Welcome to Mrs.Eagle's Kindergarten Webpage!!!
I hope everyone has a wonderful, restful summmer! I'm looking forward to meeting our Kindergartners in the Fall!
Important Dates for the
2011-2012 School Year:
August 15 & 16: Kindergarten Camp from 8:30am-11:30am
August ??: Open House-Meet the Teacher! (You will find out the date at Kindergarten Camp-the Salisbury Post also lists Open House times sometime in August)
August 25, 26 & 29: Staggered Entry Days (Your child will attend only ONE of these three days. Please make child care arrangements. You will find out at open house which day your child will attend.)
August 30: First Day for ALL Kindergartners!
Daily Reminders for each School Day
1. Please remember to check your childs S.T.A.R. notebook DAILY for notes and other important information. Also please check your childs agenda on the corresponding day for their daily behavior & initial beside it.
2. Please remind your child to place their S.T.A.R. notebook in their bookbag each night. Your child is responsible for bringing their notebook to school each day and taking out any notes or money that I need to see in the morning. After all their S.T.A.R. notebook stands for Students Taking Active Responsibility.
3. Please remember to read with your child each night, even if I do not send home a specific book for you to read together. Also ask your child questions about the story to make sure they are comprehending what they are hearing/reading.
4. Don't forget to send lunch money with your child each day, week, etc. Please send the money in an envelope or baggie marked with their name and lunch number. The cafeteria will send home a notice when your child has run out of money on their account and have to charge. Also, Friday is our ice cream day (0.60)! If you do not want your child to get ice cream please let me know in their agenda.
10 Reasons to Read Aloud to Children:
Children will:
1. Hear new words;
2. Develop sentence sense and an ear for rhythm;
3. Enjoy and compare diverse writing styles;
4. Create common connections to ideas (as a class);
5. Use reading as a springboard to discussion and writing;
6. Gain new knowledge and understanding;
7. Hear standard forms of English;
8. Learn about a variety of writing genres;
9. Feel things they've never felt before;
10. Share a wonderful time with you and your favorite read-aloud books!
WRITER'S WORKSHOP
In our beginning writing, we are helping the children understand that they are illustrators and authors. It is a working process in which the children draw the stories that they have to tell. We have them talk about and then draw a small moment that they have experienced. It could be something funny that happened to them that morning, a time they had fun with a friend, something they like to do with their family, and so on. We give them the writing prompt, they talk about it, draw it, and then write about it. We explain to them that we don't expect them to know how to write all of those words with correct spelling right now. Some children will draw squiggly lines, random marks or letters, others will copy words from around the room to stand for what they want to say. We conference with them to see what "their writing" says and then show them what it actually looks like. The next step is having them label what they drew. For example, depending on their progress some will write a single letter, a beginning and end letter sound, or attempt to put all the sounds they hear. In other words, if they were attempting to write the word friend it might look like f or fd or frind. This is what we call sound spelling. Sound spelling is acceptable until they learn the correct spelling of words. They begin correctly spelling by using words from the word wall. At this time, we have all of our sight words up there. All of this helps your child to become a more creative writer and less inhibited by the formality of "correctly" spelling words. Once they realize that they have so much to write about we work on writing sentences with first letter capital, spaces between words, and end punctuation.
HOW CAN PARENTS HELP WITH THIS AT HOME
*Let your child help you write the grocery list.
*Have your child draw and write instead of "telling" you about their day.
*When your child draws encourage them to add details to their characters and settings.
Book and Print Awareness
Before we begin our guided reading, we assess the children to see how aware they are of the fundamentals of the reading process. These are the elements we feel they need to know as pre-reading skills:
*identify front and back of a book
*point to the title of a book
*tell what an author and illustrator do
*show where to begin reading on a page and where to go at the end of the first line of words
*distinguish between letters and words
*find the first and last words on a page
*point to one/two words
*point to one/two letters
*identify by name or what it means- .(period) !(exclamation mark) ?(question mark) " "(quotation marks)
*voice to print match- be able to point to each word as teacher reads
*distinguish between capital and lowercase letters
*identify some letters by name
"What is my child learning?"
Upcoming Important Dates:
When do we have specials?
Kindergarteners can ALWAYS use...
Crayons
Glue Bottles
Pencils
Erasers
Zip-Loc baggies, all sizes!
Paper plates
Baby wipes
Paper towels
Prizes (happy meals toys are great! Just think of what your child would love) - no candy, please!
If you are able to donate any of the above items they would be GREATLY appreciated! Thanks so much!
Please check my webpage periodically for updates or simply click "Notify Me" at the top of this webpage and an email will be sent to you each time I update!
