What a busy week we had getting ready for the winter break! We had so much fun talking about our upcoming rest and learning a few new things along the way!
The weeks highlights included…
Writing an “All About Me” book during our writing time. They also wrote with Miss Liz this week about the story “Corduroy” while I was out on Monday. The activity turned out so cute and the kids enjoyed getting creative with the project.
In math we started discussing the concept of time. We played a fun game called “Duration Game” the kids had to guess which activity would take more or less time. It was fun because after guessing they had to actually find out which took longer. An example included “singing the alef bet or singing the ABC’s”. This got the kids thinking about actual time it takes to do something and that time is finite. It’s such an abstract concept for them to start.
We worked on handwriting and really started working on the short vowel sounds. I want them to recognize them in every aspect of language, listen for it in rhyming, songs, and recognize the letter making the sound…that’s the tough part. When we get back in January, we will begin making “Vowel books”. They are a type of scrapbook that the kids will use to locate pictures from the catalogs and magazines that you have sent in. These are wonderful resources to have and a great project to have at home, you could start one over the break.
Here’s how:
You can find a cheap scrapbook at the craft store. On each page write or print from the computer the ABC’s, each page gets a letter. I like the font “comic sans”. They then go through magazines and catalogs to find photos of things that start with that letter.
This is a fun and ongoing project that can be something you can always add to. Its fun to fill all the pages with photos, and for some reason the kids just love it. It’s so creative!

On Friday, we had a nice break in the afternoon with a movie made by Leapfrog called “The Letter Factory”; the kids enjoyed learning through a new way. We also had a nice cookie exchange with Miss Liz’s class in honor of our “Cc” week.
We also said good-bye to Laura (our extra set of hands). She is going to UNT next semester and we will be joined by a new person in the classroom to help, his name is Benji and he will be here each day.


It’s been a beautiful semester, we want to thank you for sharing your children with us. It’s been such a treat to watch them grow and learn.
Have a wonderful break! See you next year!

A note about next semester:
Our schedule will be changing slightly next semester, Morah Aidy will be coming to us first thing each morning for Torah time. We will continue our day with centers, Hebrew, lunch, writing and specials. I will send home a schedule the first week of next semester.

News for week of 12-10-07

What a great week we’ve had! The children had so much fun with the rest of our Hanukkah activities. They LOVED the surprise pizza lunch on Wednesday! The Hanukkah party was great, they got to move between the two classrooms and enjoy being grouped with students from Miss Liz’s class. The activities were lots of fun and creative and it was like having our own little “Hanukkah Carnival” right here in Kindergarten. I hope you enjoyed the mosaic tiles, they all worked so hard on them for two weeks and it was such a satisfying feeling to see the finished product. I think most of them were surprised they would turn-out so well. When they grouted the tiles, everyone got a bit concerned about how it would work out. I think they were all so beautiful, I had a hard time parting with them. I told them, we will definitely have to do mosaics again this year!
Back to work…
Centers:
The kids worked hard at centers this week. When they bring home their “pile of papers” ask them to tell you about them. I think it gives them pride in their work to show off for you.
Writing: They used dreidel shapes to create words with word families. We’re really focusing on this now, as it will empower them in their reading when they can recognize familiar words.
ABC: They worked on ending sounds. This was a new concept and a little tough for some. It’s a transition to go from knowing beginning sounds to adding an ending sound. It was unfamiliar territory, but I think with more practice the kids will catch-on quickly.
Pocket Chart: This was a cute poem about a pig “Mistress Pratt”. It was great practice for word families also and a cute poem too!
Science: In honor of our “Vv” week, we did an experiment using vibration. It was great to see the kids really thinking as they tapped the different glasses and noted their findings. We also talked about vibration having two qualities: sound and movement.
Overhead: The kids worked on dreidel math. It was simple adding game, played with a partner.
Math: They had to build a menorah and follow the directions for building it using their number recognition.

In Writing this week, we worked on writing in our journals, completing a sentence:
“I like to…” They also started using a title for their writing. I explain this as: “one or two words that explain what you are going to write about”. We also worked on writing the steps to a process, I demonstrated with “making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich”, they had to write the steps to making a volcano.

In Science we made our own volcano! We measured and mixed the batter and molded the volcano deciding what colors to use to make it look more authentic.

We completed the assessment for Theme 3, which was included in their Friday bags. This test was assessing the specific skills we covered in our last unit. I tell the kids I only use it to show me what I need to teach them more.
Dear parents
This week we added to our vocabulary the words “aba” (dad), “ema” (mom), “veh” (and).
The children can now make short sentences like: ani eme (I am mom)
Aba veh ema (mom and dad),yeld veh yaldah(boy and a girl).
We use pictures and words printed on cards to make sentences, I show the cards with the pictures and the children produce a sentence.
The children love to do it and feel so proud of themselves.
Our favorite word to say to each other is the praise word yofi (great).
The letter of the week is “kaf”.
Vocabulary for “kaf”:
Kelev – dog
Kipah – yamakah
Kovah – hat

