Dear Families,

We hope that everyone had a relaxing holiday break with your families. There are many things that the Kindergarten team is thankful for, but we want to publicly say that we are thankful for all of our students and families! We know that these past couple of weeks have been filled with many changes and we appreciate the flexibility that everyone has shown as we work out all the details. Now that we are settling into our new classroom environments, the Kindergarten teachers would like to remind families the importance of completing the Google Classroom assignments that are found in the Weekly Assignment Notebook. Distance learning has brought about some challenges that we normally wouldn’t face while in-person and one of those challenges is being able to collect student work samples. The teachers carefully plan these Google Classroom assignments so that we are able to see your student’s progress in learning classroom material. We look at these assignments to purposefully plan lessons or groups based on how the students are mastering the academic content. Google Classroom assignments are posted every Monday and the expectation is that they are completed by the following Sunday so that we have time to check them the following week. As we are planning these Google Assignments, we would like to hear your feedback; please complete this anonymous survey regarding the Google Classroom Assignments. We would appreciate each family taking the time to fill this out. Thank you again for all the at-home support you give your student, we could not do this without you all!

-The Kindergarten Team 

Language Arts

What are we learning?

• Readers will learn to notice patterns in books.
  • Patterns with words
  • Patterns with pictures (ex: same character on each page)
• Readers will begin to self-monitor themselves as they read. 
  • Using reading strategies on their own.
• Readers will use information from the text to figure out how the reading should sound.
  • Character feelings
  • Dialogue
• Writers will practice coming up with topics they can write about.

Home/School Connection

• As you’re reading, ask your student to identify any patterns that they notice in the book. Sample questions to ask: 
  • Do you hear any of the same words on each page? 
  • Do any words repeat?
  • What do you notice about the pictures? Do any of the characters appear on every page? 
  • Are any actions repeated? 
• Have your student brainstorm different topics that they might like to write about
• Ask your student if there is any topic that they know a lot of information about. 
  • The hope is that they could write/draw a few different things on a given topic.

Math

What are we learning?

• Students will learn how to create a repeating pattern.
• Students will learn how to compare similarities and differences in repeating patterns.
• Students will learn how to transfer repeating patterns.

Home/School Connection

• Take a walk around your house or neighborhood and look for patterns.   Can you find an AB pattern?  Can you find an ABC pattern?  Look closely at gardens and door colors.
• Make an ABC pattern as many ways as you can.  What objects did you use?  What rhythms did you use?

Science/Social Studies

What are we learning?

• Students will be exploring how everything can be divided into living or nonliving things and continue to learn about the needs of living organisms. 
• Students will be learning about geography in our next social studies unit, particularly focusing on maps and globes and understanding they each model a different perspective.

Home/School Connection

• Go on a nature walk with your student. Make a list of things you find that are living and nonliving.  
• Consider looking at a map or globe with your student and asking them what they observe. What color is the land? What color is the water? Is there any significance in these color choices? What other symbols do they notice?

Class Compliments

• Mrs. Bender’s Class has been doing a great job making their classmates feel welcomed! I am also impressed with how respectful they are to each other when a classmate is sharing.
• Mrs. Johnson’s Class is showing flexibility and open mindedness by adapting to changes and welcoming new friends. 
• Miss Matthews’ Virtual Kindergarten 2.0 did an amazing job last week!  Everyone was kind and caring to each other as we got to know each other and new routines.  It was like we have been together all along!  Way to go!
• Mrs. Nieto’s Class 2.0 has been doing an awesome job adapting to new routines and building a great classroom community.

POG/Positivity Project

• Positivity Project (P2) for the week of November 30- December 4 is kindness
• Positivity Project (P2) for the week of December 7-11  is knowing my words and actions affect others
• Portrait of a Graduate (POG): All of Terraset Elementary is working on being Collaborators. Kindergarten is focusing on sharing our ideas.

Home/School Connection

• Make sure your children are friendly and grateful with all the people in their daily lives, such as a bus driver or a waitress.
• Encourage children to care for those who are vulnerable. Give children some simple ideas for stepping into the “caring and courage zone,” like comforting a classmate who was teased.
• Use a newspaper or TV story to encourage your child to think about hardships faced by children in another country (or in our country). 
  • From the article Are you Raising Nice Kids?

Important Upcoming Dates

• December 1-18: Terraset Elementary 14 Days of Cheer. Look for the dress up day themes in the Terragram and/or an email from your child’s teacher!
• December 6 at 2:00: South Lakes High School A Christmas Carol performance. Get tickets here
• December 7:  Tigers on the Town, PTO fundraiser at Chick-Fil-A Sunset Hills 4:00-8:00pm
• December 8: PTO Virtual Zoom Meeting 7:00-8:00pm
• December 11: Scholastic Book orders due
  • https://clubs.scholastic.com/home
  • Connect to your teacher with their class code for value prices on books and free shipping! Makes great holiday presents!
    • Johnson class code: VNYJ6
    • Matthews class code: GZ3NY
    • Bender class code: TNMQD
    • Neito code: PH732
• December 21-January 1:  Winter Break

Click here to see what students are learning in Specials!