August 18-22, 2008

Our second week of school has come to an end.  It is wonderful to see how the children are adjusting to our routine and becoming more independent each day.  It was a pleasure to meet with you at our Open House program on Tuesday evening--thank you for making your child and our school a priority!  I am looking forward to having you assist with center, reading parent, and computer lab activities.  Also, thank you for the many donations for our class--all of the little "extras" make our learning even better!

     We continued our unit on nursery rhymes this week, featuring "Old King Cole", "Little Boy Blue", and "Hey, Diddle, Diddle".  Beginning reading skills such as tracking print from left to right, moving from top to bottom, one-to-one word correspondence, and phonemic awareness (rhyming, beginning sounds) were incorporated into each language lesson.  Next week we look at classic stories and fairy tales. The letter of the week will be Mm and the sight words (rainbow words) will be me and my.

     We began chapter one in Math--Sort and Classify.  The honeybees learned that sorting means putting things that are alike together.  We continued to work on positional words this week as well.  Please read the home connection letter from our math series that was sent home earlier this week--there are activities to do at home to reinforce skills covered in class.

     The honeybees had many new experiences this week:

• Visiting the Media Center for story time and book checkout with Ms. Haas
• Meeting our guidance counselor, Ms. Britton, and having a guidance lesson 
• Introducing ourselves to our book buddies from Ms. Beatty's third grade class--does your child remember his/her book buddy's name?
• Going to the computer lab with Ms. Schulman

  Important things to note:

• Garrison Mill's fund raising campaign, Sally Foster, began last week.  Proceeds from this event benefit our students.  Thank you for supporting our school.
• Mark your calendars for next Thursday, August 28th.  GM will be hosting an Ice Cream Social for kindergarten families in the cafeteria at 6:30 p.m.  This will be a great time to meet other parents and allow your child to socialize with his/her peers.
• Specials next Friday will be Music.   

Have a wonderful weekend!

Janie Hutcherson