Mrs. King's Class

Sorry, it's been so long since I have posted to the blog. I was out Friday at a Math Training and it was also Saturday so I had a very short weekend, but I learned some very interesting new things about teaching math to students so it was well worth it. I will be out again on Wednesday afternoon to take my husband to a Doctor's appointment. Sorry, but it is important. I don't like to miss days close together but this couldn't be helped. Bev Banner the same sub will be here so and she is very good so that will provide some continuity.

We are already to end of the first quarter. Parent/Teacher conferences have been scheduled the letters with your day and time will be coming home this week. In order to accommodate all the families I need to meet with, my conference schedule will begin on Tuesday. So if you get a conference scheduled for Tuesday or Wednesday it is not a misprint, I have so many I need to do that I have to schedule almost every spare minute that week to get them all in. Please keep in mind how many I am doing as you get your schedule and try to make it at the scheduled time. I don't have anymore evening times so if you cannot make it at your scheduled time about the only thing left is before school. If you absolutely can't make the scheduled time, please send me a note and let me know which morning you would be available so I can reschedule. Again, I don't have any late afternoon or evening times available. Report Cards will not be sent home, you must come in and meet with me to receive the report card.

Please keep working at home on the letter sounds, writing first names, numbers and counting. These are all important skills that need as much practice as we can get at home. I have seen some real improvement in some students first names, but others are still really struggling to remember to write it correctly all the time.

I e-mailed the new snack list for October and November today. If you didn't get one or you had problems reading it please let me know I can send home a hard copy or e-mail you the dates your child is assigned for snack. Thanks to all of you who have been so very good about sending snack in even when I forget to send the bag home! It is working great and the children love being able to hand out snack on their day!

Don't forget that the week of Parent/Teacher Conferences we will have a schedule change-on Thursday AM students will come as usual and go home at 11:05-regular school gets out at 11:15. I would suggest being here by 11:05 and beat the crowd because it will be crazy and you will not be allowed to leave your car in the drop-off area. If you are going to leave your car you will have to park and then use the crosswalk to come and get your child. This is a little different for the AM parents, so please be prepared.

There is no school for the PM Kindergarten Students on Thursday.

Friday, there is NO SCHOOL for the AM students, the PM students will come from 8:15-11:15 If you send your AM student to school on Friday, you will be called and expected to come and get your child!!

Have a great week and I look forward to meeting with all of you for Conference next week!

Ms. Trowbridge's Class

Fall is finally here! Now lets all hope the weather starts feeling like fall.

Homework went home on Friday. Please let me know if you don't have a packet for this week. This week we are learning about the letters L and H. Please practice at home by having your student find as many things in the house that start with these letters.

In math we are continuing our numbers through 10 as well as AB patterns and ABB patterns. An example of an AB pattern would be red, blue, red, blue. An example of an ABB pattern would be red, blue, blue, red, blue, blue. Practice at home by seeing if your family can make a pattern using objects from around the house such as forks and spoons!

Conferences are coming up next week. Everyone will be getting conference slips sent home shortly. Every one's conferences will be scheduled for either Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday or Friday afternoon. Please try your hardest to keep your scheduled appointment since there is no wiggle room. If there is no way for you to make your assigned time, please let me know ASAP so we can try to reschedule you for another time. Thank you in advance for your understanding while I try to fit everyone in next week.

Thursday, October 7th, there is no school for PM kindergarten. Kinder express students will come to school from 8:15am - 11:15am. Friday, October 8th all PM students need to come to school from 8:15am to 11:15am.


On Friday October 29th we will be having our Harvest Party. Students will be allowed to dress up on this day. Ashley, Johnathan's mom, is this year's room mom. She sent home information about herself on Thursday. She will be the one heading up the harvest party as well. We will be sending out information on how you can help shortly. Please make sure you are returning the survey that Ashley sent home on Thursday as soon as you can. I will make sure Ashley gets all that are given to me.

I hope everyone has a great week! If you have any questions, please email me!

Mrs. Wright's Class

Happy Fall! Yesterday we had a great time welcoming our new season. The day consisted of apple painting, apple tasting (green apple was the most popular flavor) and an apple investigation. The kids had fun and I hope they shared some stories with you. Now that fall is here we hope to see some cooler weather soon! I have promised each of the classes that there will be more time for outdoor fun when the fall weather decides to arrive.

