Our Reading Groups will kick into high gear this coming week, and the homework books will be ones appropriate to your child's specific reading level. Tonight, the sight word packet that comes home will be a new one--I "tested" your child's knowledge of last week's words last Friday. Please KEEP THESE NEW SIGHT WORDS AT HOME where you can practice them together each evening. Remember, learning these sight words REALLY helps your child become a better reader much more quickly than just practicing "sounding out" words. The book bag that comes home each evening (Monday through Thursday) is CLEARLY MARKED as to whether or not your child can read it to you with or without assistance from you. Please encourage YOUR CHILD to do the reading, as HE or SHE needs the practice reading to you. The more he or she practices the skills we are learning each day, the better a reader he or she becomes. Count to 10 before you assist, and then do so by asking questions like "Get your mouth ready to make that first sound--what does it say? Well, if it says ______, then what do you think that word might be?" If these questions don't help, then supply the word and go on. Remind your child to "take pictures" of the book as he or she reads. Then close the book, and have your child tell you 8 things that happened in the book, preferably in the proper sequence. If necessary, open the book back up and "walk through the pictures" together, then close the book and have your child try again to tell you the story based on those 8 pictures. This skill is a hard one to develop, and the more practice your child has trying to tell the sequence of the story, the better his or her comprehension of what he or she reads gets.
We have begun "proving" our understanding of patterns by making entries in our Math Journals. Interactive Math Journals are new to your child this year, but offer a demonstration of his or her understanding of the skills we are learning each week. We will do the AAB, ABB, AABB, and ABCD this week, and will be taking our district assessment on these skills next week. In addition to working on patterns, we are trying to learn the names and sequences of the days of the week, and the months of the year. To that end, we have two songs that we sing daily to help us remember what the words and sequence is for each of these skills. Please have your child try to sing them for you. Sometime this week, your child will bring home days of the week "cards" and months of the year "cards" which he or she can use with you to help practice the names and sequences of these words. We will be having a district assessment on "calendar" during the first week in October. Using a calendar at home, you can help your child find: the month word, the year figure, where the days of the week are located, and different "date boxes" on the various pages of that calendar are located. (A "date box" is the box on each calendar that contains a number--so, on this month's calendar, the box 15 is a date box located in the Monday column.) Your child will be asked to identify all of these things on a random calendar as part of the district assessment I mentioned. He or she will also be asked to show me a week by coloring seven consecutive date boxes on this random calendar, so he or she will need to know how many days are in a week, and that the boxes must be consecutive and going across a row or two, as opposed to going down a column. I'd love it if your child could practice these things with you at home, and the only "tools" you will need are a calendar and cereal (to place on the calendar parts you have named). Make it fun! Practice only for 5 minutes or so a day--don't beat the learning to death!
We have started learning about living and nonliving things. You can follow up at home by playing a game with your child called "IS IT ALIVE?" Name an object, animal, or person and have your child tell you whether or not it is alive, and "PROVE" it to you by identifying the characteristics of living things that it does or does not show. These characteristics are: Living things: 1) breathe, 2) eat and/or drink, 3) excrete (this one always gets giggles from the kids), 4) grow, and 5) reproduce--have babies.
Technology in Our Classroom:
There is an iPad app your child is using right now called “Teach
Me” which will help him or her with basic sight words, letter formation,
and addition and subtraction. Most of the children are using
“TeachingMeKindergarten” right now to review and/or learn the first 50
sight words, though others are ready for “TeachMeFirstGrade”. We are
still using "Memory4You" (to improve memory skills), and will be
introduced this week to “Number Natives” (which strengthens kids
knowledge of numbers, and why they work the way they do), and 10 Frames
(to really develop the understanding of what the numbers 0 - 10 really
mean). Some computer games that will help us practice skills are:
-We Do Listen www.wedolisten.org (a program of books your child can read or listen to)
-We Do Listen www.wedolisten.org (a program of books your child can read or listen to)
-Mr. Nussbaum’s “School Fish” www.mrnussbaum.com/school-fish-2/ (recognizing patterns)
-“PoopDeck” at http://www.ictgames.com/poopDeckPirates/index.html Phase 3—practicing CVC words.
The following YouTube videos will help your child “practice”
general sight words (not those specifically assigned to your child) this
week.) Please don’t let your child go onto YouTube unsupervised as
there is a great deal of content that is NOT appropriate for children.
However, there is some REALLY GREAT content, too.:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1rmYfo84hyg Harry Kindergarten Music’s Sight Word Version 1
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jpVWGhuckcQ Sing and Groove’s First 24 High Frequency Words
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cPiNTkCmmv0 MakeMeGenius’s Living and Nonliving Things—Lesson for Kids
That’s all for this week. I’ll write again over next weekend! Hallelujah that the weather is more fall-like!!!!! :)
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