Time is Flying!

Well, we have certainly been busy the past couple of weeks.  It is so hard for me to believe that September is coming to a close.  Time is flying! 

We have officially kicked off Letterland, and the kids absolutely love it!  I hope they are telling you all about their Letterland friends at home.  We have also begun sight words.  Your student should be practicing their sight words at home each night.  Sight word practice is vital to a student's reading success because these words are used frequently in text and many of them cannot be easily decoded or illustrated.  Young children are encouraged to memorize them in order to allow them to concentrate more on less familiar words while reading as well as focus more on the comprehension of text.   So, please be practicing these words with your child each night at home! 

We are also wrapping up our All About Me unit in social studies.  This week, we learned about the abstract artist Wassily Kandinsky.  Using Kandinsky’s work as inspiration, the students created their own self-portraits on a paper plate while listening to music from the era.  We then used their self-portraits to create our very own Kandinsky tree.  The kids had an absolute blast, and their portraits are just adorable! 

This week, we also spent some time writing about ourselves.  The kids drew their image, and completed the sentence, “My favorite part of me is ________.”  Their responses are so cute – my fast legs, my hair, my smile, my sweet heart.  They all did a really great job with this activity, and I can’t wait for you to see their work when they bring it home. 

Yesterday, our P.E. teacher, Mrs. H, broke her finger, so she was not here today for the kids’ P.E. class.  We all hope Mrs. H feels better soon, so we made her some Get Well Soon cards!

We also began making our field trip T-shirts!  Again, we used Kandinsky as inspiration and continued with our circle theme.  The kids really enjoyed decorating their own T-shirts with sharpies.  Eventually, the T-shirts will be sprayed to create a tie dye effect.  Once we are completely finished, I know they will be absolutely precious.  I will definitely be sure to post pictures of the final product.  Thanks so much for sending these T-shirts in!   

At the end of the day, a former student of mine stopped by to say hello and meet my new class.  She just started learning how to play the flute, so the kids and I convinced her to share her new talent with us.  The kids loved hearing her play and were very eager to learn all about the flute!  It certainly seemed to be the highlight of their afternoon!

Also, I wanted to let everyone know that homework will officially begin at the beginning of October.  It will come home each week in your child’s green folder and be posted on my Web site, so please be on the look out for it in the coming weeks.  I will also be sending home information about conferences, which will begin at the end of October. 

As always, thank you all so much for all your support!  I hope everyone has a fabulous and restful weekend!  Mrs. Camel and I are looking forward to seeing all of our spectacular kindergarteners next week.  

Educationally Yours, 

Ms. Bruner