Metzler's Messages

Happy Friday

A big thank you to all of the parents who came to our first Kindergarten awards day of the year.  I am very proud of my students for all of their hard work during the first twelve weeks of school.  Thank you parents for your great support at home!  This week we learned about two new word families: "en" and "ip".  The students are learning to create rhyming words in these word families and distinguishing between real and nonsense words.  You should have seen a big ziploc bag full of books come home this week:  we cleaned out our readers bags and are adding new books to practice reading during independent reading time.  You will enjoy hearing your child read to you and don't forget to write the titles on November's reading log. You should have also seen a collection of narrative writing come home this week too- let your child read his/her stories to you.  In Writers Workshop we started Functional Writing.  This type of writing tells how to do something.  We are learning to list the steps in order and to use transition words to show order, such as: First, Next, Then, last, finally. 

We will need several helpers for our Kindergarten community next Friday.  If you can help out for any portion of the time, please let me know.  The community will last from 8:00-10:30.  The boys and girls are earning money each day that their clip stays on green!

Have a great weekend!

November Newsletter

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What a busy week we had!  Our field trip to the pumpkin patch was a big success.  We were able to do many exciting activities and the weather was perfect!  We finished up our pumpkin theme and will start learning about transportation next week which will lead into studying pilgrims and native americans.  Please review ordinal numbers  (first- tenth) with your child.  We will finish up numbers and number sense in math and our next unit of study will be measurement.  We continue learning about rhyming words and word families.

Some important dates to remember are:

November 7th-  No School- Teacher Inservice

November 10th- Kindergarten Awards Day 9:00

Today we were busy learning our poem of the week "Pumpkin, Pumpkin".  Ask your child to read it to you tonight.  We also learned about the word "circumference" when we estimated how big around our pumpkin was.  Many guesses were too short or too long but Evelyn guessed "just right".  I tested the children on the first 10 sight words and am so pleased to report that ALL have learned the first 10!!!!  Great job everyone at home for helping out.  The newsletter and November specials rotation calendar were sent home today- please pull those out of your child's folder and keep them posted. 

A big thank you to all of the parents who came to conferences last week.  The students are making such great progress.  This week we are learning all about pumpkins!  We will be voting on a favorite book character to turn our pumpkin into for a school wide contest.  We have started a character kid program school wide as well.  Congratulations to Kawala for being chosen as October's Character Kid and for displaying the character trait of Responsibility.  In the lunchroom the boys and girls are trying to be recognized for appropriate lunchroom behavior.  The class with the highest number of star stickers will be rewarded with eating at the Starlight Cafe (on the stage!)  Tomorrow in all the Kindergarten classes the boys and girls will start earning money to spend at our Kindergarten Community Day on November 17th.  Money is earned by staying on green all day and the money is spent at the various shops in our Kindergarten community, such as the Cinemas, dance studio, diner, beauty shop, candy shop, etc.  I will be sending home more information in the newsletter next week.  We will need some donations and volunteers.

Today we reviewed what we learned about "at" words in the Smart Board lab.  We made many words from this word family.  Ask your child to tell you an "at" word, or better yet have them spell it for you.  We continue to work on our narrative writing in Writers Workshop and we have had many students meet the standard.  Congratulations to Quentin , Skyler , Sekai , Kawala and Evelyn for meeting the standard in narrative!!!!  We also learned about the long Ii sound as heard in words like "ice", "bike", and "fire".  Thanks to Robbi for bringing in a video about fire safety- the class thoroughly enjoyed it and will probably be singing the theme song from it "Be Cool About Fire Safety".  It has been a pleasure speaking to parents this week about the tremendous progress their children have made.  Keep up the great work at home!

Red Ribbon Week

Next week  October 23-27 is Red Ribbon Week.  It is a national campaign that encourages children to resist the pressure to use drugs and alchohol.  Each day of the week there will be a different activity schoolwide to  remind students to make the right choice and commit to being drug free for life.  Here are the activities:

Monday October 23- "Drug-Free Day" - Students will sign a certificate and they will be displayed in the hallways

Tuesday October 24- "Drug Free Me" contest.  Students will have a coloring contest.

Wednesday October 25- "I'm Wearing Red to Say "No" to Drugs"  Students wear red to celebrate a drug free life.

Thursday October 26- "Stomp Out Drugs"- We will make our footprints on red paper and line the hallways with them.

Friday October 27- "Put a Cap on Drugs"- Students may wear a hat to show their promise to remain drug free.

Welcome to our new student, Steven , who joined our class yesterday.  Today we went to the Smart Board lab and learned about rhyming words, made "at" words and read the story Zac The Rat.  Please check out the website www.starfall.com .  This website has this activity and many more.  Thanks to Skyler for bringing in his word whammer for our class to use.  We also made "at" words using it. In math we learned about equal groups and groups with one more.  Please ask your child what equal means.  If you haven't followed any of the links on our blog, I hope you will soon.  You will find many educational and fun activities to boost your child's achievement.  Just a reminder to send in the field trip permission slips and payment by this Friday.  If you need another copy of the permission slip, please let me know.

Happy Monday!  I hope everyone had a nice, restful weekend.  The weather is finally feeling like fall.  I am looking forward to speaking to everyone this week and showing you the progress your child has made in the first 9 weeks of school.  Please let me know as soon as possible if you need to reschedule your conference- my calendar is getting full. 

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