Have a great week
Leah

Chag Sameach!! We started off the week so excited that Hanukkah is here! The kids were asking if we get out early though, and wondering why we have school on Hanukkah…we didn’t have any answers they liked.
Our letter this week is “Hh” and it fit perfectly for our first week of Hanukkah. I’m trying to rearrange the letters of the week to fit better with what is going on in the kid’s lives. I think it makes it much more meaningful to them and they are able to internalize the meaning because they can transfer the letters to so many things in their lives outside of school. For example, the letter “P” in the curriculum is supposed to be the week we get back from winter break. I plan to move it to Pesach along with “Gg” and “Ff”. What a better way to reinforce the learning of a letter than to be involved with it in every aspect of your life, Pesach, green and frogs.
Centers-
Science-the kids worked on a “sink/float” experiment. They really enjoyed the idea of making estimates and checking their hypothesis.
ABC-they loved a game called “Creepy Cave”. It reinforces beginning consonant words with color matching. The game pieces are creepy monsters which made it even more fun.
Writing-the children wrote in their “This is” books, once again, reinforcing initial consonant knowledge.
Math-the kids wrote numbers in “salt boxes”
Overhead-we continued working with our word families
Pocket Chart-they sorted pictures based on beginning sounds and matched the words with pictures
Writing we worked on a Hanukkah card for our families. It was lots of detailed folding and following directions. It was a tough activity, but the kids were so proud of the product and the fact that they actually folded paper to make a house!
In Math we worked on money and started counting backwards. Counting backwards seems simple, but when you take a row of objects and cover an amount, you would be surprised to see how hard the concept is. When I present information and ask for input, I always follow-up with asking, “why”. Sometimes a good guess can fool us into thinking they fully understand the concept at hand, when you go deeper and ask them how they got to that conclusion, it’s very interesting. It really shows me what I need to teach more, when asking your child a question, follow it up with, “why”, and let the learning begin. The kids could understand taking objects away in a group up to 10, but many couldn’t answer how they got to the number they ended-up with. That let’s me know, some of them don’t know they are actually counting backwards. Some were counting the remaining objects to get the answer. Some counted backwards on their fingers, it was a good start!

Please continue to work with your child on the sight words, you can now add the second page if they have the first page memorized. These words should come to them immediately or they still need to work on them.
This is part of our “whole language” approach to reading. Some words are known by sight only, they don’t follow the rules of “sounding it out”, some of the words that can be sounded out are taught phonetically. The sight words are just as important as learning the phonetic words, please continue to reinforce this with your kinder, you will see a real difference in their reading.
When you’re reading a book at home, ask them to find a word they know: the, and, or like, in the reading. You will be surprised how much pride the have in themselves, we want to give them as many successes as possible.
Your student will be coming home with paper books to keep. These books are leveled and work on specific skills as you may have seen from the “Dan the tan Man” book. We’re really working on word families and these books reinforce everything they are seeing in other parts of the classroom. You can keep them in a basket by their bed and they can read them over and over again. I know in the past week or two I have seen tremendous progress in their reading with me, let me know if you have seen any changes. I actually got goosebumps the other morning reading with them, it was a real “lightbulb” moment for several of the students, and I was so proud of their progress. I can tell the learning is coming together and they are connecting all of the skills. The best part for me is that they are having fun while learning, and I think that because we try to present the skills in a fun way that is connected to happy emotions, they are really starting to take-off!
Next week we will work with the letter “Vv” and have more Hanukkah plans as well.
Hebrew Circle:
This week we immersed ourselves in Hanukkah activities. We learned the Hanukkah story, talked about the characters and what role they had in the story. The children learned the Hebrew letters on the sevivon (dreidel) and how to play the game. They sang songs and danced to the point that if we just said the word sevivon it was like a magic trigger to start them singing. We played lots of games, made sufganiyyot (doughnuts) and levivot (potato latkes) and decorated the room to get that Hanukah feeling. The children are so excited about the holiday that I am afraid eight days might not be enough.
The letter for this week was “Yud” but now they also know “Nun” and “Shin” thanks to the sevivon.
Hanukkah vocabulary:
· Chanukiyah – menorah
· sevivon – dreidel
· ner – candle
· kad – jug (the oil jug)
· Sufganiyyot – doughnuts
· levivah - latke
Yud vocabulary:
· Yeled –boy
· yaldah –girl
· yeladim – children
· yad – hand
· yadayim – hands
· Yareach – moon.

Happy Hanukkah!
Leah

Week of 11-25-07

We got back to our much-needed routine this week. We started working on “word families” and understanding the idea of adding a new beginning sound to make a new word. It can be a nonsense or real word. The goal with this is to start the process of understanding the letters and their sounds when putting them together as well as making new and unknown words.
We are already planning on Hanukkah fun! The kids are so excited. We had many discussions this week about the meaning of a gift. Is it something you have to buy? What is your favorite gift? Sometimes, we as parents, think it’s got to be the latest toy or gadget.
During centers the kids created “noodle” art, hopefully it got home in one piece…They worked at the overhead creating shapes, letters, and numbers. At the ABC center they made words using word families. We started this week introducing word families and vowels and how they are both used, to write and read. At the math center they worked on writing their numbers with number templates. It’s a great way to reinforce writing numbers in a very controlled way. Their number writing is really getting great, as you will see. For science we worked with oil and water with food coloring, they had to chart their findings, and look for different reactions in each.
In Math we used a Venn diagram to sort materials. I first sorted letters without giving them the reasons why, when the kids started asking questions and making observations is was great. They had such good theories as to why the letters were sorted, they finally narrowed it down and got the right answer. This type is activity is a great way to let them guide the learning. They then split into groups and had to come up with a strategy for sorting buttons they were given. They had to sort them and then let us ask questions about why they sorted the way they did. It truly let them be the teacher; they loved this activity so much!

