September News

                                                                KC News
                                                        September 21, 2012

Writer's Notebook
We have begun writing stories phonetically!  Phonetic story writing is fun, but it is also challenging, because you must stretch out the words you want and write down all of the sounds that you hear.  The goal of the Writer's Notebook is create independent writers!  By helping the girls identify the sounds that they hear, they are learning that they can put their ideas down on paper - turning them into authors!

Word Wall
We have a word wall in our classroom!  Every week the animals from the alphabet cards send us a new word through our classroom mailbox.  We need to learn how to read and write each word, so we put the words up on our wall and then we can easily find then when we are writing!  The word wall animals sent us my, so we made a friendship book and everyone wrote down something special about my friend...  This week our word was to, so we drew gifts to give to people we love, labeling who the gift was to.  Once we are given a word for the word wall, we are responsible to knowing how to use that word, so we need to put it into a written context!

More Graphing
To help the girls see the value of finding multiple ways to ask questions, gather information and record results, I made a face block of each kindergartner that they can use to create class graphs!  After reading A House is Not A Home, the girls had to decided if they would like to join the nice, neat tidy house or the lopsided, noisy, happy house.  Without saying a word, the girls build two towers, indicating their preference.  Can you guess which house your daughter choose?  (We will be using these face blocks for graphing all year long!)

Shapes with Houses
Using our detective skills, we have been finding and identifying shapes within houses.  After we read, A House for Hermit Crab, the girls learned how to draw a spiral to create their own hermit crab house!  Come admire our beautiful watercolor paintings, we think you will like the houses we drew and painted for our hermit crabs!

UPCOMING EVENTS
*Parent Conferences: Thursday, October 4th & Friday, October 5th (No school for the girls.)
*Blue & Gold Day: Friday, October 12th  Every kindergartner will need a grown-up.
                                Lunch with your kindergartner in our classroom -11am.
                                Race: 12noon
                                12:30: take your daughter home to rest!