FALLING in love with Kindergarten

Is it really October already?  We are seeing amazing growth from your kiddos!  They're having such fun exploring the world of Kindergarten.

Math:  We're working on decomposing numbers.  One strategy we're using is Number Bonds.  

Here are some examples:

    

Reading:  Most of the kids know where the front cover, back cover and title page are, so knowing where to start reading is the next important step.  We have stressed that the kids should point under words and track left to right as they read.   You can help your child by turning the page and pointing to the first word when you’re reading books together.  Then build to letting your child point to the place to start reading for you.  

Science:  We have been using our senses to explore different characteristics of pumpkins this week. We began by hiding the pumpkin in a bag/box to let the kids guess what we had.  We played 20 questions.  Explaining that the kids should ask a yes/no question was a fun challenge!!  Playing "I Spy" with your child will help increase your child's ability to ask good questions. 

Coming Up:

October 4

Ridenour Fall Festival
11-1 pm

October 10

Pettit Creek Farms Field Trip

October 14

All fundraiser packets/money due

October 20-24

Early Release/Conference Days

Happy Fall!

We hope you all had a wonderful Fall Break!  We all spent time Sharpening the Saw (Leader in Me translation:  relaxing, having fun, spending time with family and friends).

We're ready to jump back in to some serious learning with your kiddos!  We will be working on the following things:

Language Arts:  Letter and letter sound recognition, concepts of print (front/back of book & title page), listening to stories to tell "who" and "where" (who/what was in the story and where the story took place), sight word recognition

**Click here for "Have Fun Teaching" on YouTube.  They have great songs for learning letters, sounds and sight words.

**Another favorite is "Harry Kindergarten".  There are great songs for all kinds of kindergarten skills.

***Just a reminder to supervise your child anytime he/she is on YouTube.

Writing:  We're continuing to write about "small moments" that have taken place in our lives (narrative writing).  We're working to write about the feelings of the characters, remembering to tell the beginning, middle & end of the story and to include page numbers.

Math:  We have spent time working to learn our two-dimensional shapes (2D).  We are comparing them to each other (i.e. How are a square & triangle the same?  How are they different?)

Science:  We have learned to be scientists by examining the features of animals and how they are the same/different.  We are going to look at parent & baby animals (always a favorite!!).

Coming Up:
We are going to Pettit Creek Farms for a field trip on Friday, October 10.  Please watch your child's folder for a permission form.  This will be due by Wednesday, October 1.

Welcome to Hayes!

We are so excited that you're a part of our Hayes Elementary family. We are looking forward to an incredible year. Our goal is to update our blog weekly. If there is something you'd like to see, please leave us a comment.

Here are some important back to school pieces of information:

Please make sure that your Kindergartener is in the classroom by 7:50. He/she can either ride the bus or you can drop him/her off at the front of the school. Please do not walk your child to the classroom. If you have information for the teacher, please write a note and include it in the daily folder. Thank you!

If your child will be leaving school early, please send a note to school.  We will be sure to have him/her ready when the office calls.  If we are unaware that your child is leaving before dismissal, it will take us a few minutes to get him/her ready (cleaning up, marking in folder, packing up backpack).

Coming Up:

Open House - Tuesday, September 2

K-2 - 6:00pm - 6:45pm                         3-5 - 7:00pm - 7:45pm

You will start out by going directly to your child's classroom at 6:00pm. There will be a short televised PTSA meeting, followed by information from your child's teacher. All parents will be excused at 6:45pm (and the K-2 teachers will leave to make room for the 3-5 teachers in the parking lot). Parents with students in grades 3-5 can move to those classrooms.


Fall Picture Day - Wednesday, September 3
Wear your biggest smile! This is the photo that will go into the yearbook!


Progress Reports - Friday, September 12


Fall Break - Monday 9/15 - Friday 9/19

Kindergarten Happenings

Celebrating the past...present...future -
We're all so excited to celebrate the 20th anniversary of Hayes!! We hope you'll be joining us on Friday evening. We'll be out in back by the track. We'll be getting crazy in the jumpies, eating hotdogs, cotton candy and other yummies, and exploring carnival booths.

Progress Reports -
Speaking of celebrating, we hope that you're celebrating your child's accomplishments in school by reviewing his/her progress report. Please sign the correct spot in your child's green Friday folder to confirm receipt of the progress report. Some things to review with your child before the report card include making sure that he/she can identify capital/lowercase letters and 15/75 of the sight words (which were sent home on Open House night), counting to 50 and counting a group of objects up to 20. One way to help your child when counting a group of objects is to have your child line them up and then push each item while saying only one number name with each.

Looking Forward -
We hope you've returned your permission slips for our fieldtrip to Pettit Creek Farms. We'll be taking our adventure through the corn maze on Friday, September 27. If you indicated that you're interested in being a chaperone, your child's teacher will contact you with more information.

Hayes Movie Night -
The PTSA is sponsoring this fun event on Friday, September 27 from 6:30 - 8:00 in the Hayes cafeteria.

Picture Retakes -
If you purchased school pictures and were displeased, you can return them for a retake on Tuesday, October 15. If your child was absent or is new to Hayes, he/she will also get a picture taken for the yearbook.

Fall Break -
Please mark your calendars for Thursday, October 3 - Tuesday, October 8. We will have a few days of vacation from school. It will be just enough of a break to energize us up to the Thanksgiving break.

Fun on the Web

We have had a great time learning to sing and sign our alphabet! Our phonics is from a book called Sing, Sign and Read. We read the book in class and also use some You Tube videos as tutorials for proper formation of the motions & signs. We thought that you may want to better understand the signs and motions that we're sure your child is showing you. You can watch and sing along with your child (please monitor as you would with any You Tube clips).

Signs & Motions

Signs & Motions (including music) with pauses

Signs & Motions...the whole song

The song modeled by an actual class


We also used a fun site to practice our math strategies (click the links below):

10 Frame Counting Practice

Math Rack Practice (Rekenreks)


Enjoy!!

Back to School...Wahoo!!

We are so excited to be back to school. We are celebrating 20 years of incredible students, staff members and parents. You all our family and we're looking forward to a year of growing together.

Coming Up:

Open House - Monday, August 26: We are looking forward to seeing you and talking about things that are happening in our classrooms this year.

Labor Day - There is no school on Monday, September 2. We hope your families enjoy the 3-day weekend!

April Showers Bring . . . MATH!

We have been working very hard on a few Common Core Math standards. 

Here are the standards and some websites  to help you and your child practice. 

Click the red words under each standard for the websites.

• KCC.4a:  Count objects in standard order with 1 to 1 correspondence
• KCC.4b:  Understand that when counting a group, the last number/object counted represents the number of objects counted no matter how they may be rearranged.

Counting in Random Order

Counting in Rows

• KCC.6:  Compare groups of objects by greater than, less than or equal to by using matching strategies.

Equal Sets

More or Less

• MCCK.OA.1:  Represent addition and subtraction with objects, fingers, mental images, or drawings 
• MCCK.OA.5:  Fluently add and subtract within 5

Marble Math Addition

Ladybug Addition

Bug Shoes Addition

Balloon Addition

Monkey Drive Addition

Underwater Subtraction

  

• MCCK.OA.4:  For any number from 1 to 9, find the number that makes 10 when added to the given number

Making a Ten