Thank you to everyone for coming to Open House last week.  It is always exciting for children to share the classroom with their families.

For several weeks we have been working on letter sounds and formations using the Fundations program.  So far we have worked on lower case letters t, b, f, m, n, i, u, c, and o.  We practice these in many ways including writing the letters in the air, using high lighters to practice on paper, writing on white boards, and making letters out of play dough and wikki sticks.  We also search for individual letters in our morning messages each day.  In addition, we have started working on sight words.  Our focus has been on I, the, you, and is because they are words that we use a lot in our own writing or they appear every day in our morning message.  Practicing and learning sight words is a great way to work on fluency in reading, as many of these words can't be sounded out, but are words we just need to recognize.  I am sending home a list of the first 100 sight words a resource for you.  This is not homework- there is no expectation that children work on these at home- but sometimes children really enjoy practicing them outside of school.   Kindergarteners are expected to know 20 sight words by the end of the year, but I am sending the first 100 for children who are learning them quickly and feeling ambitious!  It is very exciting when children learn these words and can use them in writing or beginning to read.

During math our focus has been on counting, matching numerals to quantities, and practicing numeral formation.  We have spent the first several weeks focusing on 0-9, building our fluency with these numbers before moving on to increasingly larger numbers.  We have learned several math games, a fun way for children to work on math skills as well as the social skills involved in playing a partner game.  Being a good sport and having fun are most important, and we always shake hands and say good game when the game is over.