Sick Kids

We have a lot of kids sick in our room with a lot of different symptoms.  This is a good time to revisit our school policy.  Kids need to be fever free for 24 hours without the help of medication before they come back to school.  Remember, the only way to shake it, is to not to keep passing it around!!  Thank you in advance for your support!--Kim

Bobcat Behaviors!!

Our school participates in PBIS for behavior instruction and reinforcement focusing on our four main Bobcat Behaviors; being safe, caring, respectful, and responsible.  One of the initiatives that we do is classes can earn "Paw Points" when staff see every student in the class showing one or more of these Bobcat Behaviors!  Our class has set a goal to earn 5 "Paw Points", which is really hard to do!  Not only have we earned 5, but we earned 2 yesterday alone because they went above and beyond!  I am so proud of them, and hope you can help make this a big deal at home.  For this reward, we voted on a movie party tomorrow!  I will be serving popcorn, juice, and showing Tarzan!  Keep up the awesome work at home, because that is where their behavior foundation is really set in place.  I am so LUCKY to work with such GREAT families.  You have made this year one for the books!!

Important March Dates

Mar. 4- 1:00 Dismissal

Mar. 4- End of 2^nd Trimester 

Mar. 10-Book Orders Due

Mar. 13-Breakfast Buddies (7:30-8:10)

Mar. 13-1:00 Dismissal

Mar. 16-P/T Conferences (4-8)

Mar. 17-1:00 Dismissal

Mar. 17-P/T Conferences (3-8)

Mar. 18-20-NO SCHOOL 

**There will be a note coming home to explain the Breakfast Buddies! 
Be watching for it in your kinder’s folder!**

My Kinder's Reading Level~What Should I Expect?

I had a great question emailed to me last week (thanks Hope!!) and I thought other people might be wondering the same thing!  She asked me what the levels meant on the running record audio clips I have been sending you via email.  I thought this was an awesome topic for my next blog!  I went searching and found this awesome resource on TeachersPayTeachers (Literacy Behavior Checklist ) that has a checklist of student behaviors for each level.  I am going to print these off and laminate them.  They will be in your kinder's "Take Home" book bag.  Look at what your kinder is doing and try and encourage these behaviors while you are reading at home!  I will keep trying to have your child read into the iPad weekly so you can get audio clips sent via email, but sometimes our schedule just doesn't allow for that!  Keep reading at home to keep a pulse on your kinder's reading!  Enjoy, and as always...thanks for the tremendous support you all have given me this year!!

Sight Words

If you feel like your kinder's sight words might be the death of you...don't look in their folder tonight!  I am sending the remainder of the flashcard sets home today.  If you notice that there are some sets that you don't have, please let me know because we can get you extra copies!!  Some books that we are reading are starting to have more and more of these words in them, so we want to be prepared.  Make sure when you are practicing at home that you are practicing for automatically.  When I test at school, I am marking a word wrong if the student does not produce the word within 3 seconds.  I know this sounds harsh, but just know that there is a reason to our madness!  When we encounter a sight word in a book, we cannot stop the flow of the sentence to try and sound it out or recall what the word is.  When we do this, it takes away the meaning we have read thus far.  Many of the kinders are not fluent enough to know that they should re-read the sentence to make sure they understand what is happening in the book, so by the end of the story they have no clue what happened.  You will notice that when I email out the audio clips from their reading, you will hear some of the comprehension questions that I ask at the end of the book.  Try to mimic these conversations at home as well!  Good luck!!

Here is a copy of all of the sight words in Kindergarten.  Make sure and let me know if this link doesn't work and I will get you a hard copy in your kinder's folder!  Happy practicing!!--Kim

https://docs.google.com/a/benton.k12.ia.us/document/d/1Dqak_Nu-51pdywUYFISl-rtDbELoG1KKeGtttVlRHiY/edit

Snow Day=Family Day

I hope you are all enjoying your snow day!  Aidan, Brooks, and I started the day off by making some snow ice cream for breakfast (shhh, don't tell their dad!).  If you are wanting the recipe it is...

• 1/2 cup of milk
• 1tsp of vanilla
• A pinch of salt (seriously, what is a pinch?  I dislike recipes like this but am passing it on non-the-less!
• 8 cups of snow (make sure it's clean!!)

Stir the first 3 ingredients together and then add the snow!  Hopefully your batch is better than ours!

Now Aidan and I are playing "school" while Brooks is engaged in his favorite activity...NAPPING!  While Aidan is busy writing his letters and practicing his sounds, I am surfing Pinterest for fresh new ideas for Kinderland!  While on my search, I found this website.  It takes a little bit, but if you make it down to the end of the article this author gives really good reminders on what we can do for our kinders while they practice their reading skills!  Check this out and I challenge you to try some of these at home today (if you are lucky enough to enjoy this snow day with your kinder)!

http://www.simplykinder.com/working-with-struggling-readers-in/

That's all for now because I might go and snuggle Brooks and be forced to take a nap with him!