We started a very cool project making a Hanukkah book. Earlier this year we had a visiting teacher from Israel, Morah Efrat. She taught the children movements to a song called “Aquarium”, and the children loved her! She emailed us the beginning to a Hanukkah story some of her kindergarten children wrote, and asked us to finish it and send it to them. The kids came up with amazing ideas and we wrote a book! They illustrated the pages in groups and dictated the text to us. Leah scanned the pages and is putting them into a Power Point presentation to send. We’ll be using the pages to make a class big book to keep and read over and over. The teams worked together beautifully to collaborate on the illustrations for the book. It was amazing to see the leadership and cooperation.

We will be working on our Hanukkah project next week and have lots of fun centers based on Hanukkah learning! We’re making Donuts and Latkes too!

News for week of November 19th-

Though it was a short week, we had so many projects to do! We were very busy getting ready for Grandparents/Special Friend’s Day. The kids wanted to make something special and make yummy treats for our special visitors. They took so much pride in their efforts it was great to see.
Our feast was a great treat! Of course the spice cake was a favorite, but we did have lots of kids who were what we call “Brave Tasters” and they tried new things like vegetable soup and broccoli. They loved singing for our visitors and showing them around the room too.
You’ll see some new things coming home this week. We’re going to really start working on “word families”. These are the ending parts of words, you change the beginning sounds to create new words, but they all end in the same “family”. Our letter for the upcoming week is “Nn”. We’re also going to start working on verbs which I will refer to as “action words” they tell what is going on. We’ll be working on syllable recognition also.
Lots of learning to get to before the end of the semester, and lots of Hanukkah fun coming also! We want to create a special ABC scrapbook and need your help…please send any catalogs or “kid friendly” magazines to cut and tear. Thanks

Greetings from Miss Christie’s Tribe!

We’ve been talking all week about the Thanksgiving story. The kids loved hearing about the Native Americans so much we let their creativity blossom into many projects that will be coming next week.
This group is really drawn to nature and all things that encompasses, so the Native American people and their lifestyle were a perfect fit for them. We talked about how they used things in nature to create colors in their art. We read The Legend of The Indian Paintbrush by Tomie dePaola. It’s a story about a little boy “Little Gopher” who just wasn’t cut out to be a warrior, but he created beautiful pieces of art on buffalo skins. He had a dream vision that showed him how to recreate the colors of the sunset, he used the Indian paintbrush flowers to get the colors “just right”. He left them on the hill after painting with them, and that’s where they grow every year. They loved this story and decided to be Indians at our feast, they made Indian headdresses using only natural materials and even came-up with their own Indian names.
They made leaf collages to replace our hanging fish in the room, the kids decided it should look more like Fall. This class is so observant, we laugh that there are 16 student teachers in the class with us!
We cooked garbanzo beans to make hummus. We talked about how the beans felt and looked when the beans were first dry. Then they made the hummus and they couldn’t get enough. We even saved some for next week. They love to cook. We made lots of yummy treats for Grandparent’s and Special Friends day next Wednesday.
We had a very successful Science center this week as we have been talking about temperatures changing. They used thermometers in warm, tepid, and cold water to see the change in temperature. We will use this later to watch our temperatures change (now that they are beginning to…) to transfer the learning they already have into more areas.
In the listening center they listened to Goldilocks and The Three Bears. They loved the story so much they wanted to act it out. We had to first decide what to do with everyone; there were only four characters? We came up with a very creative idea…some of the characters would be the forest creatures that Goldilocks and the bears encountered along the story. In the end, the forest creatures made-up the largest group, there were bunnies, squirrels, and mostly howling wolves (of course).

We had a surprise from "Zero the Hero" this week as we celebrated the 50th day of school!! He left the class a special treat while they were at Music, they just missed him! They were so sad to have missed him, I told them we'd keep an eye out for him. I happen to know him very well, and promised them he'd be back!

Please continue with your daily sight word practice, it will enhance their reading so much as well as build confidence!

Dear parents
The children are getting more and more excited about Hebrew.
We now know nine Hebrew letters so our “Alef Bet” song is longer and the children take every opportunity to sing it over and over again.
There is something about attaching words to melody that helps them learn the word no matter how difficult it is.
We also learned twelve Hebrew words that they can use to create simple sentences.
For example: I am a boy/girl (ani yeled/yalda) or I say hello (ani omer shalom)
The children feel so accomplished and proud when they produce a sentence and that gives them incentive to learn more.
We have so much fun at Hebrew time, if you ever want to come and join us please do.
I am at Christie’s class from 12:30 to 1:00 and Liz’s class from 1:10 to 1:40.

