Totally Terrific Class

We are now finished honoring each of our classroom friends as a "Totally Terrific Child". This activity was a great way to get to know each child as a unique and interesting individual. It was also a great opportunity to beginning work in key phonological awareness and phonics skills. We worked on letter and sound recognition, letter formation, syllables, rhyming recognition and production, sight words, sentence structure, and beginning Writing Workshop routines. All of this was accomplished and some very important Kindergarten skills have been front loaded so that the children have been given a sneak peak at some of the skills we will be diving into more deeply in the coming months. The month of September was also spent gathering baseline assessment information on each child in literacy and math. Next week we will begin formal Reading and Writing Workshops. The children will also begin small group work in all academic areas which will ensure that all learning needs are met at the level where the children are at. You will also hear this called Differentiated Instruction. We are also beginning a new unit called "Me and My Community" next week in Social Studies. I have subscribed to a Scholastic newspaper for Kindergarten aged children called "Let's Find Out". When these come home, please reread it with your child. Try to have them read it to you using their "tracking fingers". (They can teach you about this!)