Drawing Detailed People

Below you will see pictures of two detailed people~ a boy and a girl. Please practice drawing detailed people with your child. We take a grade on detailed people and need to see multiple details on the face. Along with important details like a neck, muscle arms and legs, fingers and whenever possible toes. :) 

Enjoy discussing the drawings with your child!

Week of August 27

This week's Fun Friday Dress-Up is School Color Day and Giovanni is bringing in Fun Friday Snacks for the whole class. Our school's colors are yellow and blue. :) Also, we are selling School T-Shirts= they are black with a blue cheetah paw and they are $10.00. Currently the Youth sizes available are S, M, L. The school t-shirt is great to wear for School Color Day and School Spirit Days. 

Wednesday is our first EARLY RELEASE DAY. We will start dismissal at 1:30. If your child is a Bus Rider, make sure to find out what time your child's bus will be dropping them off. If a parent is not at the bus stop when the bus arrives~ the bus returns the Kindergartner to school. The phone number for the Transportation Department is 858-6200.

Our Resources this week are: Mon~ P.E. (wear sneakers), Tues~ ART, Wed~ ART, Thurs~MUSIC and Fri~MEDIA. (The students in Kindergarten do not bring the Media books home. If your child accidentally brings it home, please let us know by writing a note and return it to school.)

MATH

This week we are continuing to practice our counting and write numbers 1-5. In our Duval Math we are also learning about our "math fingers". This may look different than what you have seen before or learned. It took us awhile to get used to as well. With our "math fingers" we start counting 1 with our pinky finger and end with 5 on our thumb. Please practice at home it will help later lessons. We are also continuing to learn about sorting/classifying objects based on their attributes (same color, same size, etc.). 

WRITING

As I mentioned in last week's post. Our current focus is detailed people. We will be drawing a detailed boy and girl together as a class. Then the students will have practice later on in the week doing their own drawings.

SAXON/READING SKILLS

Last week we completed our first Saxon paper. The students did great!! This week we will continue to focus on letter l and we will be reviewing the sight words from last week. 

READING

This week we are using Duval Reads and focusing on Nursery Rhymes and Fables. We will be discussing some vocabulary words in each rhyme, along with predictions and connections for each. The Nursery Rhymes we will be reading are Ring Around the Rosie, Rain = Rain Go Away = It's Raining. It's Pouring = Jack Be Nimble = Little Jack Horner.

(I searched long and hard for Youtube Videos to post... but I honestly didn't like any of them and the illustrations looked very different from the ones that Duval Reads has the children focus on. So I will not be attaching videos.)

UpComing Dates for September!!

Monday, September 3 is Labor Day and school is closed.

Wednesday, September 12 is an Early Release Day.

Monday, September 17 is the day Progress Reports are scheduled to go home with students. PLEASE remember to sign and return the Progress Report the following day. We give a treat for the students that do! :) 

Friday, September 21 is our Fun Run Date. We have not been informed of the time that Kindergarten students will be running. As soon as we know that information, we will let you know. 

(We are supposed to have a Kick Off Assembly for this event on Friday (Aug.31) so be on the lookout for information to come home. :)  )

Wednesday, September 26 is an Early Release Day.

Friday, September 28 is Fall Picture Day. These are the pictures that go in the School Year Book!! So make sure to wear your best smile. :) 

Sports/Team Day

We began the day with the students telling us what team/ sport they represented. It was adorable!! We took pictures during our rainy Indoor Recess Time. Some students didn't want to walk over and take their picture... so you may notice your child is missing from the post. 

Favorite Color Clothes

We were waiting on our subscription of Smilebox to renew... but it seems to be taking longer than expected. And we didn't want you to wait a second longer!! :) Here are the pictures we took from Favorite Color Day. This was our first Fun Friday Dress-Up!!

*If you notice your child is not pictured, it could be for multiple reasons: we do not have a signed Media Release, they were not wearing their favorite color the day pictures were taken or they didn't want their picture taken. 

Scholastic Book Clubs

Our Class Code - QDG3F

Support Your Child’s Reading Success!

Dear Families,

Did you know? Kids who read for just 20 minutes a day are more successful in school and life. Ordering from Scholastic Book Clubs is an easy way to find the best books that are just right for your child’s grade and interests.

Here’s how:
*Choose books with your child from the paper flyers or online at: scholastic.com/bookclubs
To order online, connect to our class using our Class Code (or look me up by our school name):
QDG3F

*Bonus: This month, you can pick a FREE Book (up to $5) when you place an online order of $25
or more!

