October Newsletter
Dear Kindergarten Families,
Thank you so much to all the families who helped raise money during our fun run. The kindergarteners did an awesome job! Thank you also to the parents that came with us on our first field trip to the zoo. We had a great time!
Conferences are coming up in the first couple weeks of October, please keep an eye out for information from your child’s teacher on how to sign up for these conferences. Please note that kindergarten conferences will take place a little differently than the rest of the school. This is to allow for parents, students, and teachers to have earlier conference availability and get home at a reasonable time for the younger kiddos.
You may have noticed or heard that your child is not in their homeroom classroom during reading. This is because we have begun grouping children by their reading needs. For reading, your child may be taught by any of the kindergarten teachers, as well as other professional Edison staff. We collaborate regularly about children’s progress and make changes according to their needs. This model is referred to as flooding.
What we have been working on in the Classroom:
Reading Workshop: We have been discussing and identifying the setting and characters in different stories.
Skills Block: We have finished our introduction of the alphabet and are continuing to work on forming our uppercase and lowercase letters correctly. We will now continue with two letters per week, focusing on all aspects of the letter. Please continue to work on letter and sound recognition at home. The sooner they learn them all, the better readers they will become.
Math: We have been working on number identification and handwriting as well as identifying missing numbers and quantities. We have also begun working on math story problems. Things to work on at home: counting to 50 (if they can count to 50, have them count to 100 and so on), identifying numbers 0-10 (or to 20 if they already know 0-10). This month, we are going to be beginning our flat and solid shape unit.
Social Studies/Science: We just completed our making friends and solving problems unit. Students learned about and practiced coping strategies as well as ways to make friends and solve problems. In science, we have started learning about the five senses and exploring our senses doing some exciting experiments. Not only are we learning humans use the five senses, but also the super senses that animals have!
Help Wanted:
Fall Festival & Help Wanted
Costumes will not be allowed in school, but students are encouraged to join us during Fall Harvest Festival and wear their costumes that evening (no masks or weapons allowed).
Fall Harvest Festival: The kindergarten teachers will be hosting Trick or Treat Street for the Fall Harvest Festival in order to raise money for our classrooms. We need LOTS and LOTS of Halloween candy. If you can donate 1 or 2 bags, it would be greatly appreciated. Please bring candy no earlier than October 23rd . If you would like to help us run Trick or Treat Street (Set up/collecting tickets) please let your child’s teacher know.
Box Tops: We will be collecting box tops throughout the school year. Each box top gives 10 cents to our kindergarten classrooms!
Important Dates:
September 30th: Picture Day
October 4th: PTA Meeting @ 8:00AM
October 7th: Kindergarten Parent Teacher Conferences begin after school
October 18th-October 22nd: No School for students
October 25th: Fall Festival 3:45-6:00 @ Edison.
Homework:
* Every Friday a new homework packet will go home, please keep the packet until the due date (located at the top of the homework).
- Reading Logs: The log runs from Monday to Friday. Keep a tally of the number of books read.
- Sight Words: Please practice 5 sight words each week for 10-15 minutes a night. By this time, students should have the first list of their magical memory (sight words) finished.
- Handwriting Practice: Be on the lookout. We will be sending handwriting practice sheets weekly.
- Math: Attached to the special helpers and reading log, you will find math homework. Please have your child complete it and return it when the reading log is due.
Special Helper Update
We have finished sharing our All About Me special projects. When it is your child’s next special helper day, he/she can bring one special item for show and tell. This item needs to be placed in the “Special Helper Mystery bag”. Please help your child come up with 3 clues about their show and tell. The item must be safe, school appropriate, and small enough to fit in the "Special Helper Mystery Bag”. Please also send in a healthy snack for the entire class (store bought, nut free, and teacher friendly). One simple snack is sufficient. The special helper schedule will go home each Friday with the reading log. Be sure to check it to find out when your child is special helper.
Please let us know if you have questions or would like help with anything regarding school. You may email us, or if it’s quick, we can usually take care of it when you come to pick up your child. But sometimes it is better to make an appointment, so we can have a focused talk in private. Please let us know anytime you would like to do this.
Teacher E-mail Addresses: Andrew_McConnell@dpsk12.org
Aylene_strebeck@dpsk12.org
Kaylee_Case@dpsk12.org
Emily_Pitman@dpsk12.org
