Home › Mt. Horeb School › Teacher Websites › Mrs. Fishelman's Website › Weekly Newsletter

Weekly Newsletter

subscribe Receive Notifications

Kindergarten News

 Books

January 26-30

 

Dear Parents,

What a week of cold and snow! We had a three and a half day week because of the storm last weekend. It is always challenging trying to get everything we need to learn into a shorter week. We did our best and here are the highlights:

Morning Meeting- We have a morning message to outline each day's activities. We had a greeting each day. We had an orca greeting (and listened to the real sounds of orca whales), a bear greet and a groundhog greeting as we came up out of our burrows. Tuesday was National Chocolate Cake Day. Everyone shared if they liked chocolate or vanilla cake better.  We practiced blending the themed word of the day. We also had some movement breaks: Monkey Dance,  Wiggle Wednesday, the snoman slide and our Friday song I Gotta Feeling.

Writing: We wrote in our journals about our weekends. Everyone has been working on a sentence. We  practiced sight words. We also wrote about something we wondered about our story in Reading this week. 

Being a Reader Program-The last two weeks in reading, we have been working on wondering or asking what might happen in a story. This week we read a story called Going Places. It was a story about some students who were all given a kit to make a go-cart to ride in a school-wide race. Two students, who were neighbors, decided not to follow the directions inside the kit and create their own vehicle their own way.  We read half of the story one day and then the class shared something they were wondering with their partner. The second half of the story was read on day 2. After more discussion about what happened in the story, everyone drew a picture of what they wondered and then wrote a sentence about it. 
We also read a big book called Through the Jungle.  The boy in the story used his imagination to move and sound like animals in a jungle. The students wondered and predicted what animal he was pretending to be. 
 
Handwriting- We continued along in our handwriting program in Being a Reader. We  started the proper letter formation for the letters (T, I)  We wrote each letter in their student notebooks. 
 
 Phonics- This week we worked on naming letters quickly, segmenting sounds orally, listening for the same ending sounds in 3 words, blending CVC words. taking endings off words to hear what is left, changing endings with other sounds to change the word, etc... The students are learning to manipulate letters and sounds through this practice.  One of their favorite activities was trying to figure out what nonsense word I was saying when their only clue was a category the word belonged in. For example, if the category was items in a classroom. I would say the nonsense word: plizzars and the class had to guess the correct word (scissors) ,  laper (paper),  fooks (books), etc...
 
Sight Words: Everyone has been learning different sight words in their Guided Reading Groups.  They do get put in each time they get a new book to read. Please continue to practice the words in your child's sight word book with them. It it crutial to their reading development.  The books they are reading consist of CVC words and High Frequency words (sight words).  We do practice at school, but some children need extra practice at home.

 Independent Work-The children worked in 3 centers each week: read to self, writing and word work. We reviewed beginning sounds our first week back. This past week we started listening for the vowel sounds in the middle of CVC words by playing 3 games.  We worked on writing(see above under writing) and read books to ourself. During this time, each reading group worked at the teachers table on reading and phonics skills. We practiced sight words with a roll and write  We had a winter clothing label it.  Some other activities were: The Mitten sequencing, The Mitten make a book and Short vowel i and e books

Math-  We started Lesson 14 on numbers 6-10. This lesson is all about decomposing the number 10 into two groups and how these two groups can be made into an addition sentence.  We also call the two numbers, number pairs. For example 5 and 5, 6 and 4, 3 and 7, 8 and 2, 9 and 1, 10 and 0.  Everyone explored this math concept with 10 beads on a pip cleaner and sliding some beads over to see the 2 groups. We explored iwth counters, cubes, drawings and games.  Ask your children about the in and out game they played!

We also had fun with marshmallow math. Everyone got a booklet with mugs in it. Then they put some marshmallow in each of the mugs. Then they drew the marshmallows and wrote the addition sentence.  Finally, when the finished they got to each the 10 marshmallows! They loved this activity.

Science/Social Studies

We learned about winter weather and winter animals this week. We read the story The Mitten. We saw many animals that adapt to the snowy weather. We made a Mitten project with the animals on it. We learned about The groundhog and the upcoming Groundhog's Day.  We even made our own predictions on weather the groundhog would see his shadow. We graphed our predictions.

I'm not sure about you, but I'm hoping the groundhog decides wisely!

It was a great week in Kindergarten!  

Sincerely,

Mrs. Fishelman & Mrs. Keirstead

 

 

 



 

 

 

©2026 Warren Township Schools
Last modified by Mrs. Fishelman on Friday, January 30, 2026