Dear families,
We finished our Jan Brett Author Study with the books The First Dog, and Annie and the Animals. The children's literature folders will go home on Friday.
The excitement of the Sochi Olympics is in our class too and the children made torches and the Olympic Rings.
This week and next we will be tracking medals and doing a literacy and numeracy-based unit on the Winter Olympic Games. Look for a new Winter Olympic folder in your child's white bags in a few weeks! Go Canada go!
The Senior Kindergarten homework this weekend is to write about their favourite Jan Brett book and to draw an accompanying picture. JKs, please continue your phonics folders.
Believe it or not, tomorrow is the 100th Day of School! The children will have fun counting to 100 in various ways and with various activities, snacks and crafts. Thank you for helping your children count and bring in their 100 items. They are on our Museum of 100 Things display on our hall bulletin board. If your child didn't bring them in yet, it's not too late!
It is Junior Kindergarten registration this week (I will be registering new children on Tuesday) and on Friday it is Valentine's day. If your child is writing valentines to his/her classmates, please send them in by Thursday at the latest since the children need time to sort them in their classmates' valentine bags. Thank you.
Thank you as well to our parent volunteers who are helping out in the classroom on Monday and Friday, and thank you to our Grade Parents for organizing our volunteers. Thank you to Sabrina's mom and Olivia's mom who did our snuggle books and white bags this week. Your time is always appreciated.
Last but not least, here are some tips to accelerate your SK child's reading progress as s/he has begun guided reading lessons with me in class:
. Take away the reading finger.
. Sounding unknown words out letter by letter is the last strategy a new reader should use and the most inefficient (slowing down the reading process and interfering with reading comprehension). Encourage your child to first use the meaning of the story (What makes sense?) or the picture , the structure of the sentence (What sounds right?), to re-read the sentence quickly and make the first sound of the unknown word and see if it pops out of their mouth, or if they see something they know inside the word (for example "is" inside "his") before trying to sound out the word. Tell your child,the word if it takes more than 3 seconds to sound it out.
. Encourage your child to make their reading sound like talking (reading fluency) so that his/her strong oral language is used to solve unknown words. Word by word reading slows down reading progress and interferes with reading comprehension. After the first read of the book with you, have your child read it again so it sounds like talking with phrasing (words naturally grouped together like when you talk), with pauses at punctuation (period, exclamation mark, comma), and with intonation (some words louder or sounding like a question). Feel free to model reading the text with fluency to your child if needed. Re-reading books many times increases reading fluency and builds your child's reading vocabulary.
. Please see me if you have any questions.
I hope you have a wonderful week! Apparently on Thursday it will be seasonal temperatures rather than below normal! Amazing!
Mrs. Tyndall
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