As soon as your order is delivered to our classroom, we will send it home with your child in their backpack.
ooh we forgot to mention the best part... every order you place earns FREE Books for our class to share. ALL ORDERS ARE DUE BY FRIDAY, AUGUST 31, 2018.

Thank you for your support and happy reading,
Mrs.Croft and Ms. Finocchiaro

Highlights High Five Magazine

Today your child will be bringing home a yellow flyer informing you about all the amazing things Highlight's High Five Magazine offers. :) We realize many of you will not want to fill out the form and instead go straight online to order~ so we wanted to make that available to you. 

For those of you that aren't familiar with Highlights High Five. Allow us to explain... it is a colorful monthly magazine that has activities, stories and puzzles all geared to your child's age and beginning reader level. Over the years many of our students have ordered Highlights High Five and it's really helped them fall in love with Reading. 

Try ordering and maybe it'll have the same effect on your child! :) Also, right after you order online you will get access to the digital editions. 

To order online, go to: Highlights.com/FunForSchool

When ordering online, you will need to have our Teacher ID and School #. You can find that information listed below. 

Our Teacher ID is 08200229555

Our School # is 0111942161

Open House Slideshow

Thank you to everyone that took time out of their busy schedules and made it to Open House tonight. If you weren't able to make it, do not worry!! Your child will be bringing home a copy of this slideshow and a Ziploc Baggie filled with the information we discussed. 

Graham joined the 5-Year-Old Club

Today the students celebrated Graham's Birthday during Recess with cupcakes and milk. :) 

Happy Birthday Graham!

Fun Friday Snack Sign Ups

Our class is a Community and we do a lot of things together... including Fun Friday Snacks. :) We have had one parent reach out and ask to sign up for Fun Friday Snacks. We hope to have more parents email us and request one of the dates. If you don't want to request a particular date, we'll assign the next available date. 

Email us at Finocchiaj@duvalschools.org & Crofth1@duvalschools.org. 

Week of August 20

We are super excited for Week 2!! Last week was a good introduction to our Classroom Rules and Expectations. Thank you to everyone for discussing their child's Daily Color with them and the notes we wrote. This week we will do a little review of our rules, but we're really hoping to start some Academics! :) 

Our Resources this week are as follows: MONDAY~ ART, TUESDAY~ART, WEDNESDAY~MUSIC. Wednesday is also Graham's Birthday! He is joining the 5 Year Old Club.

Friday is Team/Sports Day. Make sure to wear a shirt that supports your favorite team or sport. :)  Malu is bringing in Fun Friday Snacks!! 

MATH

This week we will practice our fluency skills of counting to 10 using our hands, objects, and math tools. Along with rote counting we will start practicing writing our numbers 0-10. In our math lessons this week we are focusing on sorting and classifying objects based on their attributes. Our vocabulary words will include: sort, groups, similar, exact same, different, size, and color. Students will be learning how to classify items based on their size, shape, color, etc.
Here are a few videos you'll be hearing your child sing or tell you about... (We Love Jack Hartmann)

WRITING

This week during writing will be focused on details for drawing people. We will practice drawing people that have a neck and a torso, with arms and legs extending out of  the torso. DO NOT worry if your child draws arms and lets coming out of their head. The more we practice and discuss the details, the more they will begin to try drawing people correctly. 

You'll notice your child saying some of the phrases we use in Writing. Some examples might be: "Draw a neck or your head will fall down like mashed potatoes." "You've got muscle arms make sure to draw them." "Do you have stick legs? NOOOOO. Draw your muscle legs." "Be careful with your hands... we don't have firework fingers."

SAXON/READING SKILLS

We are beginning with letter Ll. Letter l is the hardest sound to make in the English language, however it's the easiest to write and gives the students confidence that they are learning. The letter sound is difficult do to the laziness of people say "luh." DO not allow your child to add the "uh" to any of our letter sounds. Here's a video to practice the sound. :)

Every week we will practice spelling and reading 4 sight words. Below you will see this weeks words in a slideshow. We use this exact same slideshow in class. So make sure to practice with your child at home too!

READING
Every week we will focus on Reading Skills. This week we will work on Predicting, Retelling, Connecting, Identifying a Problems and Finding a Solution. We will do all of this using the book Chick Chika Boom Boom by Bill Martin, Jr and John Archambault.
If you aren't familiar with the story, check out the Youtube video below.

SCIENCE
On the days we don't have resource we get to learn and engage more in Science activities. This week on Thursday and Friday we will begin focusing on our 5 Senses. We will read a book and do some activities to check for understanding.