You Can't Catch Me...I'm the Gingerbread Man!

We have been in full Gingerbread mode! This week our Let's Find Out Scholastic Magazine was about bakeries and the jobs that people have in the bakeries and we talked about how gingerbread cookies are made and gingerbread houses.  We also had some fun reading a few versions of The Gingerbread Man. We read The Gingerbread Baby, The Gingerbread Girl,  The Gingerbread Bear, The Gingerbread Boy, and The Ninjabread Man.  Which version was your child's favorite?  Lastly, the children got a new book for their book box:  Run, Gingerbread, Run.  They used their reading superpowers to help them read this new story!

Speaking of superpowers...our Kindergarten readers have been using their reading superpowers every day and it is helping them to become great beginning readers!  I hope they have shown you pointer power and re-read power when reading with you at home.  This week we learned about two new powers we need to activate when reading:  picture power and snap word power.  When we use picture power, we are using the illustrations in the story to help us figure out the words on the page.  This is one of our strongest powers right now!  When reading with your child, it is great to do a picture walk first (looking through the book and just talking about the pictures).  This gets the picture power activated and ready to use when trying to figure out tricky words.  We also learned about "snap word" power.  We use this power when we find and read our sight words in books...in a snap!  Ask your child to show you some of his or her reading superpowers this weekend!

In Writer's Workshop, we talked about what to do when you want to spell a big word and do not know how!  In Kindergarten, we call it "best guess" spelling.  This means the children are listening for the sounds they hear in a word and writing down the letters that make those sounds. This week we talked about following these steps to figure out how to write a word in a story:

• First, think of what you want to say
• Say the word slowly
• Listen to the sounds in the word
• Think about what letters make those sounds
• Write the letters for the sounds you hear

  

I was amazed today, during Writer's Workshop, to see these Kindergartners spelling larger words and writing sentences!  They should be proud! If your children ask you how to spell a word at home, instead of telling them, encourage them to use the steps I outlined above.  You will be impressed!

During Fundations, we learned about the letters V and W.  We practiced our letter formation and brainstormed words that begin with that letter.  We also learned two new sight words this week: in and to.  They were in a snowman book we added to our book boxes! We have compiled quite a list of sight words so far!
a, are, am, do, I , it, in, see, the, to, we, you
Can your child point out any sight words in books at home!

We also enjoyed hearing about everyone's traditions this week!  We heard about Nora's special Christmas Eve breakfast, Alectra's decorations on the Christmas tree, Clementine's name pancakes, Roman's cookies, Alex's trains around his Christmas tree, Miss Carol Ann's picture calendar, Violet's visit to the Shelburne Tree Lighting, Henry's Green Friday, and Caroline's visit to the Waldorf School Holiday Mart.  Can your child tell you about anyone's traditions?





Lastly, in math we are working on ordering numbers from 1-20.  We learned about the number line as a math tool and have been practicing talking about numbers that come before other numbers and numbers that come after.  We have also been working on positional words in math using our December calendar.  Can your child demonstrate the positions, in front of, behind, inside, outside, to the left, and to the right?  Be sure to ask your child about a new game we learned called Avocado Smash!  We had a lot of fun playing it and it great for recognizing teen numbers!

Have a wonderful weekend!