A Glimpse into our learning

 ELA

CKLA Skills:  We recently completed CKLA Skills Unit 3, and students were very excited to learn their first Tricky Words: one, two, and three! Tricky Words are words that don’t follow the usual sound rules we’ve learned, so they are not decodable. As students continue to build their phonemic awareness and learn more sounds, some kindergarten Tricky Words will eventually become decodable. 

Students were also introduced to the Skills Picture Reader and enjoyed spending time reading some of the pages independently. We’ve been busy learning new sounds and practicing how to blend them to read and spell words. So far, students have learned the sounds /m/, /a/ (as in apple), /t/, /d/, /o/ (as in octopus), /i/ (as in itch), /g/ (as in goat), and /k/ (as in cat). They’re now using these sounds to read and spell simple words on their own! 

In addition, we’ve been focusing on correctly forming the lowercase letters that go with these sounds. 

How you can help at home:

• Practice these sounds together and read simple words that include them.
  
  

• Point out letters and words you see in everyday places—on signs, in books, or on labels.
  
  

• When your child practices writing their name, encourage the use of lowercase letters when appropriate.

CKLA Knowledge:  We have begun CKLA Knowledge Unit 3, where we are exploring the wonderful world of stories! Students are learning that stories can be about real or imaginary events and that all stories include important parts such as characters, settings, and plots. 

Throughout this unit, we will read and discuss folk tales and use our imaginations to orally tell our own stories. 

So far, we have listened to classic tales such as The Three Little Pigs, The Three Billy Goats Gruff, and The Wolf and the Seven Kids. Students have been practicing how to retell stories by naming the main characters, describing the setting, and recalling what happened first, next, and last. 

How you can help at home:

• Read favorite stories together and talk about the characters, setting, and plot.
  
  

• Ask your child to retell the story in their own words or act it out using toys or puppets.
  
  

Encourage your child to make up their own story using their imagination—maybe even draw pictures to go with it!

Math 

November Number Corner:  In November, our Number Corner lessons focus on shapes, counting, and number combinations. Students are exploring both flat (2D) and solid (3D) shapes as they add a new marker to the Calendar Grid each day. These markers follow a repeating pattern that helps students learn to identify, name, and compare shapes. For example, students might see:

• Square & Cube

• Circle & Sphere

• Rectangle & Cylinder

• Circle & Cone

Through this daily routine, students are learning new vocabulary, such as flat and solid, while describing and comparing 2D and 3D shapes. 

Other parts of November’s Number Corner include:

• Calendar Collector: Students collect sticks from a spinning game to practice estimating, counting, and organizing data.

• Days in School: We continue to track how many days we’ve been in school, helping students strengthen their number sense and explore ways to make ten.

• Computational Fluency: Students play games like “Spill the Beans” to practice finding different combinations that make five.

These daily routines build important math foundations in a fun and hands-on way, helping students think and talk about numbers and shapes with confidence!

Books we read this week:  The True Story of the Three Little Pigs, Chicken Little: The Real and Totally True Story, The World Needs More Purple People, and Corduroy.