Mrs. Silvey's Kindergarten Class: Chicka Chicka Boom Boom, Welcome to our Classroom!

Your kindergartener has worked very hard this week, and what a busy week it has been! We have begun to talk about the alphabet and the sounds each letter makes, beginning sounds in words, and the sounds in our names and we are learning more and more about each other. Please support your child at home by asking him/her what the beginning sounds in different words are. You can do this by asking, “What letter and sound is at the beginning of -------------?”. Please keep practicing at home and in the car!

We have started exploring centers this week and are doing an amazing job! In the coming weeks, we will begin using our work board and finding various centers around our room including ABC center, Art center, Science center, Reading Group, iPad center, Writing center, and many more!

Here are a few examples of some of the work we did at centers this week:

ABC center- This involved matching uppercase and lowercase letters. This has proven to be a tricky skill for us! Please continue to reinforce this at home with your child by finding lowercase letters in environmental print, writing letters, etc. We also played beginning sound games.

Handwriting center- We built letters and shapes using sticks and curves.

iPad center- We played the ABC app on Starfall and practiced letter sounds.

Game center- We worked together to build a Chicka Chicka puzzle!

Reading group- We practiced the power word "am".

We had our first Second Steps lesson! Children benefit from social-emotional learning at any time, but today it’s especially important to help them develop the skills they need to connect and thrive. Our first lesson taught us how to be good listeners (eyes watching, ears listening, voices quiet, bodies still).

We started our new reading and writing programs by Collaborative Classroom! Some of the things we did in our reading lessons this week include listening to and discussing stories to build comprehension and build alphabetic knowledge, reading and discussing our names to build name recognition, learning the concept of rhyme and identifying rhyming words to build phonological awareness, learning the difference between fiction and nonfiction texts, building stamina for independent reading, and develop independent work habits while reading. We read the book Chicka Chicka Boom Boom and practiced rereading, as good readers do!

In Writing, we learned that good writers generate ideas about things they can draw and write about. We then drew pictures and labeled them with beginning sounds. We practiced sharing our discussing our stories/pictures with each other.

Our Math in Focus lessons are currently focusing on building numbers through 5 and recognizing similarities and differences between objects. We compared and contrasted different objects and students in our classroom to find matching objects or features that created pairs and objects that differed. We practiced writing numbers 1-4. In the coming weeks, we will start to really dive into our Math curriculum.

We have worked really hard to understand syllables/parts in a word during Phonics this week. We do this by clapping out the parts that we hear. For example, the word banana (when clapped) has 3 claps/parts/syllables. This sets up the foundation for learning to segment sounds in a word. Encourage your child to clap out syllables for you at home! We added a few names to our sound wall and continued working on learning each other's names. We also started working on letters a, t, and m. We have learned

their sounds and formations and brainstormed words that begin with each letter.

We had our first Interactive Writing lesson! Interactive Writing is a time in which the children and I share the writing responsibility and learn about letter/sound relationships, capital and lowercase letters, letter formation, and composing a sentence using correct titlecase and punctuation. We also practice sight words during this time. Our lesson this week focused on reading and writing the sight words "I" and "am". Encourage your child to write for you at home the following sentence: I am _________. We made a class book as well and it is on our bookshelf! We worked on beginning sounds of each child's name to help us decode and used our reading pointer finger to read our book.

Mrs. Balsavias and Ms. Peterson, our school counselors, came for our first visit together! We will get to spend time with them for monthly class lessons!

We had our first Social Studies lesson and started to learn more about ourselves and each other. We talked about how we are all alike in so many ways and different at the same time. More to come in the coming weeks!