Cue Autumn?

 Hello, Everyone!

What another great week in kindergarten! Despite being underpowered with just me in the room some days because of the sub shortage and staff shifting to cover, the kids did really well! I hope you got to see in the school newsletter that we are still looking for a Student Support Specialist as well as substitute teachers. Both are positions that are really needed so if you or anyone you know are interested, please get in touch with Mary in the front office.   

The kids did a great job learning their first two words, I and like. We are almost done writing our first “I like…” books and those should go home early next week. The kids are learning the skills of pointing to each word as they read and using the pictures they drew to help them with the words they wrote. Next we’ll be working on our next book, I see a… I am so excited for you to see their hard work! 

Up to date, we have started to learn the lower case letters c, o, s, v, w, t and a. The kids have been practicing saying the letter name followed by the picture cue for the word followed by the sound. For example, we use the Fundations alphabet for the key words to cue kids to the sound of the letter, which is the first sound of the picture cue (with the exception of x - fox). Be on the lookout for these letters around the house and when you may be out and about. They’ll start to see them everywhere! 

We have also been reading the follow-up to the book Journey, Quest. The connections that the kids are making between the two books as well as within the book Quest itself has been so amazing to see. We are working on asking elbow partners questions like “What will happen next?” “What is happening?” “Why is ____ doing that?”, etc.  

We had a great week working on our number writing, dot cluster card work and counting objects using a number path. Here is a site that I saw that talks about both number lines and number paths. We are using number paths to help us count objects and practice counting objects one at a time, a skill called 1 to 1 correspondence. 

Amy Butler from VINS joined us in the woods this week and told a super story about a magical golden stick. Ask your child about it, it was a great story. They sure worked hard to find their own! We are talking about the use of sticks and show to properly and safely use them in the woods. Over the next couple of weeks we’ll collect leaves and see if we can find out what kinds of trees are in our outdoor classroom. 

Last, the weather is a-changing! Please be sure to send in your kiddo with all of the gear that is needed to spend extended periods of time outdoors. Also, one or two extra sets of clothes at school would be great to send in. We can send home and trade out what is here. Thanks for your support on this!

Have a wonderful, restful weekend!

Best,

Ben and Honi

Conversation starters:

*Tell me the story about the beavers that you heard from Amy in the forest.

*What did you do with your buddy this week?

*Tell me about the books Quest and Journey

*What is your favorite part about PE?

*What did you make in art class? How did you make it?

*Who did you play with on the playground?

*Did you try/do anything that was hard or tricky this week?

Reminders

Class Blog

You can check out the blog here for the newsletter and resources

Pictures

The folder with class pictures can be found here. 

Class Gear

Please remember to send in all the tools for the kiddos to be using as we go through the year (change of clothes, raingear, camp chair, etc.). Sneakers are the best daily footwear for students. If you need help getting any of those, please let us know, the school will be happy to help.

Book Order Information

 

With a $25 order, you can pick a FREE $5 Book (use code: READS).

Shop Our Class Page: https://orders.scholastic.com/XLZX8

Class Code: XLZX8

Foliage Time!

 Hello, Everyone!

I hope you have all gotten a chance or are thinking about making some time to get out and get into the beautiful fall weather. Seeing the kiddos in the woods on Thursday really brought this into focus for me. I know it is going to be part of my weekend plans, for sure!

I hope you all got a chance to read Nurse Bonne’s post in this week’s school newsletter. As a parent who had to wait to get a Covid test before being able to send my kiddo back to school (which is why I was out on Monday and Tuesday), it is important that you feel clear about the health guidelines so that in the event you get a call to come pick your kiddo up, you’ll understand why. Believe me, the guidelines can feel frustrating but I also know that they are in the best interest of the kids and your families.  

The kids will be working on their writing and reading skills next week, learning their first sight words. We will start with the words I, a, see and like. It is amazing how much kids can read and write knowing only these words! I am looking forward to the kiddos bringing a t least one of these home next week!

We continued our work in letters and sounds and also introduced name writing. Writing one’s name is an important step in their personal expression. You may have seen the papers your child did to practice them. I use a solid line to trace with arrows that determine which way to go and a dot that indicates where to start. These letter writing pen strokes I model are aligned with our handwriting program, Learning Without Tears (formerly Handwriting Without Tears). Helping kids learn a consistent and efficient writing motion helps them enormously as their desire to write increases as we go through the year. 

In math this week we continued our work on dot cluster cards, counting, and number writing. The kids are all working so hard! We have started to introduce the 10 frame as a way of representing numbers. Check out this blog post from another teacher. While our kiddos aren’t to this level yet, we’ll be working toward it as we go through the year. 