We were busy learning our letters G & F this week. We will be learning H & L next week so please continue to practice the letters at home too. We are working with numbers 0-10 and pretty much have 0-5 down (writing and recognizing). This coming week we will spend more time on numbers 6-10. Homework was due today. If your child did not get their packet in, please turn it in on Monday. They also received a new packet that will be due before our break on October 7th and 8th. Those days will be a 1/2 day (dismissal at 11:15 am) so I will have the AM CLASS on Thursday, October 7th and will have the PM CLASS on Friday, October 8th. Whatever day your child comes to school, either Thursday or Friday, please turn in the packet then. We will have conferences scheduled that entire week. Your date and time will be coming home soon. If you are unable to attend, please contact me ASAP so we can work something out. I have 40 families to meet with so scheduling is tight.

I have challenged the kids to the Scholastic "Read 10 Books and Give" Campaign. A book marker went home a few weeks ago with space for 10 book titles that you and your child have read together. If you have misplaced the book marker...do not fret. Please write the titles of 10 books on a slip of paper and bring it in to school when complete. We have a poster in our classroom for each child to sign when they complete their part. When our poster is filled, we will mail it back to Scholastic who will then donate books to a classroom in need. Thanks to those of you who have already turned your book marks in. WAY TO GO!!!

I hope a relaxing weekend is in store for all of you. See you Monday-

Mrs. Wright's Class

Wow...the weeks are flying by! I apologize for my lack of posts last week. I don't know where the week went?! This week we are off to a great start. The kids are learning about letters G & F. We will practice writing these letters in upper and lower case form as well as work on recognizing them and brainstorming words that begin with these letters. Quiz your child at home to see if they can tell you 3 words that start with each of our new letters. Last week we focused on letters D & N so it would be great to review those as well. In math we are still working with numbers 0-10. It is important for us to master writing and recognizing them before we move on to other math concepts. The kids are doing great, but I ask that you continue to practice these skills at home too.

On Thursday we will be celebrating our first day of fall. In class we will be doing apple prints, some taste testing and an apple dissection. All month we have been learning about the famous fruit so it should be a fun time for all! On Friday, September 24th the Scholastic Book Order will be due. You can go online to www.scholastic.com/bookclubs to see the latest and greatest books for sale. Our class activation code to order online is: GLG4W. You can also send in the paper order form with a check. Each time you order books, our class earns free books...so order today! Homework will also be due on Friday. Each time your child brings in a completed packet they earn a treasure box. This is a reward for all of their hard work. Don't forget your packets!

First quarter is coming to a close and conferences will be here before we know it. If you have a work schedule to accommodate or a conflict with the dates (October 6-8)please let me know in advance and we can schedule a time to meet beforehand. I look forward to meeting with each of you to discuss your child's progress. Well, I think that is all for our latest and greatest classroom news. Your kids are doing super. Thanks for your continued support!

Ms. Trowbridge's Class

I hope everyone had a great weekend! This week we will be focusing on the letters G and F. We will learn how to write it and some things that start with those letters. We will also be continuing numbers 0-10. We are almost through our first math chapter! Way to go kindergartners.

Fall conferences are coming up on October 7th and 8th. Since I am at two schools this year conferences will be a little different. I will only be available to do conferences at Simonton on Wednesday from 2 - 5pm and Friday from 12 - 4pm and Monday and Tuesday from 330 - 5pm. Conference slips will be going home soon. Please try your hardest to keep your scheduled time. If you already know of a conflict or an afternoon that would work best, please let me know now so I can schedule you accordingly. There will not be much wiggle room since I will be at two different schools. Thank you in advance for your help.

Thursday is the first day of fall and we will be having an apple celebration. We will be painting with apples, eating apples, telling about our favorite apple, and doing an apple craft. If you would like to help out at our apple celebration please let me know! The fun will be from 1-2pm.

Keep up the great work at home and if you have any questions please contact me!

Ms. Trowbridge's class

Happy Monday! I hope everyone had a great weekend.

This week we will be continuing our apple unit and will even get to do some apple sequencing. We will also be learning about the letters N and D.

This week we will be starting our writing. Today we will be writing about something we did at school. We will slowly add more and more writing each week until everyone is able to write their own sentences!

