January/February 2012 Newsletter

Time to start 2012, and the second half of our Kindergarten year!!! What an exciting time!! The children have come so far, but they still have so much more to learn during this special Kindergarten year!! They are definitely up to the challenge!!

 

IMPORTANT DATES IN JANUARY:

First day back for students: Jan. 10^th, 2012

NO SCHOOL – January 16^th (MLK Holiday)

100th Day - January 27th

 

IMPORTANT DATES IN FEBRUARY:

SCHOOL WIDE FIELD TRIP TO THE CIRCUS– FEBRUARY 17, 2012

NO SCHOOL – February 20^th (Presidents’ Day)

Completed Six Flags Reading Forms due- February 22^nd

Saturday School begins- February 25th

We will begin report card assessments the week of February 27th.

 

The following are concepts that we will be focusing on

during the 3^rd nine weeks of school.

Reading Readiness/ Reading:

1. Students will demonstrate knowledge of the following concepts of print: front/back cover of a book, top /bottom of the page, tracking print from left to right/top to bottom, distinguishing among letters/words/sentences.
2. Identify all the upper case and lower case letters of the alphabet.
3. Distinguish rhyming and non-rhyming words, as well as produce rhyming words.
4. Retell important details from a story, including beginning and ending.
5. Blend and segment syllables in spoken words. Even though your child may not be able to describe it, they should be able to clap out the syllables in their names. This is a fun activity that all our kindergarten classes are exposed to!
6. Indentify and produce all consonant sounds including the “soft G” and “soft C”.
7. Produce and match all 5 short vowel sounds.
8. Blend sounds to read one syllable decodable words.
9. Read 30 or more high frequency words.
10.  Independently read level B texts with 95% accuracy.

 

WRITING:

1. Print first name beginning with uppercase followed by lowercase letters.
2. Accurately print all upper and lowercase letters introduced during the first three quarters.
3. Use left to right pattern in writing, and begins to use punctuation.
4. Writes sentences using phonetically written words to describe familiar persons, places, objects or experiences.

MATHEMATICS:

1. Write numerals through 20 to label sets.

2. Produce modes for number words through ten.

3. Sequence and identify using ordinal numbers (1^st-10^th).

4. Identify and give the value for penny, nickel, dime and quarter.

5. Make fair trades between pennies and nickels AND pennies and dimes.

6. Combine basic figures to form other basic or complex figures,  and decompose basic and complex figures into basic figures.

7. Extend a given pattern, and recognize similarities in different patterns.

SOCIAL STUDIES:

1. Identify and describe National Holidays: Martin Luther King , Jr. Day and President’s Day.
2. Identify and explain National Monuments.
3. Identify where we live: city, county, state, country, continent

 

 SCIENCE:

1. Sort materials into categories based on composition (clay, cloth, paper, plastic, etc) and physical attributes (color, size, shape, weight, textures, buoyancy, flexibility)
2. Describe and group rocks according to their physical attributes (large/small, heavy/light, smooth/rough/dark/light, etc.)

 

 

100^th DAY OF SCHOOL!!!! January 27^th is the 100^th day of school. The Kindergarten classes will be celebrating it in many fun ways: counting by tens to 100, 100^th day glasses and hats, counting sets of 100 items, etc. Be sure to ask your child about the fun things they did on this fun day!

 

 Please read to your child for 20 minutes every day…it is the best gift that we can give our kids. For our ESOL students, books in their primary languages are fantastic! Research shows that it is easy to transfer knowledge into English, if the concepts are already formed in the native language.

 

Thank you for all you do!!