Upcoming Events:
- Monday, September 14: No School
- Wednesday, September 16: Mum order deadline
- Thursday, September 17: Cub Scout meeting, 6:30 in Morrissey Hall
- Friday, September 18: Have your child bring his/her favorite fruit, washed, cut up and ready to serve. This should NOT be enough for the whole class, just a small portion. See the religion section below.
This Week:
This week we completed all our safety drills–tornado, fire, bus evacuation and lockdown. Students did great!
Thanks SO much for your flexibility with the drop-off and pick-up changes due to Fall Fest. We look forward to a fun and successful weekend! Hope to see you there!
What’s due:
Name Writing Pages: I gave you name writing practice pages a couple of weeks ago. Remember, over the next month or so, pull a page out and have your child practice. Turn it in for a smelly sticker. Keep doing that until you’ve completed all those practice pages.
House Page: The house pages are looking great! Keep working on those and get those turned in. Let’s try to have all of them turned in by Friday, September 25. See the example below:
Milk orders: click HERE
Hot lunch orders: (1st lunch for kinder) click HERE
Mum orders: These are always beautiful (from Hinsdale Nurseries) AND it’s an important fundraiser for our 8th graders and all their final year activities. If you plan on having mums, consider purchasing this here! Pick-up (on September 26) is easy too!! Click HERE to order.
Spirit Wear: Click HERE
Next Week:
Language Arts:
- Here are the Fundations letter/keyword/sounds we have learned so far in unit 1. Remember, we are focus on LOWERCASE formation ONLY, and want students to be able to name the letters and sounds in the “letter/keyword/sound” format as shown below:
t/top/t
b/bat/b
f/fun/f
n/nut/n
i/itch/i
Next week: u/up/u and c/cat/c
Here is a video of what the letter/key/sound drill practice sounds like: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AYhKyXCs7Ug
- Name writing: They’re doing SO well, aren’t they!? Kindergarten is all about celebrating the little things that are A BIG deal to a 5 and 6 year old! There’s such excitement when a child writes their name the “kindergarten way” for the first time! We will continue to work on writing our names with ONE capital letter, the rest lower case and will use the fundations lines. Don’t forget, you can use the papers I gave you to have your child show you at home. Have your child turn those pages in for a smelly sticker!
- Students have learned about their “initials.” Ask your child about his/her initials! Sometimes instead of writing our names, students will be asked to write their initials.
- We’ve been talking about our BIRTHDAYS. At home: please talk with your child about his/her birthday. Help your child remember the month and date.
- Word wall words: Current word wall words: no, yes, the. Next week, we will add I, go. We will practice both reading and writing these words. The kids LOVE to find word wall words during book looks. See if your child can show you some of these when you’re reading at home!
Math:
Next week we will be about halfway through our first “INTO MATH” workbook. Each workbook contains 3-4 “modules” or chapters. Module 1 is all about: representing numbers to 5 with objects. We will be finishing up module 1 and moving on to module 2 which is all about “representing numbers to 5 with a written number”. In addition to this, we will continue to work on the following math skills all month long:
- Number writing: We’ve not learned the proper formation for numbers 1-9 and will continue to review those next week. Again, it’s much easier to practice math skills such greater than/less than, addition and subtraction, etc. when students can write the numbers without too much effort. Also, no worries if you’re seeing backwards numbers. That’s developmentally appropriate through 1st grade and just takes continued practice and the gift of time. Numbers ‘8’ and ‘9’ are typically the two harder ones for students to form. We’ll keep practicing! At home: Ask your child to show you how to make any number, 1-9. Watch for students to always start their numbers at the TOP. I sent extra practice pages with the poems written on Friday.
- Tally Marks: We will continue to practice counting a group of objects and tallying up to 10. “1, 2, 3, 4, 5 MAKES A BUNDLE!” (FINGER SPACE) “6, 7, 8, 9, 10 CIRCLE IT UP!” Next week, we will continue to tally numbers greater than 10, up to 20.
- Ten Frames: We will continue to practice those tricky teen numbers. We recognize teen numbers as “a group of TEN with some ONES left over.” 11, 12, 13 and 15 are always the tricky ones. We’ll keep practicing! If you’d like to practice at home, you can print out this double ten frame and use any small manipulatives at home to have your child represent numbers up to 20: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1v2bZXfZqik_iXuSviHzRd7u8JT49JSEv/view?usp=sharing
- Counting: Counting by 1s to 20. At Home: Keep practicing that counting! You say a number, they say a number, go back and forth. The car is a great place to do this! The expectation is up to 100 by the END of kindergarten. We are counting to 20 right now.
Religion: Next week we will start “I am special to my friends.” We feel God’s love through our friends! We will wrap up this unit with a friendship fruit salad on Friday. On Friday, I am asking all students to bring in a small container of cut up fruit. This should NOT be enough to feed the whole class. Instead, we will take everyone’s small portions, combine them, and make one large friendship fruit salad. After enjoying, we will graph our favorite fruits!
Early Childhood classes will begin to attend 8am Mass on Tuesday, September 22nd. On Mass days our doors will open at 7:45am so we can get unpacked, use the bathroom and be in church by 8am. You’re always welcome to join us at 8am Mass. We sit with our 8th grade buddies who will give us reminders about sitting, standing, kneeling, hands folded, etc.
This week we had our first PBIS kick-off assembly. We say PBIS stands for Positive behavior in school or positive behavior in society. The three character traits we focus on at St. Cletus are ‘be respectful,’ ‘be responsible’ and ‘be compassionate.’ Starting next week, when we catch students displaying one of those character traits, they will be given a ticket to write their name on. Every other Friday, I will pull 1 ticket from our class tub and that person will get to pick a prize from the PBIS cart. When we catch students showing one of those traits, we will always label it as a “respectful,” “responsible” or “compassionate” behavior so students can really start to understand what those words mean.