Words we know so far: shalom (hello) shabat shalom, boker tov(good morning)
Lehitraot(see you later) naim meod(nice to meet you) ani(me) atah(you /boy)
At (you /girl) omer(says/ boy) omeret(says/ girl) yeled(boy) yaldah(girl),yofi(great)

Have a great weekend and Happy Thanksgiving
Leah

News for week of 10-29-07

We started theme 3 this week, which is all about Family! It’s great because it fits so well with the Thanksgiving holiday. We started talking about generations in families and read stories that had this theme. We read a story titled Tortillas and Lullabies and the kids loved it, it’s a lovely story about a great-grandmother, grandmother, mother and a little girl and her doll. They all make tortillas through the years and generations, and they are all the same, but different. We had lots of discussion about it and the kids liked finding the details in the story. We also made homemade tortillas, the kids gobbled them up!! They turned out great, it’s so nice to be able to do these things with the kids, as it reinforces the learning so well. It also brings up the discussion about the literature at another time, which also reinforces the learning.

Center Time:
We worked on the letter “Tt” this week and listened to Tikki Tikki Tembo, a Chinese legend about a little boy and his brother. It is a wonderful perspective on family and gave the students another perspective on a culture they may not have known. By the end of the week, the kids were chanting the book! The kids are working on increasing their sight word knowledge, we’re working on I, see, and my. They may not be able to “read” them, but they can recognize them as they are exposed to them more. We add words as their letter knowledge increases, its part of the reading continuum that we build on when learning to read.
Writing:
We’re continuing to work on labeling pictures we draw. This week we drew family pictures and labeled the family members. We also wrote lots of sentences during center time. The students are learning that letters make sounds and sounds make words, and separate words make sentences. It seems like such an easy concept to an adult, but it’s not part of who a child innately is. It is a foreign concept that has to be learned. It’s just like learning that written print (even scribbles) represents spoken words.
Math:
We worked more with symmetry of letters, it was tough! The kids used sticky letters on a chart to decide what kind of symmetry the letters had. It was very interesting because the students really understood the concepts of symmetry; they could quickly show horizontal, vertical, diagonal and rotational symmetry, and even knew the correct words to use. It was so great! This came through being exposed to the concept of symmetry many times in different ways. We will continue this through the year. Math is never completed; we will continue to revisit concepts even when the children seem to know them very well. They need to know the concepts in varied situations to truly understand the meaning. The math program we use is also fun because the students don’t know they are learning math. They think they’re playing with sticky letters on a chart!

We had a very special visitor in our classroom on Monday. Her name was Morah Efrat from Israel. She’s a music specialist that travels the world teaching how children can learn so many skills through music. She loved our students and did a wonderful activity with them using the music “Le Carnaval des Animaux” which translates to “Carnival of the Animals”; the song she shared with us was “Aquarium”. It was amazing to see her working with the students; she kept their interest for more than 30 minutes! For a Kinder, that’s a LONG TIME! They loved the music so much, and used instruments to play with the music at different times, they pretended they were fish and acted the parts, then she brought out an ocean of netting and they were fish and fishermen. It was an amazing experience for the children. I found a book by John Lithgow using the same piece of music relating it to a little boy stuck in a museum overnight, and we listened to that the rest of the week. It was perfect timing because we hung our fish to swim in our room the next day!

It was a great week, and even though we were very busy, it was lots of fun!

Newsletter for week of 10-22-07

This week we worked on the letter “Rr”! We read a story about a sneaky raccoon, measured a racoon's tale and even cooked differerent types of rice (one sweet with raisins and one made with chicken stock...the salty, chicken flavored rice was the winner)! The kids loved bringing in items that started with the “r” sound and using the “mystery box” to feel them and guess what they were. Along with our color words, we added two more high frequency words to our word wall: “I” and “see”, we also worked some on the word “the” throughout the week. We’re continuing to work on end punctuation, looking for it in our reading. We use simple terms for punctuation, a period means you are stopping that thought, comma means you take a breath; exclamation point means “wow”. We also have started working on when to use upper case and lower case letters when writing.
Center Time:
We listened to the story Rumpelstiltskin and the kids seemed to enjoy this classic story. We talked about how “creepy” he was and about how greedy the king was in the story. We plotted the characters and this reinforced the story even more. We did word work at the light table, sorting letters and words into their beginning sounds. The students then had to transfer their work to the tracking sheet. We also measured a raccoon’s tale with different objects, this works on multiple math topics, measuring as well as counting and writing numbers. The students finished their pattern fish and we’ll be hanging them up in the room, they turned-out beautiful. We’re working on the sequence of events in a story using the words: first, then, next, last. We use this structure in our writing as well.
Literacy:
We read an Indian tale about “How the Birds Goth Their Colors”. The story was set in the woods a very long time ago and only animals were the characters. We had to really stretch our imaginations about how the wolf came-up with paint. It was so interesting; the kids first had ideas like going to buy the paint, just using pastel colors and using markers. They had no concept of using things in nature to create colors. After letting them think about it a while, and returning to it the next day, they came up with great ideas: using rock and scraping it and mixing it with water to make gray and white, using an acorn dipped in water then scraping it to use the color brown, sing grass and leaves smashed to create green, and even bark from trees to make brown! I wish you guys could hear the amazing conversations we have. The kids really think about things and come up with such creative ideas. I plan to take them into nature, gather materials and try some of the experiments they suggested to test their theories.
Math:
We worked on estimation this week, measuring each other with different objects. Children don’t always have an understanding of number concepts at this age therefore it’s important to work on skills continuously throughout the year. We also worked on symmetry, horizontal (I remind them this is like the letter “H” with the line across) and vertical (the “V” points up and down). We practiced this with their bodies at carpet, I called “horizontal”, they had to show me what that looked like; laying down, I called “vertical”, they had to show me with their bodies what this looked like, and everyone jumped up! Its great active learning and they love to be challenged.
We also touched on rotational symmetry; this was a real challenge for the kids. It was great, they were thinking so hard about the rotation, and turning it clockwise and counterclockwise. We did this many times during the week in different ways to reinforce the learning. We even did letter symmetry! The kids love the challenge of these concepts. I leave it very open-ended and allow any suggestions/answers, this let’s them drive the learning and I get to facilitate and they are the “thinkers”!
Writing:
We combined writing and math this week working on letter symmetry. Did it have horizontal, vertical, diagonal, rotational or no symmetry at all. This activity combined so many skills in varied areas. The students had to work on their letters, decide on their symmetry and then chart our findings. It was a wonderful way to combine learning. We also started working on numeral writing. We started by using the dry erase boards, the kids love using these. These boards can be found at most discount stores and I’ve seen them in the Wal-Mart school supply section with dry erase pens. It really encourages their writing by giving them a different experience.
I even carry them in my car for my own kids!

