Welcome to Kindergarten!  This is a new and exciting time for you and your child.  It will be a time of change and new beginnings, new surroundings, new friends, new skills and new challenges.  By working together, we can make it a happy and rewarding experience.  I am looking forward to a great year together and talking with you further at Open House on September 2.

First Day Poem

Every one has a "First Day"

When they feel sad and all alone.

It can be so scary

When you're out on your own.

Take my hankie, dry your tears.

You'll find lots of things to do

And you'll probably make new friends.

I promise we'll be together

When the school day ends.

Here comes the teacher,

Blow your nose and be brave.

Come on now wipe your eyes,

This is no way to behave.

"Well, good morning teacher.

We really must beg your pardon.

No, MOMMY doesn't always act this way.

But it's my first day of Kindergarten!"

This month our themes are All About Me, Friends and Where We Live.  We are busy sharing things about ourselves.  We are making new friends and doing fun activities with our names.  We already have three class books in the making! 

In Social Studies, our Where We Live unit consists of our city, state, country and continent.

In math, we are learning about our manipulatives such as pattern blocks, snap cubes, tiles and unifix cubes just to name a few.  We are learning about graphs.  Our first graph was how many boys and girls are in our class.  We are learning the terms more, fewer and equal.  The children are reviewing position words and we are adding this math vocabulary to our math word wall.  The children have also been exploring how to sort objects by size, shape and color.  We are also exploring numbers to 10.  Wow!  We are off to a busy start!

Please review letters and sounds with your child on a daily basis.  Make sure that your child can recognize and recall each letter and that he/she knows the sound of each letter. 

In Science, we are learning about Physical Properties of Matter.

September

In September, we will explore colors.  The children will learn about primary colors and mixing colors.  We are busy learning to read our color words.  Please have your child practice reading these words at home.  Some of the books we will read are:  The Color Kittens, Mouse Paint, Cat's Colors, The Orange Spot and Color Monsters.  Our Read-A-Songs are "I Like Red" and "The Green Song."  We are looking for sight words in our songs and working on concepts of print. 

An apple a day...

This month we will have fun with an Apple theme.  The children will be asked to bring in one apple.  The color can be your child's choice.  We will use these apples for different math activities such as sorting and graphing.  We will graph various attributes of apples. The children will have fun making apple prints, reading stories about apples and of course, learning about Johnny Appleseed. 

In Social Studies, we will learn about Labor Day and we will continue learning about Where We Live.  Please have your child review his/her city, state, country and continent.

In Science, we will begin a unit study on Rocks and Soils.

In Math, we will continue to write correct number formation and work on one to correspondence.  We will also learning about patterns.

In Math, your little mathematicians will also work on the following objectives:

Number and Operations:  Count objects to 10, models for number words 1-10, write numerals to 1 - 5, ordinal numbers 1st - 5th, compare sets as equal to, more than, or less than.

Patterns and Spatial Relationships: beside, above/below, in front, behind, inside/outside, extend a given pattern, recognize similarities and differences in patterns.

Data:  pose information questions, collect  data, record  results using picture objects and discuss.

Calendar Math: Counting on a number line, graphing, days of week, months of year, identifying and naming patterns, identifying yesterday, today, tomorrow, counting to 100 by 1's, 5's, 10's, identifying numbers 1 - 30, tally marks, weather words, place value, identifying coins, counting coins, and adding/subtracting.

Measurement:  days of the week, months of year, four seasons.

Money:  identify coins by name and value (penny, nickel), count with pennies to buy items less than 10 cents, trade pennies for nickels.

Here are some suggestions as to what you can do at home to help your child:

• Use the words beside, above/below, in front of, behind, and inside/outside when you are having your child put items away or when you are playing with their toys with them.
• Put up to 10 toys in a row and have your child tell you which is first, fourth, second, etc.
• Have your child count the number of spoons in the drawer.
• While your child is taking a bath, spray a little shaving cream on the wall and have your child write the numbers 1 - 10.
• Ash your child what day of the week it is each morning.
• Talk about the month of the year and the events that will happen each month.  Talk about the season and how we know.

Homework  We will begin our reading homework this month.  More information about this at Open House.  Also, your child will receive a monthly homework calendar.  The first homework calendar will be given out at Open House.

Sight Words

We will be learning to read many words this year.  Please help your child review our "Word Wall Words".  Our first 40 sight words are:

List A

a   and   away   big   blue   can   come   down   find   for   funny   go   help   here   I   in   is   it   jump   little   look   make   me   my   not   one   play   red   run   said   see   the   three   to   two   up   we   where   yellow   you

• When your child is ready for the next word list, please send me a note.  Thanks!