Amy Butler from VINS joined us in the woods this week. She introduced the brace and bit drill and the kids got to make some necklaces. Next week we’ll be exploring sticks and their many uses in the woods.

Enjoy the beautiful weather this weekend!

Best,

Ben and Honi

Conversation starters:

*What sound does “w” make?

*What was your favorite game you played at recess?

*Which kind of apple at school tasted the best?

*What did you do with your buddy this week?

*What are the letters in your name?

*Who have you been playing with at school?

Reminders

Meadowbrook Fundraiser

In order to support the amazing work of our Rumney PTO, you may have seen a fundraiser packet from Meadow Farms. If you have any questions about it, please get in touch with Honi (hbarrett@u32.org). 

Class Blog

You can check out the blog here for the newsletter and resources

Pictures

The folder with class pictures can be found here. 

Class Gear

Please remember to send in all the tools for the kiddos to be using as we go through the year (change of clothes, raingear, camp chair, etc.). Sneakers are the best daily footwear for students. If you need help getting any of those, please let us know, the school will be happy to help.

Book Order Information

 

With a $25 order, you can pick a FREE $5 Book (use code: READS).

Shop Our Class Page: https://orders.scholastic.com/XLZX8

Class Code: XLZX8

Happy Autumn!

 Happy Friday, Everyone!

Another great week in Kindergarten! We got to spend some time in the woods, played rhyming games, learned some letters and sounds, learned some math games and played with our friends.

We have been working hard on learning the names of our many classmates and the kids have been doing a super job. To practice the names of our friends, we sang “Willoughby Wallaby Woo”. It has been such a hoot watching kids hear a word that rhymes with a name to help them think  about whose name I am saying (Willoughby, Wallaby Wen, and elephant sat on... Ben!) They are doing a great job!

We did a lot of work on the letters c, o and s this week. You can ask your child to trace the letters with their index and middle finger on a textured surface while saying the letter name and sound. You can also ask them where we start writing our letters (at the top!). They are working so hard on these skills. We will also start working on tracing their names next week as a morning job when they get to school. We use specific lined pages in order to consistently reinforce the formation of letters and letter size (upper and lowercase).

In the forest, we will soon have the amazing Amy Butler, our ECO coordinator joining us in the forest starting next Thursday. I am looking forward to getting to know her and learning more about what our amazing outdoor space has to offer!

In math, Matt Pelkey, our Math interventionist, has been joining us and we have been working hard on the numbers 1-6 and seeing them in a number of ways. One way is to see these numbers on pictures of hands, the dots on a dice, the numeral and on a 5 or ten frame. We also did some sorting exercises where we were thinking of ways to organize buttons (by color, size, shape, number of holes, etc.)

Ms. Honi also brought in some fun playdough to use this morning. The kids had a blast making pies, volcanoes and spaghetti, to name a few. These kinds of tactile activities help kids with their proprioceptive input, helps with fine motor skills, and encourages imaginative play.

Playdough recipe:

The Easiest Homemade Playdough Recipe {Lasts for Months!} (livingwellmom.com)

Next week we will press apples on Wednesday. If you have apples at your house that you’d like to donate, feel free to send them in using a bucket to hold them. We’ll be pasteurizing the cider here at school using the kitchen.

It was a rainy start to the day today (Friday), so be sure to send your kiddos in with rain gear and boots. There will be days we will be going out in inclimate weather and making sure that the kids have the appropriate clothing is important. If you need help finding some, be in touch.

Last, next week is Kindergarten screening day. We’ll be working to see what kids know about numbers, letters/sounds, rhyming, motor skills and speech/language. The days that we’ll be working with kids are going to be Tuesday and Wednesday. The information we collect will help with guiding our whole, small and individual group work. It will also be part of the information we talk about at parent conferences on or around November 11th. 

Conversation starters:

*What did you paint in art?

*What colors of playdough did you play with? What did you build?

*Do you get tired at school?

*What is fun to do in the forest?

*Where did you use chalk? What did you make?

*Tell me about the butterflies that hatched this week.

We hope you all have a wonderful, restful weekend.

Best,

Ben and Honi

Reminders

Meadowbrook Fundraiser

In order to support the amazing work of our Rumney PTO, you may have seen a fundraiser packet from Meadow Farms. If you have any questions about it, please get in touch with Honi (hbarrett@u32.org). 

Class Blog

You can check out the blog here for the newsletter and resources

Pictures

The folder with class pictures can be found here. 

Class Gear

Please remember to send in all the tools for the kiddos to be using as we go through the year (change of clothes, raingear, camp chair, etc.). Sneakers are the best daily footwear for students. If you need help getting any of those, please let us know, the school will be happy to help.

Book Order Information

 

With a $25 order, you can pick a FREE $5 Book (use code: READS).

