Pre-K/Kindergarten News April 11, 2014

New beginnings...
This week we began our last unit: How time passes: our history and our stories. Here are some of the things we did this week: We introduced the letter y as a vowel. When it is used at the end of a word, it can make a long E or long I sound. In math we introduced the concept of halves. We learned that a half means that there are two equal pieces. They also understand that (at this point) only even numbers can be divided in half. They used manipulatives to split different numbers in half and they also divided different shapes in halves. We began introducing folk tales into our story time. We read two folk tales: one from West Africa and the other from Mexico. The kids sequenced the first story, Zomo the Rabbit, and drew pictures of the three challenges that Zomo had to overcome to get wisdom from the Sun God. We used the second story, The Woman who Outshone the Sun, to draw the characters and then draw the beginning of the story, the middle (where the problem happened), and the end (where the story was resolved). This week we began talking about changes that happen in the world around us. We made a long list of things that we see changing. Weve also begun to note the changes in some Cherry Blossoms by our classroom at QISS; each week we will write about the changes we see. We introduced the four seasons and drew about each one. We know that we have seasons because of the Earths tilt and proximity to the sun. In math we began to skip count by 2s. Keep practicing at home! Also having to do with change, the kids really enjoyed a guessing game we played with each students baby pictures. The kids tried to guess which picture belonged to which student. When we finished, we placed our baby pictures out on our timeline in the hallway along with our birthday. Then we talked about the past and what that means. We celebrated two birthdays this week: Eric turned 6 and Evelyn turned 5! Happy Birthday!!!

Important!
Report cards are being sent home today. Please make sure to look at them and see how your student is doing!

Help at home! Ask your child to tell you the two sounds of the letter we learned this week: y. As a vowel used at the end of a word, y can make the long E or long I sound. Review the letter combinations weve talked about so far: ai, oa, ie, ee, or, ng, oo, ou, oi, ar, er, ir, ur, and ay. For at least 20 minutes every day, read together! Ask questions about the story and record it on your reading log. Practice reading and spelling sight words: this week our sight words were these, after, and take. Talk about the seasons and the changes that you see happening around you.

The kids posted their baby pictures and their birthdays on our timeline. Check our website later this week to see how much each of us has grown!

The kids also worked on comparison stories in math and matching up numbers one-to-one.

The kids drew great pictures about what happened in Zomo the Rabbit.

The kids drew and labeled pictures of the four seasons. Then they cut out snowflakes, flowers, butterflies, and fall leaves to help decorate our board.

The kids learned about halves and worked on splitting different numbers in half using manipulatives.