recess and Specials.
Math Instruction: We will continue to focus on counting out cubes and making combinations. We will be working on making many different combinations of 6, 7, 8, 9, and 10. They need to build and color these combinations in many different ways. This will help with addition and subtraction later. We will also continue to work on correct number formation to 10 and 20 and work on counting.
Our themes for the month are: fire safety, five senses, pumpkins.
I hope this helps you understand where we are heading with our learning.
Upcoming Events
NO SCHOOL on October 6th or 7th(Thursday and Friday of THIS week).
Walk-A-Thon– We will be having a School Walk-A-Thon on Friday, October 14. More information will be coming home about this!  This is something that is put on by our PTO each year and we do this event during school. It’s a fun filled day!
Firefighters will be doing a presentation for the school on October 13thand we’re very excited to learn more about fire safety.
Parent/Teacher Conferences will be Wednesday, October 19th and Thursday, October 20th all day and evening. There will be NO SCHOOL Wednesday through Friday that week. However, Wednesday there is no school ONLY for ½ day kindergarten throughout the district but all other grades and tuition kindergarten do have school. You will be getting more information regarding your conference day and time next week. This will be a time to show you how your child is progressing and how to support your child academically and socially. You will not be receiving a report card at this time. Report cards will be online towards the end of November.
Thursday, October 27th– Field trip to The Berry Ranch – we are still working on making sure we have busses for this day but this is our tentative date. We will be sending home a permission slip with more details soon. However, I will need to have parent volunteers! Volunteers will find out who their groups are and meet us at The Berry Ranch. The PM class will be attending school from 9:05 to 12:07 on this day. More details to follow.
On Friday, October 28th we will have our Harvest Party as well as celebrate any October birthdays with treats. More information to come.
Classroom Information
Homework has also begun! We have been doing Reading/Letter Bags for a few weeks now. Please make sure your child brings it to school everyday and practice with your child each night. Also, a homework packet is on my website. Please print it out and work on it each night. Please remember to initial the box each night after your child completes his/her homework. If you need to make up the work during the weekend or double up one night because of a busy schedule that is fine. Your child will receive a Pizza Hut coupon at the end of the month when it’s returned and completed and initialed. I will attach it to the homework and send it home. Homework, in general, should not take more than 15 to 20 minutes a night. If you are finding the homework too easy feel free to supplement with more of a challenge. If your child is struggling with homework and you need support please feel free to contact me and I can give you some ideas that may help.
Volunteers– I have a volunteer calendar on my website. Please look at it and make sure I have it correct. If you would like to volunteer and you are not on the calendar OR I have you on incorrectly please let me know.
For the volunteers who have already been helping – I want you to know how much I appreciate you! Thank you so much for all your help!
My Website: To get to my website go to – and at the top you will see a dropdown menu that says “Select School”, find Eagle Elementary and click on it then you will be on Eagle’s homepage. Go to the top where it shows Teachers/Staff and click then click on my name and there will all kinds of information.
I will have some basic information on it: AM/PM library and computer schedule, volunteer schedule, homework, book order due dates and information about ordering online and mynewsletter. 
Book Orders– I do all Book Orders online and gave you a paper with the code for you to enter at Back to School Night this information is also on my website. Next Book Order is due Friday, October 14th.
Thank you for all of your support!
Mrs. Westcott