 

Class Order Due Date: Thursday, Sept 9th.

Shop Our Class Page: https://orders.scholastic.com/XLZX8

Class Code: XLZX8

Last one in September!

Howdy, Folks!

I hope you all have had a great week! It has been a wonderful week in our classroom with lots of activities, play and exploring.

We got to spend a lot more time in our outdoor classroom this week, which has been super. The kids got to do some fairy village building, firewood collecting, and making areas to protect their precious eggs from storms. 

We also had a wonderful Dot Day. The kids got to do some activities, get their face painted if they wanted to, have a dot snack and got read to by Ms. Aly at Library time. For more information about International Dot Day, look here. I know we were a couple of days late, we always try to celebrate this day on Library day. 

We started our work on the alphabet over the past couple of weeks. We have been trying to figure out the letters in our name, learn the alphabet song and have started to work on the letter c, the first letter they learn to write in their handwriting program. We also introduce the sound /k/ as well as the picture to go along with it (cat). The handwriting program goes in an order that uses the magic-c as the basis for their first letters. If you are wondering why we don’t start with the letter a, it is because in large part, the order of the alphabet is arbitrary. We try to do the sounds at the same time we do the letters. The next letter is o, with a picture of an octopus. By using specific pictures for kids, it helps them cement the sounds without complicating the process by using lots of different pictures to represent sounds. 

It has been great seeing the kids find friends to play with, learning one another’s names and overall finding their groove as a group. What we see, and what we hear from all of their teachers is that they are a sweet, sweet group of kids. We couldn’t agree more!

I hope you got to see the book your kiddo took out of the library this week. The kids will continue to get out books on Tuesdays. Please try to send them back to school on Monday, if you haven’t already.

We got to release a butterfly this week, albeit one with very small, undeveloped wings. We still brought it outside and placed it on a flower. We talked a lot about how Mother Nature can be unpredictable and that these kinds of things happen. It was a sad, yet important learning experience for the kiddos. Interestingly this has been a theme in other classrooms as well. In any case, we should have more to release next week. 

In order to support the amazing work of our Rumney PTO, you may have seen a fundraiser packet from Meadow Farms. If you have any questions about it, please get in touch with Honi (hbarrett@u32.org). 

Picture Day is Monday at 10:00am. We’ll try to not go outside before pictures to ensure the best possible results. I can’t wait to see how they come out!

I know Jen Miller Arsenault, our acting Superintendent, sent out a memo this week describing the process going forward about how she is going to be reporting on Covid cases and sending out information to families. She welcomes feedback. If you have Covid specific questions, feel free to reach out to me or Maria Melekos, WCUUSD Covid Coordinator. 

Last, every once in a while I’ll send along something that comes across my radar that resonates with me. Maybe it will with you, too. Maybe not, especially if it bothers you that it feels a little too “Learning to Fly” by Tom Petty... In any case, here is a song I heard the other day. As a new kindergarten parent, it got me right in the feels. Find it here.

Enjoy the weekend weather!

Best,

Ben and Honi

Reminders

Class Blog

You can check out the blog here for the newsletter and resources

Pictures

The folder with class pictures can be found here. 

Class Gear

Please remember to send in all the tools for the kiddos to be using as we go through the year (change of clothes, raingear, camp chair, etc.). Sneakers are the best daily footwear for students. If you need help getting any of those, please let us know, the school will be happy to help.

 

Conversation starters:

*What project did you finish in Art? (paper glasses) What did yours look like?

*Ask your child how their day was and see if they can answer you in Spanish (bien=good, mal=bad, asi-asi=so-so).

*Did you try anything new on the playground this week?

*Do you remember your buddy's name? Did you have fun with your buddy?

*What happened in the book about the little engine?

Last, we are sending home new book order forms. Here is some information:

 

 With a $25 order, you can pick a FREE $5 Book (use code: READS).

 

Class Order Due Date: Thursday, Sept 9th.

Shop Our Class Page: https://orders.scholastic.com/XLZX8

 

Class Code: XLZX8

Another Great Week!

Good Afternoon, Kindergarten Families!

We have done a super job building our stamina this week, building our way into the rhythm of five day weeks. I am looking forward to seeing how the kids handle the coming days week(s). If you are seeing behaviors at home due to overtiredness, be sure to let us know. We can help by encouraging kiddos to take advantage of their rest times. 

First, a big thanks and shout-out to the Rumney PTO getting all of the kindergarten kiddos Rumney t-shirts. It was a big day and I know the kids loved them!

Today you will receive a packet in the event that we have to go remote at some point. Along with some materials, we also have made a letter to lay out what a remote day or extended period of remote days could look like. Please be in touch if you have any questions about it.

