August 30th ~ September 5th

The children did such a great job during our first three days of school and I am looking forward to a wonderful year with your little ones. As I know you are aware, your child is tired after school and an early bedtime is a good idea. We are very busy making new friends, learning rules and procedures, and finding out what kindergarten entails. As I've stated before, you will be amazed with all your child discovers and learns during this first year of school and I feel so blessed to witness this firsthand.

We will begin to work with one letter per day to focus on letter sounds and proper letter formation. Most children have not yet been introduced to the D'Nealian handwriting program and we work very hard in kindergarten to form letters properly and imprint this into their muscle memory. We have already worked with the letters Mm and Jj. This week our letters are Aa, Dd, Tt, Bb, and Rr. Once we review every letter, we will begin a more detailed study of each letter, as well as parts of speech, punctuation, story elements, and proper grammar.

We will continue to reinforce the rules and routines at Poly Drive, as well as in our classroom. I will introduce literacy centers this week, which reinforce things we have learned and worked on in class. The children will work in groups of three and will progress through three centers per day. During center time, I am able to observe, assist, and work with individual children or small groups.

Math ~ We will begin our first chapter, which concentrates on directional concepts like inside, outside, under, on, top, bottom, and middle. We will graph our names using the number of letters in our names.

Art ~ On black paper, the children will glue small beads in the shape of their names to create a "Name in Lights" display in the hall.

Social Studies ~ Each child is making an "All About Me" book. They are creating pages showing family, home, friends, and individual attributes.

We will have P.E. every Monday afternoon, so please make sure that your child wears appropriate shoes for exercise and activity. Our music class is on Thursday mornings and Library takes place on Friday afternoons.

Mark your calendars for Open House. This is a school-wide event where your child can show you what we are doing in kindergarten and share some details about our class. Thursday September 9th from 5:30-7:00 p.m. is the date and I hope to see you there!

Have a wonderful week!