KINDERGARTEN NEWSNOTES FOR DECEMBER
Seasons Greetings! Here is an overview of the major topics that will be covered during the month of December:
Reading/Language Arts
*Books of interest: The Gingerbread Man, The Gingerbread Baby, The Gingerbread Boy, Latkes and Applesauce, What is Hanukkah?, Kwanzaa, Christmas Trolls, Clifford’s Christmas, If you Give a Mouse a Cookie, If you Take a Mouse to the Movies, If you Give a Moose a Muffin, The Polar Express, The Wild Christmas Reindeer, The Night Before Christmas
*We will focus on the concepts of print during reading. (following words left to right, top to bottom, return sweep) It is important to encourage one-to-one match of spoken words to printed words. Students will identify parts of a book. Students will recognize that print provides meaning.
*Comprehension: Use illustrations to gain meaning
Predict what the story is about from the title or based on pictures
Respond to questions using illustrations from the text
Use illustrations and print to identify story line, main characters, and setting
Relate stories to prior experiences
Recognize there are different purposes for reading
Retell text in own words
State if literature is real or make-believe
*Letter/Sound Identification: Uu, Rr, Ff
We will use tongue twisters to help students begin to use initial consonant sounds to read words. Students will match consonant sounds to appropriate letters. We will practice proper letter formation as well as use key words in a written sentence. Students should be able to recognize and identify all upper- and lower-case letters.
*Rhyming/Chunks: –op (hop, mop), review –an (man, can)The goal is for students to begin using word patterns to read words. Students will blendsounds together to make words. Students should be able to identify and make rhyming words.
*Word Recognition: New words—other, about, out, many, these, some,
Continue to practice: color words, a, the, we, see, I, am, me, can, my, you, is, like, and, on,at, to, said, go, in, this, here, up, look, it, come We have introduced 50% of the Kindergarten sight words and the children are doing well in recognizing them in isolation. Please work with your child on recognizing the words in text that they read at home.
Writing
Goals: Write independently to convey personal ideas.
Write simple sentences.
Spell high-frequency words correctly
Use approximate spelling to convey meaning.
Add details to drawings to convey additional meaning.
*Interactive Writing: The teacher and students write together to formulate a piece. The goal
is for students to contribute to a group writing experience. Ex. Students will generate
sentences about a gingerbread man. He ran from a ____.
*Independent Writing (structured): Ex. If I were a gift, I would be a ______.
We are working on writing multiple sentences (3-4) related to a topic.
*Journal Writing (unstructured): Ex. K is for ______. Ex. Draw and write about your
holidays.
Focus: Letter formation
Sight Words
Spacing between words
Punctuation
*Listening and Writing: Students will be given the opportunity to practice this assessment skill during Orton Gillingham dictation on Wednesdays.
A sentence will be read aloud for the student to write independently using approximated
spelling.
Math
*Count through to100
*Identify the number of objects in a set (10 -20)
*Identify and create sets of objects with more, less, or equal amounts
*Recognize odd and even numbers of objects *Model a number (through 10) in a variety of ways using objects
*Identify the position of an object using the numbers first through fifth
*Practice writing numbers 1-30 correctly
Extensions in Literacy and Math Science/Social Studies
Living Things: and Plants
*Students will be able to identify and describe the life cycle of a plant and other living things.
*Students will be able to identify the basic needs of living things.
Religion
*Advent season we will discuss the meaning of Advent and the significance in our Church. We will discuss what we could do to help others less fortunate at this time of year.
*Discuss the Christmas season
*Jesus parents and the birth of Jesus
*December holidays Christmas vacation begins at the end of the day December 21,
2016