Progress reports went home on Friday, let me know if you have any questions. Please keep in mind this is the first progress in kindergarten and we have lots of room to grow! A new homework packet also went home on Friday. Make sure you are checking the back page of the homework packet. This is where I attached every ones star of the week reminders. There is only 1 spot left at the end of May so please try your hardest to make the week assigned work.

The school fundraiser packet is due tomorrow. Please turn it in as soon as you can. Thanks for your support.

The book fair is going on all this week! Stop by and get some great books for at home. You are also helping to support the library with every purchase.

Wednesday is the PTO meeting in the multi-purpose room. This is a great way to get involved. The PTO meeting is from 630-7pm.

I am still looking for parent helpers. If you are able to volunteer please let me know. Even if it is a onetime thing or a last minute thing we are always in need of help to run our centers.

I hope everyone has a great week!

Mrs. King's Class

O.K. I can't just copy and paste the e-mail information into the blog. So Check your e-mail if you did not a get an e-mail from me today-Friday, September 10. Then e-mail me so I can figure out why you didn't get it and send it to you. I am not going to repeat everything from the e-mail. Just check out the important dates and things here on the blog and have a great weekend.

Mrs. Wright's Class

We have had a wonderful week! The last four days were spent learning about the letter A, apples and reviewing numbers 0-5. We will be ready next week to add numbers 6-10. Please start practicing all numbers 0-10 at home. We had a wonderful turnout for our Grandparent's Breakfast today. Thanks to all of you who came out to celebrate. There were quite a few families from our classes who attended and it was wonderful to meet you all.

Homework was due today and most everyone brought their packet back to school. Your kids earn a treasure box when they return the completed packet so if you did not get yours in today...please return it on Monday. There was also a new packet sent home today. Please feel free to get a head start on that! Also in the folder was your child's progress report and DIBELS scores. Since it is the beginning of kindergarten and the first grading period, your child's grades/scores may be lower than you had hoped. Please understand that we are just starting off and it is very hard to give these kids a % grade based on their performance since most of the skills are new to them. I am thrilled with each of their progress and I hope you are too. These scores will increase over time and you will see a difference in the % come October. If you have questions about your child's grade or progress thus far, please do not hesitate to contact me.

I hope everyone enjoys their weekend. I will see you back to school on Monday ready to learn!

Ms. Trowbridge's Class

I hope everyone had a great holiday!

This week we are learning about the letter a. We are learning the correct way to write it as well as some things that start with the letter a. We are also getting to make some fun apple projects. We will be learning about apples for the next two weeks and will even get to paint with apples!

We will also be continuing numbers 0-5 but adding 6-10. Students should be able to write the numbers 0-10 and be able to count that many objects. We are doing lots of fun counting activities to help us learn this!

We also have lots of new songs under our belts. Ask your student if they can sing you their favorite!

Remember, homework is due on Friday! A new packet will go home Friday as well. I am looking forward to seeing all the hard work everyone did on their homework packets.

Please make sure you have marked your calendars about the upcoming days off in October. Only AM students will come on Thursday October 7th. All students need to be picked up at 11:15am. Only PM students will come Friday October 8th from 8:15 - 11:15am.

Progress reports will go home on Friday. Please understand that this is only the first four weeks of kindergarten and everyone is still learning. Don't be shocked if the scores are not where you would like them to be. Everyone is doing a great job of progressing and we will be able to see the growth between this progress report and the next. If you have questions on your progress report please don't hesitate to ask!

I hope everyone has a great week.

Mrs. King's Class

Wow!! Week number four has come and gone!! We are working hard on lots of new skills in our kindergarten adventure. We have introduced 6 letters Mm, Ss, Rr, Tt, Pp and Cc. We will only introduce the letter Aa next week and take a day or two to review during this short week. Remember NO SCHOOL ON MONDAY!!

