Embedded Files
You'll find an archive of all of our previous class newsletters here, in case you need to refer back or look for information.
10/10
Thank you for a wonderful Walkathon! It was great to see so many people supporting our kiddos! And just like that, we pivot to spider studies, Halloween, and our performance for the school board. I'll be sending out a signup for our Halloween party later today and remember that our school board performance is on Tuesday. Plan to arrive in the Community Room at 6:15 on Tuesday, and we'll sing at approximately 6:30, when the closed session ends and the open meeting has been called to order. You're welcome to head home at the end of our performance to get your little one to bed.
Today we learned about doubles, and were doubling numbers 1-5 (since we can use our hands for those numbers). You can find areas at home to practice this in fun ways too! If you need the table set for four, hand your child 2 forks and say "Double It!" Or have them try doubling with pairs of socks.
Today you received our first sets of sight word cards. Plan to practice for very short bursts of time often, rather than long sessions far apart. Keep the cards at home to add to as the year progresses. In our class, we have Wally the Sight Word Worm and add each sight word as it comes, making our worm stretch around the room. We've had kindergarteners who like to make their own Wally on the wall in their room at home and practice reading through the words as they're lying in bed before going to sleep. Other kids like to hop word to word while reading. Whatever you do to practice, have fun!
10/9
Our Walkathon is finally here! Be sure to send your child to school with good walking shoes, a water bottle, and a sweatshirt/light jacket in case it's chilly. We'll all cross our fingers that the rain holds off. Our schedule for the day is as follows:
12:30 - 1:10 Parents will be setting up the field
1:15 - 2:15 Walk time! Playgrounds, etc. are closed during this time, so kids should plan to be walking or, if they need a break, resting at our class booth until they're ready to go again. Parents will be marking lap passes and cheering!
2:15 Walkathon ends and kids return to their classrooms. I will gather all the lap passes and kids will get their backpacks, etc. Parents will be taking down our booth and cleaning up the field during this time.
2:30 Dismissal ***On Friday, we will dismiss kids from our classroom directly to their adults. You can come to our door to collect your little one and don't need to wait for us at the green bench.*** This way, parents can work on cleanup without worrying that their child is looking for them at the bench. We'll walk our daycare kids over to daycare and then will bring the rest of the kids out to the bench. Because we usually get out at 1:30, you may have an appointment or other reason you can't be here - that's ok! Just let us know so that instead of them starting to walk, we can have them wait for you in the office. If you need to leave before the Walkathon ends for any reason, please come let me know so I can get the lap pass for PTO to count and so that I always know where our students are. Thank you to everyone to signed up to help with the Walkathon! But even if you didn't sign up, you're very welcome to come and chip in - we can always find a job for a willing volunteer!
10/3
Happy October! So many wonderful things are happening this month. Today your child brought home his/her beautiful nature creation. We read the book "Leaf Man" and then used all of the lovely nature items you brought in to create Leaf People, Leaf Cats, Leaf Turtles, Leaf Cars and Planes, and much more! Have your child explain their artwork to you. And then - ask them to retell the story Little Green Worm to you too. They also brought home their storytelling pieces in an envelope and can act out the story for you. Just in case they forget certain parts, there is also a copy of the story in the envelope for you to read so you can help them with the tricky bits.
Next Friday is the Walkathon! Remember that your child is invited to stay at school until 2:30 that day to participate, and thank you to all of our volunteers for helping make the event a success and to everyone for gathering pledges.
Then the following Tuesday (October 14th) is our class presentation to the school board at 6:30 PM. We hope you can make it! Plan to arrive at about 6:15. Our part will come right at the beginning and will be quite short, so I'd say you can definitely plan to be on your way home by 7.
In today's Friday folder, you'll also find our first book order of the year. It's completely optional, but if you'd like to add to your home library, it's a fun way to do so. Here's our class ordering page link: https://orders.scholastic.com/KDP4X or if you go directly to the Scholastic website, our class code is KDP4X. Have a great weekend!
