I See!

Has your child asked you for a permanent marker? Have they asked you to point to your pre-frontal cortex?
"Why would they do these things?", you ask?

Well, we have started our Unit on the Five Senses, and I always like to start off by showing the students pictures of the brain and giving them a brief, kid-friendly version of the parts of the brain and what they do and control. Kids love to see pictures of things and how they work.

This week the children started learning and using their sense of sight and looked closely at seashells. I am having the children use new vocabulary to describe things. Please try to help them expand their list of adjectives by modeling some examples, (time to pull out the Roget's Thesaurus)!

Enclosed in your child's folder on Friday was a cute little 5 Senses song. It is sung to the tune of "I've Got Something in My Pocket" (the kids know it). Have fun and sing this together with your kindergartner. There was also a Home Connections activity that you can do to extend this learning.

Our letter sound and recognition studies continue and as of this week we have studied the letters Bb, Mm, Rr, and Ss. We had fun with some Centers that used spinners, counted snakes, wrote our names in sand, with string and shaving cream. Our classroom smelled sensational! I also surprised the children and uncovered the sand table!! A BIG hit (and MY favorite thing to do in kindergarten when I was 5!) You can continue to reinforce these letters and sounds by visiting www.starfall.com. It's fun and free!

We also began the first of many Computer labs. Mr. Gil has arranged for the classroom computers to be wheeled into an empty pre-school classroom which will serve as a temporary Computer Lab each week. The children enjoyed learning to use some of the tools in a program called KidPix. 

Our Reading Workshop continues as the children are learning strategies to be good readers. Thanks to all who have been practicing this week's homework of recognizing the beginning, middle and end of books. This will eventually lead to sequencing and story comprehension. 

A "head's up" for the Reading Homework for this week: Good Readers Learn Good Strategies". They "read" the pictures, they read any words or letters they recognize, they get their minds ready by looking at the cover and ask themselves, "what do I think this book is going to be about?" and then then put these things together and start to read. Remember that "reading" also means talking about the pictures. Hopefully you are reading daily and giving your child opportunities to talk to you about the story.

We had another great school Spirit Day. Congratulations to this month's Star Students - AM - Jacob Ruocco and Cate Hampson and PM students Grace Hannnigan and Luke DiNola. Star Students are selected on how consistently they have demonstrated good citizenship, friendliness, cooperation and participation.

Next Friday, Oct. 31st is Halloween. Thanks to all the Moms who have planned some activities for this day. Mr. Gil is scheduling a Halloween Parade for ALL to attend. The AM parade will commence @10 am and the PM parade will start @1:30.
Your child can come to school dressed in their costume, but please make sure that they will be able to move around safely. NO WEAPONS, SWORDS, ETC., PLEASE.

A safety note from Mr. Gil. Please drive slowly. There are several children and parents who walk to and from school and it has been brought to his attention that some drivers are exceeding the speed limit. CAUTION PLEASE!