Reading groups are going very well! The kids love being called to my table to read daily.
I need your help getting the books back to school every day!!

Something fun on the weekend…
“Camp Chai Lite” at the JCC. The next one is November 10th, 7pm-10pm.
It’s babysitting and fun on Saturday evenings, swimming, games, and movies, the kids love seeing their friends there.
Call Laura Seymour for all the information.

Dear parents

Hebrew is coming along great. The kids are very enthusiastic about learning and all of them love to participate.
They love to sing in Hebrew and dance to Israeli music
We learned two new letters: “Hay” and “Vav”.
We also learn some new conversation words: Meh (from) Hoo ( he) Hee (she)
And Yofi (beautiful). The word “Yofi” is used in Hebrew as a praise word
The same as “great job” so you can try it on your kids if you wish.
The kids are able to have simple conversation now (like three-word sentence)
and they love to do it with pictures of the kids from Israel or with each other.
Vocabulary for “Hay” and “Vav”: Hagada ,Havdala , Har (mountain), Vered (rose)
Varod (pink) Vilon (curtain).
Have a great week
Leah

Dear parents
The last few weeks the children got more and more familiar with Hebrew phrases.
They know how to describe the weather in Hebrew and love to do it daily.
We use these words: Shemesh (sun), Ananim(clouds), Geshem(rain), Ruach(wind).
They can ask simple questions in Hebrew with the vocabulary they learned so far and they all love to participate as long as Bentzi (the turtle puppet) is listening and talking back to them.
We also learn these Hebrew letters: “Alef” “Bet” “Gimel” and “Daled”.
Ask them to sing you our “Alef Bet song” they just can’t get enough of it.
Vocabulary we learned so far: Shalom (Hello) Boker Tov (good morning) Ani(me)
Atah/Aht (you boy/girl) Naeim Meod (very pleasent) used for when you introduce people to each other. To help with introductions and review, I use favorite children’s characters. They hold the character and introduce themselves, the others answer that character with the Hebrew greeting.
Vocabulary we learned with our letters:
Aba (dad) Ima(mom) Balon(baloon) Banana Gezer(carrot) Glidah(ice cream)
Dag(fish) Delet(door).
Shabbat Shalom and have a great week!
Morah Leah


We have a new friend joining our class on Tuesday!! His name is Bennett Handler and he visited a couple of times this week. He is a wonderful addition to our classroom and will give us an even number of 16 kiddos! The kids were so loving and welcoming it was wonderful.

Lots of Strep throat going around…several students have been out with it, so be mindful of this if your kinder hints at throat pain. One student showed negative on the “fast” throat culture, but the test that is back the next day showed him positive for strep, just something to keep in mind. Also, we found out about a stomach bug that one of our students had. Ah, the season is upon us!!

This week was a wonderful week of colors!! We sang songs about the colors, learned the words on our word wall, and used them in centers galore! You will notice your kinder cam home with lots of books this week, they are simple to read and “personalized” through their coloring. The kids loved wearing colors each day and it helped reinforce the learning. We also talked about punctuation this week; comma, period, exclamation point, and question mark.
We made so many patterns during math this week. We clapped, snapped, stomped, stood, sat, you name it, if it made a pattern we did it! It was so fun and an active way of learning all about patterns. To extend this the students then had to “name” their pattern, not just with a color but with a letter. This really helped them think in a different way about patterns and what they represent. We recreated pattern using fabric and wrapping paper, this was a tough concept. It involved understanding how to extend the pattern in more than one way. We’re adding to this particular piece and should finish it this week. We’ll be doing patterns several more weeks and I plan on extending this into finding things in nature that have pattern, I expect it to get very interesting.