9/26
There's something different in your Friday Folders today! We're trying out a new system for homework - today you received a Home Connections book with the homework we'll use all year. There's an explanatory note inside, and I hope you'll let me know how this works for your family; whether it's easier to have it at home and just read which pages to do, or whether you'd rather just receive homework each week. Your feedback will help us decide what we should order for next year. And of course there will still be other bits to homework, like sight words, games, etc., and some weeks there won't be anything you need to do from the Home Connections book. You'll get a letter each week in the homework folder about it.
Some big dates are coming up! October 10th is the Walkathon, which takes place after lunch. Because the Walkathon runs until 2:30, kindergarteners are welcome to stay the entire day that day with our class. We always need helpers, so you are most welcome to stay too! If you need to leave at 1:30, please find me and let me know so that I can always have a proper headcount.
Then on October 14th, our class will be presenting to the school board. We'll sing songs and show them what we've been learning. The board meeting begins at 6:00 but starts with a short closed session-our part will take place at approximately 6:30. And as soon as we're done, feel free to take your kiddo home to bed (although of course you are also welcome to stay for the remainder of the meeting too).
We talked a lot about fall this week and about looking for signs of fall outside. The children have been invited to bring in "signs of fall" from home on Monday (leaves, acorns, seeds, grasses, etc.) and we'll do a sorting activity and use whatever we have for a fall project.
Enjoy the beautiful sunshine this weekend!
9/19
t's hard to believe the first day of fall is upon us. But we've been enjoying our apple studies and were excited to reach the end of the alphabet with our letter of the day - now that we've been introduced to all of the letters, we'll dive deeper into letter sounds and stretching out words. Next week we'll also start moving into pumpkin time and some of our favorite projects of the year! Thank you to all of our fabulous center volunteers who are making centers and small group instruction possible.
In today's homework folder, Salt Box numbers is the activity, but you can use this in so many ways. In addition to having your child write numbers, you can also have them write letters or words in the salt. The important part is to make sure they're starting their letters and numbers at the top. And salt isn't the only option... today we wrote letters and words using cinnamon sticks in oatmeal; you could also use flour, dirt, shaving cream - there are so many fun ways to practice letter writing!
If you saw that your child didn't have a homework folder or Friday folder today, know that I put all of their materials in the folder they did have. I needed to stuff folders last night (earlier than usual), so if you turned it in today, that's why you don't see it. If your child still had his/her folder in their backpack from last week, this is a good chance to talk with them about emptying out their backpacks on Monday morning.
The kids are washing their hands every day and we're Cloroxing the tables every afternoon - cold and flu season has begun. Please remember to keep your child home when they're ill. Before returning to school, they should be fever-free (without medicine!) and have had no vomiting for at least 24 hours. If we're all careful, hopefully we'll sail through the season healthfully.
Next Wednesday is the first school Spirit Day - sports day. Children can wear something that highlights their favorite sports (although we do always introduce the word optional to the children at this time of year-dressing up is optional). Picture day is September 30, and order forms are in today's Friday folder.
9/13
It was another apple-filled fantastic week in kindergarten. We started our centers with parent helpers - thank you volunteers! We made apple smiles, wrote about our favorite apples, made apple patterns, and sang apple songs. Thank you to the Sramek family for the apples for our investigations next week. This week we also learned about greater than/less than and their symbols > < in order to play a game that kept us on our toes until the last minute (there's one final spin - it could be the player with less cards wins!). Next week, we'll arrive at the end of the alphabet for our first round of introducing each letter and the sound it makes, along with the body movement that helps us remember, then we'll spend more time with each letter and learn spelling patterns. We've also learned our first two sight words I and like. See if your child can find them in books at home!
On Friday, you received the Walkathon pledge folder; it's that time of year again - our PTO funds PE, art, music, the end of year carnival, and so much more.
