Welcome to KM!

Archive for September, 2009

The kids in KM have begun to learn about letters and the sounds that they make.  Each week I will introduce 2 new letters and their sounds. We do many activities here at school to learn the sounds but I know parents want to help from home as well. With that in mind, each week I will send home a few short songs/poems that I have introduced here at school. There are many things you can do with the song/poem at home. Here are a few examples:  v  Read/sing/say the song/poem with your child many times. v  Help them to draw and color the things that start with that letter in the song/poem.

v  Help them to find the letter(s) in the text and circle them, trace them, and/or color them.

v  Help them to come up with and to list other things that start with that letter.

v  Help them to write the letter.

v  Use the Wikki Sticks that are coming home today to form the letter or to circle words that start with the letter(s).  You can also use play dough.

v  Keep them all in a folder or binder at home as they will be something familiar to your child that he/she can “read” over and over. This is a great pre-reading activity.

Doing any of these activities at home will help to reinforce the knowledge that they are gaining here at school. However you do not need to do them all! Two of the activities with each song/poem should be enough. If you have any questions feel free to email me or send me a note. 

Here is the list of behaviors that the children and I came up with this morning that we expect everyone to follow when we are reading together on the rug:

1. We keep our bodies (hands and feet) to ourselves.

2. We are quiet when someone is reading or talking.

3. We look at the book or at the person who is talking.

4. We raise our hands if we want to talk and we wait to be called on. We don’t shout out answers because that will stop our friends from thinking.

Please talk to your child about these rules. We wrote them today as a guideline for reading together but they are really expectations for anytime we are on the rug doing any whole group lesson or meeting. Ask your child if they have an easy time or a hard time following these rules. If they have a hard time, discuss what they might do to help themselves meet these expectations.

It was nice to see most of you last night. I hope I was able to answer any questions you were thinking of but if I didn’t, feel free to ask me here or in a private email. For the few families that were unable to attend last night, your child will be bringing home any paper work that was handed out in their VIP today. Thanks to those of you who brought in tissues, soap, hand sanitizer, and disinfecting wipes. Looks like we are well stocked, at least for the first few months of school! These items will hopefully help keep everyone healthy. And thanks to those of you who signed up for wish list items as well.

I have posted the conference times for November conferences in the calendar here on the website that you signed up for last night. Look for your child’s initials (not yours). I will send out reminders about a week in advance of the conferences.

Today in KM we played “What’s My Rule?” with the attribute blocks. We also played BINGO with the letters of the alphabet. They also returned and checked out books in the library. This afternoon we were visited by a Mystery Reader. Ask your child who visited us and what he/she read.

Reminder, there is NO SCHOOL ON MONDAY! Have a great long weekend.

I’m exhausted! And I bet the kids are too. Lunch was a huge success. No tears, everyone ate…I consider that a success for the first day! We explored some new math materials today (buttons, attribute blocks, color tiles). We read a book and played a game about our 5 senses during Science. And we began using our new choice board and choice tags during Choice Time. I also put a new book out at the Listening Center…one a few kids were hoping to borrow from the school library. I wonder if your child can tell you what it is…if not, maybe they will choose to listen to it tomorrow during Choice Time.

Mrs. Cole thought, and I agreed, it would be smart if I let you all know about our new system for helping the kids choose their entree at lunch to speed up the lunch line in the cafeteria and maximize the amount of time the kids who are buying lunch actually have to eat. It would be helpful if you talk to your child before school each day about what they might want to get for lunch on days they will be buying. So, here is a brief description…cut and pasted from Mrs. Cole’s email to me and Mrs. Attridge’s (the cafeteria parent volunteer coordinator who is helping us manage this new system) email to her:

Attached is what is served every day for lunch and the specials are on the calendar that was handed out on the first day of school.

I keep mine in the kitchen, on the cupboard door.

Just something to think about.

So basically my email is about making sure that the children will be prepared to answer the question, “What do you want for lunch?”

I was not aware that the kids had many choices.

Everyday they can choose :

The meal on the calendar

Pizza

Bagel with Cream Cheese

Hot Dog ( which is the meal on Monday)

Chicken Nuggets

PB & J

The Kindergarten Teachers’ along with Mr. Chillemi and Gini Peloquin (the cafeteria manager) have come up with a plan to help ease the food serving process starting on Monday for the Kindergartners.  I have attached the lunch color chart designed by the K teachers.  I have laminated tickets in colors to match the food options.  I was told today that lunch on Monday for the K’s will be free so I presume many will be “buying.”  The K teachers would like you (parent cafeteria volunteers) to help the kids choose their food from the chart and then you will give them a corresponding colored ticket.  They will line up and give Gini their ticket.

Having parent volunteers show the kids the options and having them choose while they are waiting in line will speed the process up once it is their turn. The parent volunteers will give each child a colored ticket based on what they want to eat and they will hand the ticket to Gini who will give them their food based on their colored ticket. I will be going over this system with the kids Monday morning but it might help if you brief them on it ahead of time. If this is at all unclear, please post a comment and either Mrs. Cole or I will comment back to clarify. Click here to see the color chart: Kindergarten Lunch Color Chart