The guided reading groups are set and will begin on Tuesday morning. A few important things about what to expect your child to bring home…
1. Your child will bring home a bag with a book and a reading log each night. It is imperative that they bring it to school everyday.
2. Monday through Thursday they will get a new book, if we complete it during our reading in class. Some may take two days, depending on the specific skill being taught.
3. On Friday, they will get to choose their favorite book to take for the weekend. They must bring it back on Monday.
4. An adult will need to initial daily after reading, and return the log with the book and bag.

On Friday, we had a pizza party to celebrate Sara’s birthday. We invited our friends in Chaverim to come make pizza with us, it was wonderful. We paired a Kinder with a Chaverim child and they helped the little guys make their pizza. It was great community building, and yummy too! The kids seemed to take their “jobs” seriously, being not only a host to our guests but a helper to our friends.
We started our class scarecrow this week, he’s awesome! If you can, come by and see him, he’s off to a great start.

***In honor of Veteran’s Day on Monday, November 12th, we’d like to take a field trip to the Veranda retirement community on Friday, November 9th. We plan to take flags and sing the National Anthem as well as the Pirate Song (this is the kid’s favorite). We could use parent drivers or the Veranda has a bus that is available. If you’d like to drive, please let me know. We would need enough drivers to transport 16 students with booster seats.

The highlight of the week was the Sukkah Hop to Ari’s house! What fun we had, riding a real school bus, eating yummy cupcakes and shaking the Lulav and Etrog in the sukkah. We had a discussion about the adorable bulletin board Miss Liz created and talked about what we could add to it…the class decided on a scarecrow! We talked about what a scarecrow’s job is and where you would see a scarecrow. They went to their seats to draw pictures of what they thought a scarecrow should look like. We then took the ideas and started the discussion of how we’re going to actually create a classroom scarecrow, what materials we need and the process of making it. The ideas were so creative; it’s amazing to hear what these children come up with!


Skills we are working on:
Color sight words-I sent these home, please cut them and make the cards to go over with your child. Let them label objects in the house with sticky’s with the words for reinforcement. You can even use crayons to write the words in that color!!
1. Beginning Sounds-listen for them in everything
2. Rhyming-make-up rhymes even if they’re made-up words
3. Punctuation marks- we started with comma (you pause to take a breath) and period (you stop to start a new thought)
Items volunteered for the scarecrow project:
1) Sofia- old shirt from dad
2) Madison-old pants/jeans from dad
3) Sam-old hat
4) Koby-old belt
5) Ari-old tie
6) Ariel-old shoes from dad
We need a couple of bales of hay if anyone could get them, one for display and one for filling the scarecrow.

News for week of 9-24-07

Chag Sameach wishing you a wonderful Sukkot! We celebrated this week preparing for Sukkot, on Monday, during our class meeting the kids decided we needed to build our own sukkah…and we did. We went through the planning, moving, moving again, building and rebuilding; all of those details involved in a project. They knew immediately we needed “Bob the Builder” one of our campus maintenance personnel, and he was on the spot helping with the “structural engineering”, it was really such a wonderful thing to be a part of their collaboration and work. The outcome was a wonderful sukkah in the school courtyard. The kids added schach by finding branches and leaves around campus, and brought from home (as you know). It was also so great to see the pride they took in the finished product, we’re going to invite children from the preschool next week to come have snack with us, and of course you’re all welcome as well!
On Tuesday we combined Hebrew and Math time to make vegetable soup. The discussion started with Leah asking why we use fresh vegetables during Sukkot, through this they learned more about Sukkot and the harvest. We talked about using fresh foods and predicted some outcomes. They cleaned, cut, and yes they did EAT the vegetables, and we have the pictures to prove it. Some even asked for more! I know for some this must be an “away from home” phenomenon, but it was great. There was so much discussion that came from this process also, like discovering that white potatoes are easier to cut than sweet potatoes.
We did a lot of writing this week documenting our work and necessary steps. We used “First, then, next, last” to explain the steps in our projects. These are great to also use when reading to your child at home, have them recreate the story and tell you the order of events. It’s great comprehension work!
We worked on learning our home addresses to the “Muffin Man” tune, the kids liked the music and it helped them remember. We talked briefly about safety and the importance of knowing your home address. Ask them to sing you the tune and rehearse with them, we’ll continue singing the song in class also, so everyone will know their home address!
We had tribes again on Wednesday and it went wonderfully! The tribes all built paper chains for the school sukkah.

