[simage=145,144,n,right,]BLOCK AREA CITY CONSTRUCTION: We spent last week finishing the construction of our city in block area. Students added more buildings, such as a paint store, police station, and post office. We also worked to add necessary roads and traffic lights. The best part of our whole city was doing the demolition on Friday! Just as much as we enjoyed building the city, we enjoyed tearing it down. Some students have even come up with ideas on what to build next. We might create an airport next!

I’M A BIG RED FIRETRUCK: The song “I’m a big red fire truck” was a favorite song this week during shared reading. Students learned the words and we created movements together as a class. By acting out this fun song while reading the words on chart paper, we were really working on building our literacy connection. Reading and singing poems are part of our daily shared reading. We begin shared reading by using large print poems and songs to read together. We focus on many concepts of print, such as letter sounds, rhyming words, and words that begin the same. By reading the charts together, every student is able to read along as a whole class. Then we continue our shared reading lesson by reading old favorite big books and introducing approximately one new big book a week.

FRIENDSHIP: An ongoing theme in our classroom is our community. As part of creating our classroom community, we have made several things a part of our daily routine. These things include greeting our classmates every morning individually by name, as well as reciting the kindergarten contract we made together (“We will take care of our classroom and everyone in it.”) Students take the time throughout the day to share how they saw someone following the kindergarten contract and how they might better help others in the future. When your child comes home from school, please ask them how they followed the kindergarten contract today.

READING TO THE CLASS: Because reading is one of the most important things we can do, please encourage your child to bring a book in to read to the class! This book should be one they can read confidently and independently.

READ TO THE CLASS: Look for the sign up sheet coming soon to read to the class in the afternoon! Just pick a favorite book from home to share.