Hi Kindergarten Families! 

It’s hard to believe that the first quarter of school is ending on October 28th--the Kindergarten Team has enjoyed getting to know the students both personally and academically! Kindergarten will NOT be receiving report cards for Quarter 1, instead, the Kindergarten team will be reaching out to families in the next week or two to start scheduling conferences. Because Kindergarteners do not receive Quarter 1 report cards, it is important for the teachers to touch base with all families to discuss student progress. Each conference will be about 20 minutes long so that we are able to meet with all of our families. During the conferences, we will be discussing the data we collected from the Beginning of Year Assessments along with how your student has been doing socially in class. Please be sure to keep an eye out for a message from your specific teacher to start signing up for conferences! 

We look forward to meeting with all our families during conferences!

-The Kindergarten Team

**Calling all gardeners! If you are interested in helping us clean up our kindergarten courtyard (door 5), please email @email. Possible gardening days: Saturday October 23, Monday November 1 or Tuesday November 2.  Thanks!**

Language Arts

What are we learning?

• Readers notice letters and words in a text.
• Readers notice when their pointing doesn’t match (stop, try again, fix it).
• Readers interact with stories and the characters by matching the character’s: 
  • Voice
  • Face
  • Movements
• Writers share and listen to each other’s stories. 
• Writers understand how to communicate meaning through drawings and words.

Home/School Connection

• Now that we have had a few more sight words introduced in class, encourage students to find these in books they read or in books that are being read to them. 
  • a
  • the
  • I
  • see
  • can 
  • am
  • look (next week)
  • at (next week)
• Have students point to the words as they read a book. Make sure the word they are reading and pointing to match!
• Read a story to your student using special voices for the characters. Have them give it a try!
• Act out simple stories to match what is happening!
• Have a family writing night! Each member writes something that happened during their day--at the end share your stories with each other.

Math

What are we learning?

We will be continuing our counting and numbers unit! In this unit, students will…

• Learn to count objects and write numbers. 
• Learn to put numbers in order. 
• Learn how to count and compare.

Home/School Connection

• Allow students to count different items in/around your house!
• Encourage students to number items on your grocery list or to do list. 
• Create numbers with play-doh.

Science/Social Studies

What are we learning?

• Students will describe relative location of people, places, and things using positional words.
• Students will learn the basic needs and life processes of pumpkins.
• Students will recognize and identify seasonal  changes.

Home/School Connection

• With a grown-up demonstrate the following terms:  near/far, above/below, left/right, and behind/in front of. 
• Take a trip to the Pumpkin Patch and pick out a pumpkin.  What do you notice?  What do you wonder?
• Pick a tree near your home to observe throughout the school year.  What do you notice about your tree?

Class Compliments

• Mrs. Bender and Mrs. Santoro would like to shout out our students for their participation in class! It is wonderful to see all of the students raising their hands to answer questions and share their thinking during Morning Meeting and Closing Circle. This past week we even practiced sharing our partner’s thinking, and they did a great job listening and repeating what their partner shared!
• Ms. Johnson and Mrs. B are impressed with our students’ excitement.  They LOVED having ants to observe in science, love dancing along to GoNoodle, and are always excited to share their thinking.
• Miss Matthews and Mrs. Dillon would like to shout out the entire class for doing such a wonderful job in Math Stations!  They are doing an impressive job rotating from station to station, as well as working well with their classmates on doing the activities.  Keep it up!
• Ms. Powers and Mrs. T are so excited that our friends have been practicing our positivity project traits. We have noticed that friends are working hard to be open-minded, to work as a team, and are practicing with new ways to be creative! We love seeing these positive traits in our classroom and school!

Social Emotional/Positivity Project

• Positivity Project (P2) for the week of October 12-October 15 is Integrity
• Positivity Project (P2) for the week of October 18-22 is forgiveness
• Kindergarteners will start to use the renowned Kimochi’s program during their Guidance specials class.  This was made possible by a grant from Educate Fairfax!

Home/School Connection

• Lying is a normal part of a child’s development.  There are many reasons a child might lie: to gain approval, to avoid getting in trouble, speaking before thinking, or to get the focus off of themselves. For low level lies, state what you know is true and move on. For medium lies, give them an option to try again. For big lies, following through on a natural consequence is necessary. Let children know you are a person they can go to by remaining calm and separating the child from the behavior. The child is not a liar, the child told a lie. 
• Model asking for forgiveness.  Whether you've had a mini-tantrum after a stressful day, accidentally broken your child's toy, or left your child's favorite pj's at Grandma's, make your apology straightforward and sincere --- and ask for forgiveness. We all make mistakes!
• There will be a weekly letter to go along with each Kimochi lesson.  Here is the Kimochi Intro Letter for an overview of the program.

Important Upcoming Dates

• Tuesday October 11-15: Spirit Week
  • Tuesday: Sports Day 
  • Wednesday: Wacky Wednesday
  • Thursday: Pajama Day 
  • Friday: Terraset Spirit
• Friday October 15: South Lakes Homecoming Parade, Hunters Woods Shopping Center at 4:30pm **Wear orange!***
• Tuesday October 19: Bender/Johnson field trip to Walker Nature Center
• Wednesday October 27: Tigers on the Town-Chipotle South Lakes Dr 4:00-7:00pm
• Thursday October 28: Matthews/Powers field trip to Walker Nature Center
• Friday October 29: End of quarter 1, **2 hour early release**

Click here to see what students are learning in Specials!