Playing Catch-Up

Dear Families,
I know I am a little behind with my blogging, so I am going to get you up to speed with what has been going on at school and what you can expect in the future.

Animated Alphabet - We continue to learn about two characters a week. This week we learned our first character that is not a letter: Arnie Aardvark. He teaches us the AR sound combo. We looked for him in words like arm, park, art, bar.
I also wanted to remind you about sending pictures with your students each day after we learn a character. I have not been receiving very many and our book is looking a little weak. Searching through magazines and talking about sounds in pictures is a great pre-reading skill that you can reinforce at home.

Reading groups - In reading groups we have been working on hearing the different sounds in words, what letters make those sounds, character review, vowels and consonants, and reading books we put together.

Math - This week we will be taking our math test over Unit 1 and starting Unit 2. I will save those math tests to share with you at conferences, but if there are glaring problems you will be alerted ahead of time.

This week in Kindergarten is apple week. We will be tasting apples and apple products, learning about the sequence of an apples life, graphing apples, and reading apple books.

Also, last week you received a calendar with Animated Alphabet characters and activities. These activities will help reinforce what we are learning at school. Do them in any order you wish. When students have completed all the activities, sign and return the calendar to school for a sticker on the chart. The calendar should take you about 4 weeks to complete if you do one activity a day.