Week of August 23-27

Dear Families:
It's 6:45 on Sunday morning and I just realized that I forgot to blog on Friday. It is taking me awhile to get back into the swing of things, but I will get better.

This week in Kindergarten ...

Animated Alphabet: Using our AA curriculum we learned our new character, Ollie Ostrich. This teaches kids the /ah/ sound. Students also learned the song and actions to "1,2,3,4,5 I Caught A Fish Alive." They had a great time learning this song and really enjoy singing it. On Wednesday we made pop-up books to go along with the song. Students also did another guided drawing of "Pop" and read and created their another sentence, "A pop can hop."

Handwriting Without Tears: I demonstrated how to draw the letters of the alphabet and had students draw circles around them starting with the magic C and then practiced drawing straight lines down. We also worked on how to grip and hold our crayons and markers. Please help your child aim for the black banner that runs around the bottom of their crayon.

Math: This week student worked more on counting in many different forms. We learned what a "scene" was and drew scenes with three things in them. Well, at least we tried! As the year goes on our "scenes" will get better!

Thanks for sending the pictures for our Animated Alphabet characters. I have started putting them together in a book for the kids to read when they have free library time.

Thanks so much for the snacks and baby wipes you have sent to school. They love their snack time!

If you did not make it to Parent Information Night please call the Office to sign up for a Parent-Teacher Conference time.

Meet Your New Kindergarten Teacher!

Hi New Kindergarten Families!
I have really enjoyed getting to know your children these last two weeks. I have been having a lot of fun with them in the classroom, and I hope they are reporting the same thing. I wanted to take a minute to introduce myself.
This is will by sixth year at Langston Hughes Elementary. I love working at this school. I have fantastic co-workers, students, and parent support. I really couldn't ask for a better place to work. Since I have been at Langston Hughes I have taught fourth grade and fifth grade. I made the change to kindergarten this year for several reasons. The main reason is my family. I have two little ones at home and this will be a chance for me to spend more time with them. Also, since I have had little kids I have come to love the things that go along with small children: picture books, alphabets, numbers and counting, art and play! I know that we will have a lot of fun this year!
As I mentioned I have two children; Olive who is two and Moses who is eight months old. My husband's name is Chris and he is currently employed at the Journal-World and is getting ready to go back to school for nursing. Cooking, reading, and taking walks with my family are my favorite hobbies and I am also a Pampered Chef Consultant!

Animated Alphabet: This week students have learned the sounds for P and U. Polly Panda has been introduced as well as Uncle Upton. We have been singing the songs, coloring the pictures, and using those letters to read and write our first words! By the end of the week students learned how to write P and U, use this to write the word pup and then read and construct a sentence.

Handwriting Without Tears: This week students are learning to become familiar with their right hand and learning that we start our capital letters at the top.

Math: This week in math we are working on counting and various representations of counting: using pattern blocks, fingers, movement, and pictures.

Books: This week we have read some great stories about starting school and Chica Chica Boom Boom. This story is helping us with our alphabet and we have been incorporating instruments into the reading. You would be surprised how well behaved they will be to play instruments!

Homework this week...
Don't forget to help your child find a picture of something that starts with a P sound and also one for U.

Have a great weekend!