December 5, 2025

LETTERS to SANTA

This is from a friend of mine.  Her daughters are former gators and they have been doing this for the past several years.  

It's almost time!!

Santa and his elves have asked us to help with his letters again this year! We will start taking letters in Santa's magic mailbox on Friday, November 28th at 10:00am!!

Have your child drop off their Letters to Santa with their wish list and your child will receive a personalized letter from Santa! 

***please make sure to include your return address***

There is no cost to you; we just love doing it. 

Drop off location is:

6907 Upland Ln., Colleyville

Mailbox is open from 8am-10pm daily.

The mailbox will stay open until December 18th.

Please feel free to share the info with any friends that may not be in our neighborhood. 

Winter Celebrations in Our Classroom

As we get ready for winter activities, we want to make sure all of our families feel included. If your family celebrates a winter holiday or tradition other than Christmas, we would love to know about it!

Please share the name of the holiday and any traditions, stories, or customs you’d like us to acknowledge or talk about with the students.  And if you are willing to come to school and share this information with your child's class, that would be even better!  

Please email your child's teacher to let her know.
Thank you for helping us celebrate the many holidays and traditions in our classroom!

WHAT A BUSY WEEK!

We continued to work on listening for beginning and ending sounds in words and finding words that begin and/or end with the same sound. Listening for the same ending sounds has been a little tricky for some students. In math, the students worked on addition to 10 and subtraction from 10, as well as, counting backwards from 20 to 1 and counting from 1 – 100.  In social studies we learned about symbols that represent Texas.  Ask your child to tell you about them.  

BOOK BAGS

On Friday, ALL students brought home their reading bag with four books in it. Please have your child read each of these books daily. These books are on your child’s independent reading level, which s/he should be able to read with 90% accuracy. Some books may seem too easy for your child, but we want them to practice reading the books fluently (reading like they talk) with few errors. Reading independent level books also helps build your child’s confidence.

Some of the reading strategies for students to use:

• Point to each word (very important for beginning readers)

• Use the pictures for clues

• Go back and re-read

• Look at the beginning letter(s)

Here are some additional ways to use these books after reading them:

• · Read the pictures to tell the story

• · Look for word wall words

• · Retell the story – what happened in the beginning, middle and end

• · Ask how this story relates to real life; can they make any connections

Your child will need to return the bag every Friday and s/he will get four new books. Please have your child keep the reading bag in their backpacks when they are not reading them. If we need to switch out books on a different day, their bag will be here. This will also help minimize the chance of any books getting lost, as there is a $10.00 fee for each lost book. Thank you for your continued support. We look forward to watching our readers grow.

A note From Mrs Canafax, our school counselor:

Food Assistance or Other Needs

As the school counselor, one of my most important roles is to help ensure that every student has what they need to learn and thrive. If your family is ever experiencing financial challenges or needs support with food, school supplies, or other basic resources, please don’t hesitate to reach out. I am here to help, and all conversations will remain confidential.  

My email address is: lauren.canafax@gcisd.net

DECEMBER CHARACTER TRAIT

The character trait for the month of December is cooperation.  In guidance, students will learn that cooperation means "working together to reach shared goals."  Cooperation is a skill that must be learned.  Here are some things you can do with your child to help him/her learn the skill of cooperation:

• Take turns 

• Explain the rules

• Problem solve 

• Give choices 

• Give ideas, not commands 

• Give positive reinforcement 

LETTER ID and SOUNDS

Your child should be able to confidently identify (within 3 seconds, in random order)

at least 20 upper case letters, at least 20 lower case letters & at least 20 letter sounds.

AT HOME LITERACY ACTIVITIES

The link below contains some fun activities for your child to enjoy and practice different reading skills!

mCLASS® Home Connect®

https://www.mclass.amplify.com/homeconnect/

SIGHT WORDS

Below are the kindergarten sight words for the entire year. We may not cover them all and we may add in some of our own.  Knowing our sight words will help your child tremendously in reading and writing. Each week we will learn two or three new words. Please review these words with your child. Students are expected to read, write and spell these words.

These are the sight words we learned this week:

he  she

These are the sight words we have previously learned:

he  she  said  we  did  in  and  like  can  it  at  

go  am  to   by   my   I    see   a    the   

READING and WRITING SKILLS WE WILL LEARN in KINDERGARTEN

By the end of Kindergarten, students should be able to:

• Recognize and produce rhyming words

• Segment words in an oral sentence

• Segment words into syllables

• Segment and pronounce initial, medial and final phonemes in spoken CVC words

• Manipulate phonemes with additions or substitutions in one-syllable words

• Name all letters of the alphabet

• Write all manuscript letters in lowercase and uppercase

• Sequence letters of the alphabet

• Fluently produce sounds of consonants and short vowels when given the letter

• Fluently produce sounds for basic digraphs (wh, sh, ch, th, ck)

• Name and write corresponding letter(s) when given sounds for consonants, consonant digraphs, and short vowels

• Distinguish long and short vowel sounds within words

• Read and spell approximately 200 CVC words 

• Spell other words phonetically, drawing on knowledge of sound-letter relationships

• Read and write our sight words

• Identify and name correct punctuation at end of sentence

• Capitalize words at beginning of sentences and names of people

• Name the author and illustrator of a story and define their roles

• Explain narrative story structure including character, setting and main events

• Use a combination of drawing and dictating to narrate linked events to tell about a story in  sequence

• Re-tell key details of narrative and informational text, using pictures or prompts as a guide

• Identify characters, settings and main events in a story, with pictures or other prompts

• Describe what happened in a story when given a specific illustration

• With prompts, compare and contrast the experiences of characters in two stories

• Explain difference between narrative and informational text

• Echo-read a passage with correct phrasing and expression

• Identify and explain new meanings for familiar words and newly taught words

• Produce and expand complete sentences in shared language activities

Curriculum Objectives

Language Arts: 

I can identify upper and lowercase letters of the alphabet and the sounds they make.

I can identify the beginning and ending sounds of words and identify what letter makes that sound.  

I can write my name with only the first letter capitalized, followed by all the other letters lower case.

Math: 

I can add and subtract numbers to/from 10.

Science: 

I can identify, describe, and predict the patterns of day and night and their observable characteristics.

Social Studies: 

I can identify patriotic objects and explain what patriotism means.

I can show respect when I recite the Pledge of Allegiance to the United States flag.

I can identify American/patriotic symbols, such as, the Statue of Liberty, the White House, the Washington Monument and the Lincoln Memorial.

I can be a good citizen and follow the Gator Way.