News for week of 9-17-07

We started the week a little slow after having such a nice break, but quickly got to work! We read the Gingerbread Man and worked on activities all week to reinforce the story, it’s characters and the sequence of events. Ask your child to “sing” our funky version, they loved it! We’ve begun targeting story elements like the ones listed above, we also did Jonah and the Whale and included those in the retelling and our art work during center time. We use the words, “first, then, next, and last” when naming sequences in a story. We made gingerbread cookies Friday, we’ll decorate them Monday to send home, hopefully they will get home before they’re eaten. We learned a new dance “Macarena Math”; it’s a fun way to get the kids counting by ones, twos, fives, and tens, while they’re doing movements with the counting. Integrating the kinesthetic actions with the counting reinforces the learning…and it’s fun!
We did a lot of work preparing for Yom Kippur, we had great conversations about hurting someone and when you do say I’m sorry, you’re also saying “I won’t do it again”. That’s a huge part of any apology and the kids really got the meaning through our classroom meetings. We made slippers from felt and “I’m Sorry” cards during some of our writing time. This was a tough activity because not only was it following directions, it was learning how to cut a heart with a folded piece of paper as well as the writing that went with it. Right now our focus on writing is getting them confident in taking risks, we talk about the different types of writing: squiggles, symbols, single letters etc. We want the kids to understand the concept of written language and that there are different forms that all convey meaning. You may see writing that comes home with their pencil writing and adult writing in pen. They write their “kid writing” first, then we come along and do the adult writing with them. This protects the integrity of their work while demonstrating the writing that goes with it. We do not correct their work, or tell them to “sound it out”, they’re not able to do this yet, and it’s very defeating when they put so much work into the product. We’re focusing on process not outcome.
We talked this week about the kids at Vogel Alcove, I went into more depth about how those children are homeless and the alcove is the only school they have. It was amazing to see the looks on their faces when they realized how little those children have and how much we do. I’m in the process of contacting Vogel Alcove, the volunteer director has been out sick, I will call again next week. I’d like to plan a fieldtrip to visit the kids and come back to our class and reflect on how we can make a special birthday party for them. I think seeing the kids first will help our children get better ideas of what they would like to do for them. More on that when I speak with someone there.
Reminders:
· Please send a baby photo of your child for a class book we’re making
· Noon release on Wednesday, September 26th (no lunch)
· Early Childhood Parent Meeting is scheduled for October 10th at 7:30 pm in the boardroom. The topic is The Jewish Spiritual Connections of the New Early Childhood Curriculum: Growth in “Frumkeit”
· Annual PTA Sukkot Dinner, Tuesday, October 2nd, 6:00-8:00pm
· I have added some of our photos to Shutterfly but couldn’t add them all due to computer problems, please check back later this week for the rest
Just a note:
Kindergarten is a tough year in many ways. The kids are growing so fast not only physically but emotionally. If your child is experiencing any frustrations,
please let Leah or me know if we can help in any way. We want to not only grow their minds but their hearts while they’re with us!

News for week of September 10, 2007

We had a great week, we did lots of creative activities for Rosh Hashanah! If you haven’t seen our bulletin board, come in and see your little busy bee on the mitvah hive, it’s adorable!

A story-teller came to visit on Monday, she told the story of Johnny Appleseed and it was wonderful. The kids seemed to really enjoy the message and they all got to participate as audience members.

Wednesday, we participated in a school-wide tribe activity. The children are grouped together in tribes and children from Kinder through 8th grade do fun activities together, though it was our first time to join the school in something this exciting, WE DID GREAT! Our little ones loved being part of the school and doing activities with the “big kids”.

At centers this week we did so much learning! We estimated the weight of an apple on a scale when weighed against different objects like blocks and glue bottles. We also guessed the circumference of an apple using yarn, was it too long, too short or just right…
We made a Rosh Hashanah apple book, which the kids seemed to really love!
We cooked like crazy! We made Honey Cake with Morah Aidy and chocolate chip challah during our center time. We also had an apple tasting, comparing three types of apples and graphed them according to which was our favorite, the Granny Smith won with flying colors!
The kids came-up with such thoughtful descriptions when tasting, “salty but sweet”, “sour”, and even “fluffy in my mouth”. It was great, and they loved being an official apple-tasting judge. Of course some asked if we could have a pie tasting contest next, we told them we’d have to get back with them on that one.

The children are truly embracing the experience of Kindergarten. It gives Leah and I great pride to be their teachers. We also want to let you know how many compliments we hear throughout the school about this class of children, they have shown great patience when at our many activities and they are a model for others in the school. We are truly blessed to have them.

Wishing you and yours L’Shana Tova!
Miss Christie and Morah Leah

News from Miss Christie’s Kindergarten for week of 9-7-07
Although the week was short, we filled it up with learning! In Torah time we learned the three types of blowing for the shofar and we were busy little bees working like crazy to get ready for Rosh Hashanah. The kids are really understanding centers and the rotations, they enjoy working in their groups and they are starting to understand that centers are on-going and you don’t have to finish every center everyday. I think this was comforting to the children, it helped them understand they can work at their own pace (as long as they’re working).
In our classroom, we stress the importance of letting the children make as many independent decisions as possible. We structure their day so much, we feel it’s important they know they also have control of some of their time as well. This helps the children become decision makers and improves their self-esteem as well. They develop such pride in themselves when they know they can do it on their own. From something as simple as putting the straw in the juice bag to deciding how to solve a problem they find in their work. I’m going to include some phrases we use, try it at home and let us know what kind of results you get, we love success stories!
Situation 1:
Child: “Miss Christie, can you do this?”
Teacher: “I want to see you try first, then I’d love to help you.” When they do it themselves, make this a celebration, “Wow, smartie, I knew you could do it, how does that make you feel?”
Situation 2:
Child: “I can’t do this!” (in their best whining voice)
Teacher: “It looks like you’re frustrated, how can you solve your problem?”
Child: “I don’t know”
Teacher: “I’m going to give you a minute to think about it, then let’s talk”
After a minute (or two)
Teacher: “Did you decide how to solve the problem?”
Child: “I tried it this way but I still can’t”
Teacher: “That’s great, you tried, doesn’t that make you feel good? Would you like some help now, or do you want to work on it more?”

