Week 6 Sep 8

Dear families,

We are in the middle of the first quarter. Students are progressing accordingly. Kindergartens develop so many skills in one year. This week, several times, I overheard some students saying, “I love school!”. Kindergarten is a grade level with many hopes and expectations for the families but, also anxiety. Parents, trust the process; we all just need time and practice. If you are teaching your child how to ride a bike, you know it will take time for your child to really master how to ride a bike.

Mrs. Bernal

What we learn this week!

Notes: Please practice all the phonograms at home. At the end of the quarter, students will perform a cumulative test on all the 26 phonograms learned during the first quarter. Remember, proper Spalding handwriting is one point for each phonogram.

Spalding: This week, students were introduced to phonograms: H I J K. Our stack of learned phonograms is getting bigger! Daily, we practice all the phonograms learned from before. At the end of the quarter, students will be assessed on all the phonograms. This is why it is so important to practice all the phonograms learned. For the first time, students learned how to make all the sounds for some words orally, and then blend the sounds together to say the whole word. Spalding strokes are still reinforced with every lesson. Thank you for practicing the Spalding phonograms at home. Practice makes better! Students know that eventually they will get better, it is just a matter of time.

 Literature: It was an exciting week for literature! On Tuesday, we read the story “Tug of War” and created a craft that shows one of the story scenes. Ask your child about the story! It teaches about friendship, and humility. It can start a great discussion with your child. For Wednesday, we read “Why Mosquitoes Buzz in People’s ears. Students were able to sequence the story after the reading. Thursday, we worked with Jack and Jill, and Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary poems. Finally, on Friday, the story was The Runaway Bunny. Your child can retell the story to you!

Math: This week we practiced numbers beyond 5. Students learned to write and identify number 6, 7, and 8. We used manipulatives on a ten frame, and count to 8 when doing jumps and some exercise.

Science: Students were delighted to talk about Weather and the four seasons of the year! We observed how was the weather daily. Of course, living in a desert at this time of the year…the weather was hot! But we introduce words like cloudy, partly cloudy, sunny, rainy, snowy, windy, and stormy. We read weather books and show pictures of different seasons and weathers. We talked about the four seasons of the year and the differences between them.

History/Geography: Students reviewed facts about South America. We talked about Brazil and Peru. They learned that the Amazon Rainforest is located in South America along with the Amazon River. We read books about the rainforest and talked about animals that are part of it.