GeoCities.us » EnchantedForest » Meadow

Get your FREE home page!

Mrs. Bell's Kindergarten Class
Room 4  •  Morning Session  •  1999-2000 School Year

Welcome, parents and families! I made this page so you can keep up with what we're doing in kindergarten without waiting for the crumpled newsletter to make it home in a backpack. I'll update it every Friday afternoon. Please bookmark it, and let me know at conferences whether it's helpful. We are off to a wonderful start. The children have learned our morning routine, where the bathroom is, and that the class rabbit is not for picking up. Thank you all for the great turnout at Back to School Night. On this page: Letter of the Week | What We're Learning | Class Calendar | Snack Schedule | Ways to Help at Home | Wish List

Letter of the Week: Mm September 20 - 24, 1999

This week we met the letter Mm. We practiced the sound ("mmm, like something is delicious"), traced it in shaving cream on our tables (a favorite), and hunted for Mm words all over the room. Our Mm words so far: mom, milk, moon, mouse, mitten, monkey, map, muffin and, thanks to one very proud boy, motorcycle. On Friday we made muffins in the classroom (thank you to our two parent helpers!) and read If You Give a Moose a Muffin. Ask your child what the moose wanted next. Next week: the letter Ss. If your child would like to bring an Ss item for our sharing basket (small, please, and nothing precious), Wednesday is the day. Letters we've done: Aa, Bb, Cc, Mm   (We don't go in alphabetical order. We start with letters whose sounds are easiest to hear and build from there.)

What We're Learning This Fall

Reading readiness We are working on rhyming. Kindergarteners who can hear that cat and hat sound alike are well on their way to reading. We play rhyming games at circle time and read lots of rhyming books. We're also learning that we read from left to right and top to bottom, and that the words on the page are what the story is made of, not just the pictures. Math We are counting to 20, forward and (a little bit) backward. We count everything: the children in line, the crackers at snack, the days on the calendar, the leaves we brought in from the playground. We are also sorting by color, size and shape, and making simple patterns (red-blue-red-blue). Patterns are everywhere once you start looking, and your child will probably point them out to you. The calendar Every morning our calendar helper adds the date, and we say the day of the week, the month, and the weather. We're learning that a week has seven days and that today, yesterday and tomorrow are different things. This takes a while to sink in, so if your child announces that tomorrow is Saturday on a Monday, just smile. Social skills Taking turns, using words when we're upset, walking in the hall, and cleaning up our own mess. This is honestly the most important part of kindergarten. Science & the world We're watching the trees on the playground change color, and in October we'll be all about apples: tasting different kinds, graphing our favorites, and visiting the orchard (see below).

Class Calendar

Sept. 27 Letter Ss begins. Sharing basket day is Wednesday, Sept. 29. Oct. 1 Picture Day! Order forms went home in Friday folders on Sept. 24. Please send the form and payment in an envelope with your child's name on it. Dress your child however you'd like to remember them, but I'd skip the white shirt on a day we might paint. Oct. 4 Field trip permission slips due. We can't take a child without a signed slip, and I would hate for anyone to miss the orchard. Oct. 8 Field trip to the apple orchard. We leave on the bus right after morning attendance and return before dismissal. Each child needs a sack lunch with a name on it (no glass, nothing that needs to be kept cold), a jacket, and shoes that can get muddy. We will pick apples, ride the hay wagon, and see how cider is pressed. I need four parent chaperones. If you can come, please e-mail me or send a note; first come, first served. Oct. 11 No school (teacher in-service day). Oct. 29 Fall party in the afternoon. More on this later in the month. (Costumes are fine as long as there are no masks and no weapons, even pretend ones.) Nov. 15-19 Parent-teacher conferences. Sign-up sheet will go home in early November.

Snack Schedule

Each family takes a turn providing snack for the class (22 children) about once every five weeks. The schedule went home on Sept. 10 and is posted by the door. Your week is also written on a note in your child's Friday folder the week before, so there should be no surprises. A few reminders: Please send enough for 22, plus a little extra. Simple is best: crackers, cheese cubes, pretzels, apple slices, grapes cut in half, string cheese, mini muffins. Water or juice boxes if you like, but we have cups and a sink. No peanuts or peanut butter, please. We have a child in our morning session with a serious peanut allergy, so this includes snacks "made in a facility with peanuts." When in doubt, check the label or ask me. Napkins are always appreciated! If your week comes up and it's a hard week for your family, just let me know and we'll swap. It happens.

Ways to Help at Home

Read to your child 15 minutes every night. If you do only one thing on this list, do this one. It doesn't have to be a "school" book. It can be the same book for the tenth time (that's how they learn). Let them turn the pages. Run your finger under the words now and then. Talk about the pictures. Ask "what do you think happens next?" Fifteen minutes a night is more than 90 hours of reading by the end of the school year. Other easy things: Practice the letter of the week. Find Mm's on cereal boxes, street signs, the mail. Count things. Stairs, forks at the table, cars at a red light. Let your child help with real jobs: setting the table, sorting socks (that's math!), stirring. Have your child practice writing his or her first name, first letter capital and the rest lowercase. We're working on this in class and it helps a lot when it's the same at home. Practice zipping coats and tying shoes. Winter is coming and there are 22 of them and one of me. Check the Friday folder every Friday and send it back Monday. Everything important goes in there. Bedtime! A kindergartener needs a lot of sleep. Our afternoons get very long for a child who was up late.

Classroom Wish List

Absolutely no obligation, but if you are at the store anyway and want to help, we can always use: Glue sticks (we go through them at an astonishing rate) Boxes of tissues (cold season is coming) Baby wipes or a container of disinfecting wipes Paper plates and paper lunch bags for crafts Old magazines with lots of pictures for cutting (no catalogs with swimsuits, please) Buttons, ribbon, yarn, empty thread spools, clean egg cartons Old adult-size T-shirts to use as paint smocks Thank you to the families who already sent in glue sticks and tissues! We are set for a few weeks.

Questions? Concerns? Want to volunteer? E-mail me at [email protected] I check e-mail in the evenings and will get back to you within a day or two. For anything urgent during the school day, please call the school office as usual. Other pages parents might like: The Enchanted Forest (GeoCities.us pages for and by kids)  |  The Study Skills Page (for your older children) Visitors since September 3, 1999: Last updated: Friday, September 24, 1999 © 1999 Mrs. Bell. Please feel free to print this page for your refrigerator.