Week of Sept. 1-5

Dear Parents,

Last week we had a lot of fun learning about facts of tigers and turtles. The kids enjoyed learning that tigers are wild cats that love to swim and that turtles use their flippers to dig holes to lay their eggs.

This week we will focus our study on the letter Pp. We will learn about Polar Bears and Pigs. If you have any books, posters, or videos that talk about these two animals, we would appreciate it if you would let us borrow them. The vocabulary we will be learning for this letter is pear, potato, pizza, piano, parrot, purse, paint, paintbrush, popsicle, penguin, popcorn, pancake, plant, puppy, pig.

If you have any items at home that begin with this letter, send them over with your child and we will be discussing them in class, we will display them on a table and we will return them back on Friday. The kids get excited to bring things from home.

Some of the stories that we will be reading are the following:

Penny, Polly, and Peter Pig are planning the perfect picnic! What will they pack? Make sure you ask your child about it!

 This is a colorfully decorated book that takes children from animal to animal learning about different animal and people sounds. Children will chant the rhythmic words. They'll make the sounds the animals make. And they'll pretend to be the zoo animals featured in the book.

If you give a pig a pancake, she'll want some syrup to go with it. You'll give her some of your favorite maple syrup, and she'll probably get all sticky, so she'll want to take a bath. She'll ask you for some bubbles. When you give her the bubbles... what would she ask for? The vocabulary we will be discussing for this book is the following: pig, pancake, syrup, bubbles, duck, suitcase, tap, piano, camera, envelope, glue, mailbox.

We will continue reviewing all the sight words introduced so far: the, I, and, a, to, in, is, that, you, it. Please take 5 minutes a day to practice these words at home. You can have them posted on a magnetic board, on the refrigerator, or any other creative area you can think of.

In our Phonemic Awareness area we will continue clapping syllables. This is a hard concept for some children especially the words that have only one syllable. You may want to play games around your house that involves clapping the number of syllables they hear in words. to-ma-to, doc-tor, map

In Math we will be doing all sort of activities with numbers 6-10. These activities include sequencing numbers in their right order, making sets, comparing numbers, concepts of more and less.

Please find a time in which your child can be at the computer at least twice a week practicing the following skills:

Numbers and counting up to 5

1.     B.2Represent numbers - up to 5

2.     B.3Count by typing - up to 5

We would like to thank Felipe Fúnez and Lucia Torres for donating the ingredients for Kinder Kafe last week. The children enjoyed making a taco with tortillas, shredded chicken, and sauce. Yummy!! This week the students in charge are Mateo Jácome and Nicolas Martin.

Read to your child daily. Reading increases vocabulary. Read everything and everything from books to the cereal box!

You may want to try this game with your child at home:

At some point in your life, you’ve probably played the game “I Spy.” It’s perfect for boring waits at the grocery store, or long car rides. But with a little tweaking, the game can also help kids practice a key Kindergarten concept…syllables. Here’s how to play:

What You Need:

•  Hat
•  Paper, ripped into small strips

What You Do:

1.     Start the game with a little refresher. Tell your child that just as music can be divided into beats, words can be divided into syllables. Spend a few minutes talking about a few multi-syllable words, clapping at each syllable to show your child where the “breaks” are.

2.    Let 'er rip! With your child’s help, tear a piece of paper into a bunch of small strips. On each piece of paper, write a number from 1-4. When you’re finished, throw them all into the hat.

3.    Time to play! The first player picks a slip of paper from the hat. Just like in “I Spy,” he must come up with an object for the other player to guess. But in this version of the game, he must come up with an object with the number of syllables on the slip. For example, if he picked the number 2, he might choose “table” or “teaspoon” or “stapler.”  With children this age, the number of syllables itself probably isn’t enough of a hint to keep the game from getting frustrating, so give clues that incorporate other hints as well, for example, “I spy something black with two syllables” or “I spy something you eat on that has two syllables.”

As your child gets the hang of it, don’t be afraid to throw a bit more challenge into the hat. Or, hat aside, just ask your child to think of a word with three syllables, or even four! He’ll look at your refrigerator in a whole new light.