Announcements
A Note About Our Final Days Together: I do not count down to the end of the school year. For some children, this creates anxiety of the unknown and emotions about this wonderful time together coming to an end. What I do say is "We still have a lot to learn and do in Kindergarten together!" Routines breed security and so, we strive to keep our routines as normal as possible in these final days. We will engage in a number of activities which help give closure to the year within our classroom. Our crew will have one last get together with their 4th grade Buddies. They will get to share about their favorite parts of Kindergarten and hear from both First grade teachers. We do not do a Kindergarten graduation or party on the last day. We reserve graduation for our outgoing 6th graders, who will be leading our whole school drum circle on Tuesday.
Last Day: At the end of school on Thursday 6/6, please meet us outside the front doors. Our crew will exit out through the doors for the last time as Kindies at 12:45. We tell the children that as they step outside "the magic happens" - they become First graders! This ritual helps the children to end kindergarten on a happy note rather than being sad. We will be able to take pictures and say our "goodbye for now"s at that time.
Materials Coming Home: Today I will be sending home items seen at our conferences. I would recommend keeping these. :) Next week, we will be cleaning out our materials bins and all additional materials. Also next week, we will send home the change of clothes & All About Me books. Drums remain at school unless you are leaving Renaissance. Please make sure your child has a backpack at school each day, so we can send items safely home.
Lunch Schedule: You may have noticed that the lunch schedule is not posted on the REMS website. Our kitchen staff is trying to use the remaining food they have, so the lunch menu for next week is undetermined. This includes Thursday’s lunch, which is usually pizza day. You might consider packing lunch for your child so they know what they will be eating.
Nurse Office: If your child has medication in the health suite, please be sure to pick this up by our last day of school, Thursday, June 6th.
Log Your Volunteer Hours: Please spend a few minutes to update Track-It-Forward with your family's volunteer hours. This will allow PCF to determine our grant eligibility and track parent engagement!
Summer Learning : A few of you have asked about continuing your child’s learning over summer break. The #1 thing I recommend over summer is reading. Here is a link to the Douglas County Summer Reading Program, this is a great way to encourage your child to read daily.
One of the companies we use for an intervention resource recently shared this amazing summer resource: K-2 Summer Reading. Given this one is for K-2, you might find that some of the skills are beyond where your child is currently working. That said, there are a number of other ideas here that could be beneficial for all students.
Additionally, iReady lessons will be available for use over the summer until July 18th. You can access this by logging on to Clever. The children are very familiar with these websites. iReady provides lessons and games in both math and reading. Students will be able to access these with their Clever QR codes, which are glued onto their name tag (which will come home next week). Vooks is also a favorite literacy app that can be accessed through their Clever accounts. Vooks is a digital library of animated storybooks. It is a favorite of our Crew!
Calendar
June 6: Last Day of Kindergarten! Dismissal at 12:45
June 9: Electronic Report Cards Available through Parent Portal
Crew News:
In reading, our final unit is on Force and Motion. This is a great review of what we learned with simple machines, and it gives us some new text to deepen our understanding. We read the mentor text Forces and Scientists Who Changed the World. Students have been working on asking questions, identifying the central idea & important details, and learning about the text features of a biography.
In phonics, we have been learning about how the “e” at the end of the word makes a vowel say its name. Specifically, we have learned about the i_e and u_e such as in bike or cute. Students are doing a fantastic job of taking on this learning in our workbooks and in their own writing. New sight words include want, put, saw, and this. I encourage practicing words over the summer, making it light and fun. Ex. Writing words in sand or rice and/or doing a scavenger hunt for flashcards around the house or in nightly reading.
In writing, we are doing a mini How To writing unit. We looked at two mentor texts to determine that this kind of writing has numbered steps, in order, explains or teaches something, has many small pictures, and sequential words such as first, then, next, and last. This can be written in paragraph form or in chunks of smaller text. Students hae been experimenting with both kinds of writing paper. It has been fun to hear the variety of topics that students choose to write about, such as how to draw a spider, how to garden, how to get ready for the day, and so on. Today, we watched videos of How To Draw Gerald and How to Draw Piggie. It tied perfectly to our learning in writing and our morning's performances!
In math, we have been working on teen numbers. Students are learning that a teen number is comprised on a ten and some ones. Students will be given a group of objects, circle ten, count the remainder, and then write 10 + 7= 17 (for example). Students have gained so much more precision with counting objects between 10 and 20. I notice that basic addition and subtraction facts are challenging, so I would recommend continuing to practice over the summer.
In expedition, we have alternated between weather and life cycles. At this time, we are focusing on severe weather, such as a tornado, blizzard, thunderstorm, hurricane, and flooding.
Thank you to Ms. Staci and our wonderful volunteer parents who helped out!
They did such a fantastic job!
Click Here to see pictures and videos of all the performances!
Wow, it is hard to believe that today was our last Friday together. Looking forward to our last four days together next week. What a special crew. My heart is full!
Your proud kindergarten teacher,
~Ms. Lauren
