Thank you as always to our volunteers who keep the Snuggle Up books rolling along and the wonderful Mystery Readers! Remember - grandparents make great Mystery Readers, as do older siblings who attend LKS and could pop down for 20 minutes.
A big thank you to everyone for your participation at interviews. It's always great to see and talk a bit more indepth about the students and hearing your stories from home gives a more complete picture of your child. If you have not already, would Senior Kindie parents please return the report envelope for future use. The next reporting session will be in February and Junior Kindies will have a formal report at this time. All kindergarteners receive an end of year report in June.
This week we continue sounds with the letter Pp. Encourage your child to listen for the "p" in any word not just as the initial sound in a word. As we have now done S, A, T, I, you can also play with the letters to create simple phonetic words to read. We are following the "Jolly Phonics" program, created in England by Sue Lloyd and Sara Wernham. It's simple and appealing to the kids - has a visual, auditory and kinesthetic (the "action" that your child associates with a particular letter) component to appeal to all learners. I've used it for almost 20 years and many, many children! Any supplementing you add at home is helpful as we look towards having all the children know the letter names and sounds.
Keep using those calendars for number recognition and counting skills. Addition can be done as children look forward to special events coming up. Knowing the days of the week and months of the year is another component of calendar work. Parents asking about homework - reinforcing all of these skills (sounds, letters, numbers) as well as meaningful printing/writing and reading every day - are the most valuable. Beyond that, you know your child's tolerance and abilities and work within them as you are able. Outdoor activities, music, art and sports are great "homework" to develop coordination (fine motor and gross motor) as well as social skills and an appreciation of the arts - equally important to a well rounded child.
Our Sharing Assembly this week focuses on empathy. In kindergarten that mainly looks like taking good care of your friends, understanding and appreciating how they may feel, beginning to verbalize how characters in books might feel and thinking about others because we can understand how we might feel in the same situation and generalize that knowledge. Our certificate recipients this month will be Nina and Henry in the morning and Angelina in the afternoon; all of whom are very good at displaying empathy. Congratulations!
Our week is...
Monday - AM computers, PM Reading Buddies
Tuesday - PM Library
Wednesday - AM Library
Thursday - Author Rukhsana Khan visits both AM and PM, no computers for PM
Friday - Sharing Assembly 9/12:35, Mystery Readers 10:55, 2:45
