Newsletter for August 29th, 2008

We’ve grown so much in the last 3 weeks! Can you believe we’ve been in school for 13 days already? The children have quickly picked up the routines and are following them without to much difficulty.
This week, we have been reading a big book titled “Cookies Week” by Cindy Ward. I like using this book because of the way the words repeat. It also helps us learn the Days of the Week. We did several activities with this book, including sequencing the activities, re-writing the ending to the story, and retelling the story with out pictures; using the sequencing chart we made.
To supplement this book, we wrote a Predictable Chart. I started each child off with the sentence starter: “A cat can...” and the children filled in several words that they thought fit. Friday, we made our first class book where each of the students used their sentence to create words on their page and drew illustrations to match. I type each child’s sentence and print it out and give it to them to glue it on to their paper. Eventually, the children will cut apart their sentence and glue the words back together and in order.
We have also begun to move away from free exploration time with our math materials and into more structured lessons. We have been working on developing our concept of numbers, and being able to recognize groups of numbers without counting them.
Writer’s Workshop is a big hit! The children groan every day when I tell them it is time to stop writing. I spend a few minutes with each of them everyday, commenting on their work, helping them to stretch out words and offering up suggestions for them to try. They have come a long way in 3 weeks! Many of the children are writing words they see around the classroom and making them into labels for their illustrations.
Thank you so much to the Washington Township Foundation for funding several grants in our classroom this year! Our magnet lab materials are slowly trickling in, as well as our composting materials, greenhouses, and our new Legos arrived on Thursday afternoon!
Thank you so much for taking time to attend our Back to School night on Wednesday. If you were unable to attend, I sent home packets with your child on Thursday detailing what we discussed.
I am collecting e-mail addresses from parents. If you are not on my e-mail list and would like to be, please e-mail me at the address below so that you can be added to my list! :) I will be posting new information to our classroom blog as well: www.poindexterpress.blogspot.com
Have a wonderful weekend!
Kristen Poindexter