This type of dialog encourages their individual thinking and makes that thinking the important part of the action, not just the action itself.

Literacy news: We continue to work on rhymes daily, it’s so important for the kids to recognize and hear them. It’s also important that they can make a rhyme, even if it’s a nonsense word that rhymes, it all counts!
A note from Miss Christie…I know how exciting it is to want to help your child read, right now our Kinder minds are not able to process all the information it takes to actually read “words”. Familiar texts are wonderful in that they give comfort in knowing the actual story without the pressure to “read”. This week I did our school assessment on each student, I had several students who were trying to read the words by putting the letter sounds together, this is a skill that comes along later in the reading instruction. Please don’t encourage your child “sound it out” when they are attempting to read. There are primary skills that they need to acquire (that I haven’t taught yet) before they can actually read the words on the page. If anything, telling your child to “sound it out” slows their reading progress. Make your reading time with your child pure pleasure, if you want to encourage their literacy, have them locate a letter on the page, or rhyme with a word that you have read. Let them “read” familiar books they have memorized, this alone builds confidence in their skill and enables them to be encourage to learn more skills.
Writing: We are continuing to practice our writing, forming letters top down, not bottom up.
Math: We worked with the letters in our names and used them in a Ven Diagram, the kids loved this “big” word. It was very interesting to see at the beginning they needed the diagram to see the letters before deciding what they had in commom, then by the end of the activity they could look at each other’s names and see what they had in common before using the diagram. We also explored more math materials and there were so many things created it was amazing! Problem solving, sorting by attributes (up to three!!) building and collective reasoning.

A few last notes:
* Thank you to Natasha Leftin for bringing a beautiful menorah for our classroom display!!
* Kindergarten boys need to wear a kippah daily. The Bukhari style seems to stay on very well, most Judaic stores in the metroplex carry them, or I use an online source through ebay called “Rachel’s Treasures”, she makes them in fun kid fabrics that may be more appealing to those who are reluctant.
* Next Wednesday is early release at 12:00, there will be no lunch that day.
* We play outside everyday, and on Tuesday/Thursday we have PE, please send them in shoes they can run and play in comfortably.
* Photos are downloaded to shutterfly.com

Dear Parents,
In the last two weeks the children and I have became familiar with Bentzi, the turtle puppet, who has a very unique way of teaching. Bentzi, who came here from Israel, only speaks in
Hebrew so whenever he is around everyone must speak in Hebrew or he will not understand. Whenever Bentzi shows up the children get so existed they greet him with their best Hebrew.


Here are the words we have learned so far:

Shalom (hello, good bye) Achshav (now)
Aht (you/girl) Boker Tov (good morning)
Atah (you/boy) Ani (me)

We’ve learned the letter Alef and started working on our Alef Bet book. To introduce Rosh Hashanah I brought a bag of surprises. The children took turns pulling out items such as the Shofar, Tapuach (apple), Rimon (pomegranate), and Dvash (honey). They had so much fun that they were trying to say all the words in Hebrew. Today we will taste a pomegranate and have some apple with honey for a sweet New Year.

Shana Tova ya’ll!
Morah Leah

9/1/07
The kids had a very busy week. They seem to be "gelling" so well as a family unit. They have really enjoyed moving into using centers, and transitioning between them. It's tough to get the idea that they don't have to finish everything in one day, and come back the next day for completion. It was almost a relief for them to realize and made their work much more relaxed.

We got such great observations during our math exploration time, they were sorting materials based on up to three attributes and really enjoyed extending the materials to find out something new about them. It got very creative!

Writing was more structured this week and the kids did beautifully! The liked working in the practice books and are very interested in writing next week with the dry erase boards we have. It's a much better way to introduce writing when you use fun and varied materials rather than just paper/pencil tasks.

I want to thank all of you who were able to be at Meet the Teacher night, Leah and I both felt lots of positive energy from the parents and it was great to finally meet you all. We want you to always know, your child's loved and nurtured in our classroom. The curriculum is so less daunting to a child when he/she knows their in a safe warm environment, and that is our goal.

I will be downloading photos to shutterfly.com and will let you know when I have them up!
Regards,
Miss Christie and Morah Leah

Kindergarten News 8/24/07

•This week was a very busy week in Kinder! We spent a lot of time getting to know each other and learning how Kindergarten works.
•We explored lots of materials and enjoyed using them in different ways.
•We also learned to dance the “Tooty-Ta” and listened to some Reggae!
•We’re working on ABC recognition during circle time each day, we’re also learning the beginning letters for each other’s names.
•We introduced some of the wonderful materials for the math program which the children all loved.
•Specials:
•PE- Tuesday/Thursday mornings
•Music- Monday afternoon
•Art- Tuesday afternoon
•Library- Thursday afternoon