September 21-25

Guidance Lessons
Tami Mazzella, our guidance counselor, will begin lessons in our classrooms this week.  She will be focusing on the following topics: Buddy Bench, Respect, Responsible, Problem Solving, Listening & Following Directions, Bucket Filling/Kindness, Perseverance, Making Mistakes, Tattling vs. Telling, Bully Prevention, and Acts of Kindness.  

Important news:

• Please send an extra set of clothes to school.  We will keep them in our classroom in case of an accident like a lunch spill, muddy clothes, etc.
• Don't forget to follow us on Twitter @kindernews44202 and send back the Facebook invitation letter with your email if you are interested.

RAZ kids

Have you logged in and tried out this fun reading app?  We sent home information with your child's password last week.  If you need help logging on, please let me know.  The students enjoy earning stars to build robots and rockets by reading and answering the quiz questions.

We will continue with our Language Arts theme (farm) and Math skills for one more week.  

We hope you have a great week!

September 14-18

Important News

• Please put all notes to the teacher or office on a large sheet of paper.  Small notes (like post-its) tend to get lost.  Thank you!
• Thursday we are taking our field trip to Lake Farmpark!  Please make sure you dress for the weather!  We will be walking outside rain or shine!  Also, please pack your child's lunch in a disposable bag. 
• Please practice tying shoes.

Homework

• Review letters and sounds with your child daily.  How quickly can your child name the letters? 
• If your child knows his/her letters and sounds, practice the sight words.  Start with only a few words at a time. 
• Ask your child to name the characters and/or setting in a story you read together. 

Field Trip Volunteers

Mrs. Haughey--Mrs. Bindus, Mrs. Horvath

Mrs. Gallucci--Mrs. Courtad, Mrs. Cost, Mrs. Kacmar

Language Arts
We will be learning about the farm.  We are reading several stories about the farm and farm animals.  We will be using these stories to learn about characters, setting, cause and effect and sequencing.

The focus for the next 2 weeks includes:

• rhyming
• letters and sounds
• final sounds
• syllables
• Left to right directionality

Sight words--a, the

Math

In math, we are learning addition and subtraction to five with materials.  Also, we practice counting from any given number to 100 forward and backward.

September 7-11

Browsing Boxes
Each student in our classroom has his/her own basket of books.  We use these baskets to do an activity called "Read to Self".  For this activity, each child finds a quiet spot in the classroom with their browsing boxes to read the books inside.  Each child has several books in the basket.  Some of the books are chosen by the student according to his/her interest (princess, baseball, animal, Clifford, etc.)  The other books are on their reading level.  If your child would like to bring a book from home to put in his/her basket, we encourage it!  This is the introduction to one of our Daily 5 literacy centers.

The students were taught that there are 3 ways to read a book.  The first way is to read the pictures.  We modeled for the students how to use the pictures to read the book to themselves.  The second way is to read the words in the story.  The third way is to retell a story that they have heard before.  Some students may have a book in their basket that they have read before such as Chicka Chicka Boom Boom.  Now, the student can retell the story as he/she reads the pages.

Mindset
The staff at Aurora City Schools have read a book called Mindset by Carol Dweck.  In this book, we learned about the importance of building a growth mindset in our students.  People with a growth mindset believe that basic abilities (intelligence for example) can be developed through dedication and hard work.  This view creates a love of learning and a resilience that is essential for great accomplishment.  In a fixed mindset, people believe that intelligence and talent are fixed traits.  They believe that talent alone creates success without effort.

This year, we will be focused on encouraging a growth mindset because it creates motivation and productivity.  It teaches children to welcome challenges, to persevere and accomplish things they may never have believed they could do!  We are teaching them that mistakes are ok, because we learn from them!  We are teaching them that they may not be good at something YET, but they will be, with hard work and effort!

Please contact us if you have any questions or are interested in learning more about Mindset.  We are even willing to loan you our book!  It is a great read!  We love it as teachers and as parents.

Note: We will add the various Mindset messages to our blog each week if you are interested in talking with your child about it at home.

Important Notes:

• No school on Monday, September 7!
• Friday is September 11 so wear red, white and blue!
• We do not need to wear our bus tags anymore.  Thank you for always remembering to send it to school each day!
• HOMEWORK--Have you played a rhyming game with your child?  Practice rhyming by asking your child if two words rhyme.  (Do cake and rake rhyme?) Also, try asking your child to think of a word that rhymes with a word you say.  (Can you think of a word that rhymes with sun?)
• Mrs. Haughey's class has a student teacher!  Amy Rankin will be teaching with Mrs. Haughey until December.  She currently attends Kent State University.
• Please check the calendar daily to see the good news about your child's behavior!
• Mrs. Haughey's Class ONLY--Please remember to send in a picture of your child if you have not done so already!  Thank you!
• Please return the Lake Farmpark permission slips to school as soon as possible!

Language Arts
This week our stories will be about our five senses.  We will be reading both fiction and non-fiction books.  We will be experiencing all of the senses, except tasting, during our activities this week.

