Mr. Plummer's

Kindergarten FUN!

Welcome to Mr. Plummer and Mrs. Schaefer's Kindergarten Website!

[Please check back monthly for our classroom happenings!]

A note from your teachers...

It's hard to believe our kindergarten year is half over! We have come so far this year, and we look forward to the months ahead. We THANK YOU for all your hard work, but we cannot stop working hard now.

Kiss your brain and keep on learning!

**February Dates to Remember**

February 6 - Horizon's Field Trip

February 14 - Valentine Exchange

February 14 - Snow Make-Up Day

February 20 - Midterm Progress Reports Issued

February 28 - County-Wide Writing Test

2007-2008 School-Wide Theme:

UNDER CONSTRUCTION:

Rising to New Heights

Your child continues to bring home a small take-home book to read every night. Please take time to read this book with him and let him read it to you. Use this book as an opportunity to reinforce our Book and Print Awareness skills found in your BEE Book and a great tool for beginning pre-reading and comprehension skills. Be sure to sign your child's book log and return the take-home book every day. A completed book log brings home a PIZZA TICKET as part of the Book-It program!

 February Units of Study

Math

Numerals 11-20 - recognizing, writing, and building sets - These are often the most difficult numerals for children. Please work on them frequently, finding a pattern to order the numbers.

Patterning - Continue to work with patterns as a pre-algebra skill. We have worked extensively with AB, AAB, ABB, AABB, ABC, and ABBA. Build and extend these pattern types.

Addition CONCEPTS - Kindergartners do NOT need to memorize addition facts and families, but they DO need to understand the concept of putting two groups together to arrive at a sum. Practice adding common objects at home.

Measurement - Kindergartners work with non-standard units of measurement. This means we do not use inches, centimeters, feet, and yards, common units of English measurement. Practice measuring things around your house with pennies, toothpicks, footsteps, and other small objects. Make learning fun!

Reading Language Arts

Rhyming recognition - Children will be listening to words to determine like ending sounds to discover new rhyming words. Working with this skill will help your child learn to change only the beginning sound to make a new word. We will be making words in various word families. (-am, -et, -ig, -ot, -ug)

CVCs - consonant-vowel-consonant words - These simple three- (and sometimes four-) letter words can be easily sounded out and spelled. Let your child practice sounding out these words slowly, listening to beginning, middle, and ending sounds.

Comprehension and retelling skills - As we move out of our Book and Print Awareness Skills and into our DRA reading levels, comprehension of a story becomes a major focus. Please use every story you read with your child as an opportunity to name characters, sequence important events, and talk about the story. Books need to be more than a spoken word.

Writing

CVCs - Students should be able to listen to short three-letter words and stretch the words to listen to all beginning, middle, and ending sounds. It is an important skill to transfer these sounds from the spoken word to paper.

Detailed Drawings - By this point in kindergarten, children should be using markers and crayons to draw a DETAILED picture to convey a message. Drawings shoould include a character (most likely themselves), details to show where they are, details to show what they are doing, and be neat enough for others to notice what is going on. Be thorough and colorful!

"Readable" Sentences - All drawings should be accompanied by at least one (but hopefully two!) sentences. Pay close attention to capitals at the beginning, punctuation at the end, and spaces between SOUNDED OUT words. Students should be able to write beginning and ending sounds for all words but should try for some, if not all, of the medial sounds, too!

County Writing Assessment: FEBRUARY 28!

Capital at the beginning! Period at the end! Spaces in between!

Social Studies

New Year's Day

Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday

Science

 Season - Winter

Snow

Hibernation and animals in winter

Penguins and Arctic animals

Eskimos

Basic Kindergarten Skills =)

...you can work on at home!

tying shoes                  zipping coats

home address          home phone number

formation of uppercase and lowercase letters

birthday          days of the week

months of the year          writing last name

Mr. Plummer's Favorite Books for

Character Education Word for the month of January

COURAGE