We are also working on numbers 0-5. We are writing, recognizing and counting. We are also working on one-to-one correspondence with each number (counting out that many objects for each number). Writing our names and cutting are the other two motor skills we are working on. You child should be bringing home a name paper that we do everyday in class. Please take a look at it-if they are making progress and it is becoming readable YEA! If not I really need you to do some extra work on it at home. With less than 3 hours per day I just can't get them all the practice they need at school. Fun ideas to do at home would be using shaving cream on the table (it cleans at the same time) or pudding on a plate or cookie sheet. Using the sidewalk chalk or water and paint brushes on the sidewalk or driveway. Sticks or fingers in the sand or dirt. All of these are more fun than paper and give them an opportunity to write a little larger while getting the motion of the letters down and building their muscles. Cutting is also an issue for lots of the children. Some are really struggling-I realize that scissors are scary instruments in the hands of children, but we really need to get them able to cut. If you don't have safety or kid friendly scissors at your house and you are noticing your child may be struggling, I have a few extra pairs of scissors that I would loan out so they can get some extra practice in at home.

For the most part our behavior has settled down and we are doing a pretty good job. I have also has several parents ask about the color of the stars or stickers and I re-read the information I sent home and it is a bit confusing so I hope this might clear it all up. If they come home with a star or sticker whatever the color or shape or whatever, it means they had a great day! No warnings and they did just what they were supposed to do. If they come home with their box colored in either green, yellow or red. That means we had a issue-and extra warning-talking or not following directions or something. Green means 1 extra warning, yellow means 2 and red means 2 or more. Some things like hitting and dangerous or mean things might skip green and yellow and go right to red. A green may not have an explanation, but usually if they have a yellow or a red I will write an note, either in the square or on the back. If for some reason I don't please feel free to e-mail or call me to find out what might have happened. Every once in a while-as you in the afternoon have already noticed-we run out of time and I might not get to stickers at the end of class. I usually will try to do an e-mail to let you know what happened and then I put two stickers in the next day. Again if you ever have questions about behavior please contact me.

A few reminders Scholastic Book Orders were due today-I didn't get any brochure orders-there are several online orders. I will give you until Tuesday to send in the brochure or go online and get the books ordered. Again there are several in each brochure that are less than a dollar and Scholastic matches dollar for dollar with free books in our classroom!

Grandparents day is coming up next Friday. We are doing a breakfast. Grandparents or adopted grandparents-aunts, uncles who ever the child might want to invite that lives near is welcome to come have breakfast at school on Friday morning. They will be talking pictures and then rooms will be open for a quick visit. PM kindergartners are welcome to attend with their grandparents as well. They will just go home after breakfast and come back at our regular school start time.

Thank you for remembering to send snack on your assigned day. I have forgotten to send the snack bag several times and you all remember to send it in anyway. It is much appreciated and the children do enjoy sharing snacks each day.

I do appreciate all your support and hard work from home. You all have a great group of kindergarten children and I enjoy being their teacher. Thanks for being willing to trust me with them every day!!

Progress Reports will come home next Friday. Keep in mind that this is the beginning of Kindergarten and they are not expected to know all these things yet, so don't panic over what looks like low scores. The Report Card system used by the district is not Kindergarten friendly, but is what we are asked to use anyway. We will have parent/teacher conferences in October and we will sit down and discuss your child individually.

I hope everyone has a great long weekend and I will see you all on Tuesday morning!!

Mrs. Wright's Class

We have made it through another busy week. Your kids are doing super and we are having a great time learning. This week we focused on the letters P & C. Over the long weekend quiz your child on whether or not they can recognize the letters/sounds for M,S,R,T,P,C and words that begin with each letter. This will be a good time to review. Next week in class we will be reviewing all the letters learned thus far and will add a new "surprise" letter to our line-up.

We are making progress on writing numbers 0-5. This is a skill that will come in time and after much practice. The more practice the better, so you can always work on writing the numbers at home too. We will continue our study on numbers throughout September and will be moving to numbers through 10 next week. During the month of September we will also be studying apples. We will be taste testing different types of apples, doing apple art and have some fun books to share with one another all about apples. Look for some fun projects to be coming home soon.

Well, I think we will all enjoy the 3 day break. I hope you find time to rest and enjoy the company of family and friends. See you back to school on Tuesday...we have more busy days ahead.

Please mark your calendar with the following dates:

-Sept. 10th Breakfast with Grandparents (7:30-8:15am)
-Sept. 10th Progress Reports Go Home
-Sept. 13-17 School wide Book Fair
-Sept. 15th Fundraiser Packet Due
-Sept. 15th PTO Meeting (6:30pm)
-Sept. 16th Fall Picture Day
-Sept. 23rd Math Curriculum Night (6-7pm)