We will continue our practice of phonemic awareness with our "blue book" activities.  We will focus on rhyming.

Math
We are working on saying the number before and after any given number from 0-30.  What number comes before 18?  What number comes after 12? We 

Science:  5 senses

Pictures from this week...

Sorry, only 2 this week! 

August 31-September 4

Quick Reminders

• Please pack only ONE nut-free snack for your child each day.
• Please remember the red communication folder each day.
• Please remember to wear your bus tag every day!
• It is no longer necessary for your child to have a PE shirt!  

Language Arts

This week we will be reading 2 stories, The Little School Bus and Big Yellow Bus.  We will compare and contrast these stories and talk about the characters in each story.  At home, as you read books with your child talk about the characters in the story.  We tell the children that the characters are the people or animals in the story.

We will continue to work on fluency this week through poetry.  The children have enjoyed the mystery color poems.  Have they shared these with you?   We will also look at a new poem called Get on the Bus.

We will also complete a Name of the Day activity each day until each child in the class has a chance to bring home a special book.  During this activity we work on letter names, sounds, and formation of letters.

Every week throughout the year we will do phonemic awareness activities such as letter names and sounds, rhyming, listening for the beginning sounds in words, compound words, and listening for ending sounds in words.  Please practice these types of activities at home with your child.  The best part of these activities is that it doesn't require any materials or take a long time.  All you have to do is say "Can you think of a word that rhymes with dig?" or "What sound do you hear at the beginning of ball?"  "What do you hear at the end of mug?"

Sight words this week: a, the

Math

We will continue to work on counting!  We want the students to be able to count to 100 by the end of kindergarten fluently.  This means that they can count starting from any number.  Can you start counting at 8?  Can you count beginning at 87?  We are also learning how to count by 10s to 100!  We are also exploring our math tools such as attribute blocks, unifix cubes, and pattern blocks.

REVIEW:  Last week our focus was on rules.  Why do we have rules? What are the rules for the cafeteria, recess, bathroom, classroom and hallway?  Ask your child if they can share the rules with you.  

Here are some pictures from this week:

August 24-28

Quick Reminders

• Please pack only ONE nut-free snack for your child each day.
• Please remember the red folder each day.
• Please remember to wear your bus tag every day!
• Book orders are due on August 28.  

Language Arts

This week we will be reading a story called We Need Rules.  We are working on learning all the rules of school.  They are doing a great job remembering what to do!

We will work on fluency this week through poetry.  The children are enjoying guessing the mystery color poems.  Have they shared these with you?  

We will also complete a Name of the Day activity each day until each child in the class has a chance to bring home a special book.  During this activity we work on letter names, sounds, and formation of letters.

Every week throughout the year we will do phonemic awareness activities such as letter names and sounds, rhyming, listening for the beginning sounds in words, compound words, and listening for ending sounds in words.  Please practice these types of activities at home with your child.  The best part of these activities is that it doesn't require any materials or take a long time.  All you have to do is say "Can you think of a word that rhymes with dig?" or "What sound do you hear at the beginning of ball?"  "What do you hear at the end of mug?"

Sight words this week: a, the

Math

We are working on counting!  We want the students to be able to count to 100 by the end of kindergarten fluently.  This means that they can count starting from any number.  Can you start counting at 8?  Can you count beginning at 87?  We are also learning how to count by 10s to 100!We are also exploring our math tools such as attribute blocks, unifix cubes, and pattern blocks.

REVIEW:  We are focusing on the rules for the cafeteria, recess, bathroom, classroom and hallway?  Ask your child if they can share the rules with you.

Pictures from the first week

Here are some pictures from Mrs. Haughey's class.  Mrs. Gallucci sent a picture home to you on the first day of kindergarten!

Welcome

Welcome to our new Kindergarten Families!   It was so nice to meet you!  We are having a great first week.  We can already tell that it will be a wonderful year!

ALLERGY INFORMATION--Please be aware that both classes have a peanut/tree nut allergy.  Please do not send any snacks that have peanut or tree nut products in them.  We cannot have students eating these types of snacks in our classroom.  You are allowed to have items with peanut/tree nut ingredients at lunch.

Quick reminders:

• Please remember to wear your bus tag to school every day for the first 2 weeks.  Mrs. Haughey's class are paw prints and Mrs. Gallucci's class are frogs.
• Pack ONE snack daily for your child.  Please try to pack it separate from the lunch.
• Bring the red folder to school each day.
• Keep the PE shirt in your child's backpack because we wear them to all of our specials.  This helps our librarian (Mrs. Kudley), our music teacher (Mrs. Jones), and our PE teacher (Mrs. Barnes) learn names. 
• Please remember to complete and return all forms.  Thank you!

Below is our contact information:

Karen Gallucci  330-562-6199 ext. 2218 or kgallucci@aurora-schools.org
Cyndi Haughey 330-562-6199 ext. 2199 or chaughey@aurora-schools.org