Ms. Reams' Kindergarten Class
updated on Sunday, September 10
Important Dates
September 14: Kindergarten Picnic and Play: Letter came home on Friday. Please RSVP so I know who will be coming and can make plans. If your child will be going home in a different way or with someone else, I will need to know.
September 15: Picture Day Information came home in folders on Friday.
September 18: No school: Teacher work day
I am always here!
I am always here to answer any questions or to talk about any concerns you might have. Please always feel welcome to message me or email me. Dojo is the best way, but you can also email me at kreams@bpsk12.net
Welcome!
This will be our central hub for information. This is where you will find links to all of the important information for our class. Please look through the website and links to see where important information can be found.
Moments from this week.....
One of the things I do is show the kids my mad face. This is an overexaggerated mad face (that I NEVER make). It looks quite silly. I show them my mad face so that they know that even when we need to fix a problem, they know I am not mad at them (because I never make this face). This week was so funny because they kept asking to see my mad face. They would giggle and laugh.
It is so fun to see how much they have grown even in this short amount of time. They are getting more and more independent every day. We have been in school for 11 days and they already have gotten into the routine. I love seeing how much they grow during this kindergarten year.
We work on so many goals during this kindergarten year. We work hard. But, they are still 5 and 6 year olds. And some of my favorite moments are when they are a little silly. We work a lot on learning that there is a good time to be silly and a time to work. One of my favorite moments this week was when I was having some down time with the students waiting for something, and I told them that they couldn't smile. At first, they just looked at me. Then I said they couldn't giggle either. Well then, they started to giggle. We went back and forth with me saying no giggling and them just LAUGHING. It was so much fun. I love hearing their giggles.
Their personalities came out this week. I LOVE IT! They have such a great sense of humor. They were telling me jokes and or coming and asking for a hug. And they love making me food to eat out of playdough. I get pizzas and cookies and hamburgers, and ice cream. They are really learning that there is a time to work and a time to be silly.
Thank you for sharing your child with me. I love them so much already!!!!!
Phonemic awareness is a very important skill that we will be working on this year. It is an important preskill to reading. Phonemic awareness works just with sounds. There is no print. If you click on the link below, there is a lot of information about what phonemic awareness is and how to develop this skill.
Math
We have been working on sorting and classifying this week. I have included some ways that this can be reinforced at home (without worksheets or homework).
*Sorting laundry: Have the kids help you sort laundry, for example lights and darks. Or, when the clothes are clean they can help sort who they belong to.
*Matching socks. This was one of our lessons. Finding two socks that are exactly the same. Same size. Same color. Same design.
*Sorting silverware or dishes. They can help sort clean dishes such as bowls and plates or spoons and forks.
*Cleaning their room by putting toys in the right places. This is a lego. It goes in my lego box. This is a stuffed animal. It goes in my stuffed animal box (or however they have it organized). But recognizing what kind of toy it is and where it belongs.
*classifying objects using descriptive words such as loud, quiet, hard, soft. These are some of the characteristics used to sort objects.
Sound walls
Sound walls are a tool we will use to learn sounds. When we learn a letter, we will learn what our mouth will look like. We will talk about the placement of our lips and tongue, as well as talk about what kind of air movement we use. For this week we talked about the letter t. It is a stop sound. It doesn't keep going. Your tongue goes behind your teeth and your mouth is opened slightly. We put our hand on our sound box (our throat) and it does not vibrate, so it is an unvoiced sound. The letter b is also a stop sound. Your lips begin closed, but then you open them and let out some air. Your sound box does vibrate, so it is a voiced sound. It is very important to not put an "uh" after the b sound. So we put our hand under our chin to make sure it doesn't move. These are all concepts that the students will soon be able to verbalize. I took a picture of our sound wall before I covered each letter with a picture of a lock. Each week we will unlock a new letter. We even have a magical wand to help us. Students have their own mirror to look at to make sure their mouth is making the right movement. We also then do sky writing to learn how to write the letter. The kids know about the sky line, plane like, grass line and plane line.
Classroom News
Click on the newsletter link above for my newsletter. This is where I will share specific information about what we are learning. There is no newsletter at this time. But this is where I will link it.
Curriculum Resources: This is where I will provide information about our curriculum.
Time To Eat!
Click on the links to see the breakfast/lunch menus and our class snack calendar.
If you click on the picture to the left it will take you to our goals page. If they know all of their letters they can go to the green page. If they are still working on their letters, then they go to the blue page. It has a lot of great resources to practice some of our literacy goals (rhyming, vowels, letters, blending, segmenting, etc)
Reading Logs: Every night when you read to your child 1-2 books, write down the name of the book on the reading log. When the log is full, they will get prizes at school. I have signed up with a program with Pizza Hut for reading books and the school will give them a prize as well. These can be books you read to them right now. Later in the year, you will add books they read to you. Please read to your child. It is one of the best indicators for success at school. If a digital form will be better for you, please let me know and I can make that happen.
Scholastic Book Orders
You can order books from this class page. When you do this, you do not have to send money to school. You pay for it online and it ships straight to your house. You can also send the link to grandparents if they want to buy books for your child.
Class Page: https://orders.scholastic.com/GYQB8
CLASS CODE GYQB8
With a $25 order, you can pick a FREE $5 Book (use code: READS).
Click on my bitmoji to learn more about me.
If you ever need to talk, I am always here. The best way is through class dojo. You can always email me as well. My email is kreams@bpsk12.net
Classroom News (older documents)
Information about what we are learning!
This is where I will put old information so that you can still reference it if you would like to, but keeps the information above more up to date.