1-9-09

Ray’s Ramblings
January 8, 2009

Happy New Year!!! We are officially half way through kindergarten and on the way to first grade!!! Hopefully, your children are telling you about our transitions. Before Christmas, the children began being dismissed by their drivers at the bus and they are walking on their own into the building and to the classroom! That was our first transition! This week, we began going through the lunch line on Tuesdays. We will do this (like first graders) for the rest of the year (on Tuesdays). In about a month, we will begin punching in our cafeteria account numbers at the end of the lunch line. I will be sending these numbers home soon. You will need to work with your child to help them learn their 4 digit number. This number will stay with them through the Jessamine County school system (high school).

REPORT CARDS are going home today. Again, please look over each item very carefully. ALL I NEED BACK IS THE SIGNED YELLOW ENVELOPE! You may keep the report card and all other pages included. At this point in the year, your child should have mastered (or be very close to) ALL capitals, lowercase and sounds. They should be counting, and writing to 20. We will spend the rest of the year building vocabulary and developing our writing stages. Hopefully, all will be at a stage 5 or 6 writing by the end of the year. We will be doing much more addition and subtraction. Numbers and letters should be formed correctly. I will begin to be much more picky about this. All writing should be done with LOWER CASE letters except for the beginning of a sentence or a name. Please help your child with this at home. Spaces should be put between words. We will be focusing on lined paper and will be ‘correcting’ our mistakes. You may see papers going home to be corrected for homework.

CONFERENCES/HOME VISITS: I have almost had a chance to meet with all 45 families!!! I believe there are only 6 left for me to have 100%!!! I am sending home request forms for my remaining students. Please indicate whether you prefer a school conference or a home visit. Send these back and I will contact you to schedule a time. Anyone who would like to schedule a conference to discuss the report cards or any other concerns, please just send me a note! I would be happy to meet with anyone. Remember, my planning times are on Monday, Thursday and Friday at either 10:30 or 2:30.

JANUARY BOOK ORDERS: Are going home today. Please have them turned back in by next Friday, January 16 (or complete online ordering by Sunday, the 18th.)

TESTING: For the next two weeks, we will be testing. We will, once again, have a team of teachers giving the DIBELS test. We will also be taking a PAS test. Both of these tests will measure their achievement for mid-year. They will be given again at the end of the year. Because of testing, individual check out books will NOT go home until testing is over (last week in January). I WILL still need my parent volunteers to assist with testing. I now have openings both AM and PM on Wednesday for a volunteer. If you are interested, please let me know.

SNOWMAN PROJECT: The snowman projects that were sent home on December 19 are due tomorrow – January 9. These projects are being displayed in the library. You will need to make a point to go and see them if you are in the building! What we have so far are FANTASTIC!!! All children who have returned this project will get an extra prize from the treasure box on Friday!!!

UPCOMING DATES:

Week of 1-12 to 16 – PAS testing
Week of 1-19 to 23 – DIBELS and MATH Assessments
January 19 – NO SCHOOL – Martin Luther King Day