You also received the first homework folder of the year! There are two sides, Keep at Home and Return to School. The Home side will be for things like sight words and games we send home. These are for repeated practice over time. The Return side will be for homework that should be returned to school by the following Friday. This week, you have the Bee Game, an alphabet search that we're loving to play in class! We set up the letters in alphabetical order on the pocket chart, but you could do in at home on the floor as well. Hide the bee behind a letter and have guess until he/she finds it. The trick is to make sure you have your child say the letter they're guessing before they approach to flip it (otherwise it just turns into a card-flipping game rather than fun letter practice). If your child wants to make a guess but doesn't know the letter's name, have them touch each letter as they sing the alphabet until they get to the letter they want. Have fun playing!
9/5
It's apple season! We're taste testing apples, observing apples under magnifying lenses, making apple trees to paint, writing and making graphs about our favorite apples and playing apple games. Next week we'll dive even deeper, counting with apples, cooking with apples, making apple crafts and even balancing apples. We love apple season!
There are lots of fun happenings coming up on the calendar in the next few months, but a special one to note is that the kindergarten class will be performing at the school board meeting on the night of October 14th. Our board loves to see the students they're working so hard to represent, and it's a great experience for the children to perform in front of others. Every class will perform once in the school year, and our month is October! Our performance will be right at the beginning of the meeting at 6:30, and then the kids can head home right after because we know it's near bedtime for our littles.
We've made it to the letter P in our letter introductions, and we're working on Patterns in math - what serendipity! Look for patterns all over your world with your child - in nature, in construction, in clothing and beddings; they're everywhere.
Have a wonderful weekend - I'll see you Monday ( for our first full day of centers).
8/29
What a fun week we've had! We "cooked" ironed letter i (find the recipe in your Friday folder), played Alphabet Go Fish, practiced "top to bottom" writing in shaving cream on the outdoor easels, and played "5 Green and Speckled Frogs" with water, wood, and toy frogs. We played our first Math Work Place game called Spill 5 Beans. There are 2-sided beans (red & white) and after spilling the beans, we counted how many reds were showing and traced that number. It was a race to the top to see which number would win! If you see a number tracing paper in your child's Friday folder, ask him or her about the race. If not, one will come home soon, as kids can choose which Work Places to visit each day and it takes a few rounds to reach every work place. Also ask your child for a retelling of Jump Frog Jump! with some help from the crown they wore home today. So far we've introduced the letters A-L. Once we've introduced them all, we'll return for a more in-depth look at each letter.
Happy Labor Day, enjoy a wonderful long weekend, and I'll see you on Tuesday!
8/14
Hello Kindergarten Families,
We're off to the races with a great start to our year! We are so excited to get to know your young learners and are already impressed by their kindness, joy, and enthusiasm for learning. This first week, we loved getting to know each other, singing our Good Morning song, making magic playdough, and creating our self portraits. Next week, we'll learn all about the number 5 with some frogs on logs to help us out, and start diving into our letters with Zoophonics.
On Friday, we'll send home paper bags with each student labeled "About Me" and children will fill the bags with things that tell us about them (there's a list on the front of the bag). When your bag is finished, bring it to class and we'll pull a bag whenever we have a spare moment and learn about our friends. Tomorrow you'll receive your first Friday folder. These will come home every Friday with flyers and announcements and your child's work. You'll want to empty the folder and return it the following Monday. Eventually, homework will also come home every Friday, but we won't begin that for a few weeks.
Next Thursday will be Back To School Night here at Dunham. This is an adults-only evening where you'll learn about the nuts and bolts of kindergarten. We'll also have signup sheets for folks to volunteer both in and out of the classroom. The kindergarten portion of the evening will be from 5:30-6:00 pm (along with TK-2nd grades), then the whole school will meet in the courtyard for a message from Mrs. Larson from 6-6:15, and then grades 3-6 will meet from 6:15-6:45. I hope to see you there!
Again, welcome to kindergarten. Mrs. Bengs and I both feel honored to spend this year helping your young one to grow. I look forward to working with you this year!
Warmly,
Caryn Fisher
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