In the ever shifting world of Covid protocols, I hope you have gotten a chance to see the correspondence from our acting Superintendent, Jen Miller-Arsenault regarding this as well as other news in her weekly correspondence to families. If you have Covid specific questions, feel free to reach out to me or Maria Melekos, WCUUSD Covid Coordinator. 

We have been working hard to get to know the names of all of our friends in class. We have been playing lots of games and Ms. Honi even made a book mirroring the book Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? With the names of the kiddos in our class. It was a fun read today! We encourage you to chat about who your child is playing with and spending time with.

We got a chance to meet our fifth grade buddies this week! This is a long-standing and powerful Rumney School tradition. Matching younger kiddos up with older students yields super positive results in how kids feel about being at school. I know that 5th graders, kindergarteners and teachers look forward to these weekly get-togethers. 

Next week we should have some butterflies to release into the wild. It has been so much fun watching the kids come in everyday looking to see the progress. We will be doing some reading and art related activities related to them next week.

Again, thanks to all of you for sending in all the tools for the kiddos to be using as we go through the year (change of clothes, raingear, camp chair, etc.). Sneakers are the best daily footwear for students. If you need help getting any of those, please let us know, the school will be happy to help.

We hope you all have a wonderful weekend!

Take Care,

Ben and Honi

Reminders

Pictures

The folder with class pictures can be found here. 

Dot Day

On Friday, September 17th we will celebrate DOT DAY in Kindergarten, and during our library time with Ms. Ally. Children are encouraged to wear dots next Friday. We'll have special Dot Day art projects. 

 

Conversation starters:

*What project did you finish in Art? (Name tags) What did yours look like?

*Ask your child how their day was and see if they can answer you in Spanish.

*Did you try anything new on the playground this week?

*Do you remember your buddy's name? Did you have fun with your buddy?

*What happened in the book about a jam sandwich?

Last, we are sending home new book order forms. Here is some information:

 

 With a $25 order, you can pick a FREE $5 Book (use code: READS).

 

Class Order Due Date: Thursday, Sept 9th.

Shop Our Class Page: https://orders.scholastic.com/XLZX8

 

Class Code: XLZX8

September Continued!

 Happy Friday Kindergarten Families!

We have continued our rhythm here in Kindergarten over this week. These kiddos are doing a super job adjusting to the longer week. Going from two days to five days is nothing to sneeze at and they have done a great job!

Again, Ms Honi has been taking lots of great pictures that are for sharing. The folder with pictures can be found here. 

Allied arts classes continue to go well. The kids have now met all of their Allied Arts teachers and have done a super job. They are all so excited to get to know all of these new faces and are working so hard in their classes.

We got to spend some time in our outdoor classroom. The kids are exploring the space and learning how to be safe while in the woods by learning about how to handle sticks and move about in a safe way. In the coming weeks we will be expanding opportunities to include cooking stations, building fairy houses and collecting firewood. 

The kids made it through a very busy week and have certainly earned the weekend. We had some nice quiet times and the kids benefitted from some daily rest. Thanks for all of your support in making sure your kiddos are ready for the pace and energy of daily kindergarten life!

Again, thanks to all of you for sending in all the tools for the kiddos to be using as we go through the year (change of clothes, raingear, camp chair, etc.). Sneakers are the best daily footwear for students. Again, if you need help getting any of those, please let us know, the school will be happy to help.

We’ll be sending home lots of paperwork every week as the kiddos are really churning out tons of work. There are so many special pieces of art being created, books being written and crowns being made. Enjoy!

We’ll be doing our annual Kindergarten screening at the end of this month. While I will be sending home more information about this in the coming weeks, in short Kindergarten screening is when a team of teachers (Me, Matt (math interventionist), Jess (reading interventionist), Maggie (Speech/Language), Brigitte (Special Education) and Dana (Occupational Therapist)) from here at Rumney get to meet with the kids to get a complete snapshot of where they are in their development in a number of areas.  

If your kiddo is feeling a bit shy or forgetful about their day when you are discussing it with them, here are some starters:

*What is your favorite part of the playground?

*What color group are you in?

*Tell me about practicing a fire drill.

*Who did you play with this week at centers? At PE? At recess?

*What animal did Ms. Kobb read a story about (a moose!)?

Last, we are sending home book order forms. Here is some information:

In your child's folder you will find our first Scholastic Book Order forms. We prefer that you order books directly online. Here is the link and ordering information:

 

 With a $25 order, you can pick a FREE $5 Book (use code: READS).

 

Class Order Due Date: Thursday, Sept 9th.

Shop Our Class Page: https://orders.scholastic.com/XLZX8

 

Class Code: XLZX8

I hope you all had a great week, enjoy the long weekend!

Warmly,

Ben and Honi