Week of November 7

Mrs. Borden & Mrs. Jones Nifty Newsletter (Week of November 7)

Monday – Thursday --Practice sight words and Reader (from plastic sleeve in folder) and ½ sheet.
Please return your child’s report card in their folder after you sign it. Thank you!
Study Folders were sent home. After looking at your report card, use the materials to work on the skills that need strengthening or to work ahead at your own pace.
Don’t forget to turn your clocks back this weekend. Please remember that as per the dress code shorts are no longer permitted.
In phonics we’ll be learning about the letter Mm. We will be working on listening for and identifying the initial and final sounds in words. Also we will play a game to rhyme words. We will unblend words and count the sounds. Lastly, we will begin a new take home story. It is called Hop on the Mop. Look for it next week for homework practice.
Our new Reading story is A Bed for the Winter. We will discuss hibernation and animal homes for the winter. We will also talk about the sequence of the story.
In Math we will begin to identify time to the hour, identify ordinal position, identify before, after and between, order money amounts to ten cents and solve problems by acting out it out and drawing a picture.
Monday is Day 4. Don’t forget your sneakers for Gym!
There is no school Friday, November 11 due to an Act 80 day.

week of October 31 (Halloween)

Mrs. Borden and Mrs. Jones’ Nifty Newsletter (week of October 31)
Happy Halloween

Monday: ½ sheet practice
Tuesday: ½ sheet practice and reader practice
Wednesday: ½ sheet practice, reader practice, handwriting practice
Thursday: ½ sheet practice and reader practice
*Readers will start coming home on Tuesdays and can be practiced Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday night. We will introduce the reader the week before, review it on Monday and send it on Tuesday. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact us.*
Just a reminder, conferences for Grades Kindergarten to 3 will be held from 4-6 pm on Tuesday, November 1. We hope to see you there!
Our new letter is Nn like in Nest. We will continue to review letter sounds and use them to blend words in the word list. If you have any questions/concerns about the blending or the word list, feel free to let us know.
Our new Reading Story is “Bear Snores On” and we will sequence the story and compare this fiction story to our last story, “Animal Babies in Grasslands” which was nonfiction. We will also be talking about animal hibernation. We just finished up our study of nocturnal animals, with a focus on Bats for Halloween!
In Math, we will be reviewing shapes, numbers 0-10, and aspects of the calendar. We have already introduced a penny and its value, but feel free to talk about other coins and their values at home or in the community.
This past week, we were able to Skype with one of the computer teachers, Ms. Kraft. She is in South Africa to help share technology with communities there. We were able to ask questions about her visit.
We also celebrated Red Ribbon week and the “Just Say No” campaign. We will have our lesson with Ms. Rowland this upcoming week.
A big Kindergarten thank you goes out to Chase’s parents for coming in to share 911 and safety tips with all of us. It was a great culmination to Fire Safety Month and community helpers.
Just a reminder, please do not send in candy for snack. Thanks for your cooperation!

Week of October 24

Mrs. Borden and Mrs. Jones’ Nifty Newsletter (Week of October 24)
Homework
Monday – Decodable Reader, Practice sight words, and ½ sheet
Tuesday - Decodable Reader, Practice sight words and ½ sheet
Wednesday - Decodable Reader, Practice sight words, ½ sheet and handwriting
Thursday - Decodable Reader Practice sight words and ½ sheet
There will be no new letter in Phonics this week. We will review all of the letters and sight words that we have been working on and begin to assess for report cards.
In Math, we will order numbers from 0-10, count backwards from 10, identify ordinal position, identify a missing numbers and identify numbers.
Our new Reading Story is Animal Babies in Grasslands. We will discuss who lives in the grasslands. Our reading skill this week is main idea.
Our Fall Festival was so much fun. Thank you to all of the volunteers for your hard work! The children absolutely loved it!
Friday we walked for Diabetes on the high school track. Everyone did a great job!
If you have not sent your Fall Party money in yet, please do so as soon as possible.
Our Halloween party and parade we will Friday, October 28. The parade will begin at 2:15.
Please continue to send Capri Sun pouches to school. Chase and his family let us know that we have collected 700 so far. The pouches are used to raise money for diabetis.
If you would like to update your child’s spare change of clothes to something warmer for the cooler months please send them in a labeled bag and we will send the others home.
Next week is Red Ribbon week.
Monday- wear shirts backwards
Tuesday – wear crazy socks
Wednesday – wear crazy hats
Thursday – wear shirts inside out
Friday – wear school spirit shirts

week of October 17

Mrs. Borden and Mrs. Jones’ Nifty Newsletter (week of October 17)
Homework For The Week
Monday: ½ sheet, decodable reader, sight word review
Tuesday: ½ sheet, decodable reader, sight word review
Wednesday: ½ sheet, decodable reader, handwriting
Thursday: no written work, just review
On Friday, October 21, there will be an Act 80 Half Day with an early dismissal of 11:45 am for the elementary students.
The Kindergarten Fall Festival will be on Thursday, October 20. Students are permitted to wear “gym clothes” for Fall Festival even if it not their gym day. Please remember that the dress code is still in effect and jeans are not permitted.
Our Pajama Party was perfect! We had so much fun playing with Play Doh, painting, making pigs, eating pancakes, and other Pp fun. We also started reading about our good friend and book character, “Junie B Jones” and her adventures at a Pajama Party.
In Phonics, we will work on the letter Aa like in apple and acorn. We will focus on the short sound of a, but talk about its long sound. We will also be getting our first decodable reader that focuses on words that have the sounds that we have learned along with sight words.
“Armadillo’s Orange” is our new Reading Story. We will discuss animals that live in an Orange Grove. We will also work on setting and compare this story to our last story, “Life in the Ocean”. We will talk about the difference between fiction and nonfiction stories.
In Math, we will continue to work with the numbers 1-10 with identifying missing numbers, putting them in order, counting backwards, and writing the numbers. We will also be identifying ordinal position to fourth.
We will be walking in the School Walk for Diabetes on Friday, October 21 at Spartan Stadium. Be sure to wear comfortable shoes!
New sight words are being added to the envelopes for next week! It is so exciting to see how hard they are practicing and it is showing in the classroom. The students are also finding sight words in their readers and Library books and around the school!
As you are looking for Halloween costumes for the school Halloween party and parade on October 28 (that begins at 2:15), here a few tips to make things easier: We do walk in our parade outside and it will probably be chilly, so a costume that slips over clothes works well. Also, props like swords, brooms, etc. aren’t allowed due to safety issues. If you have any questions, please let us know.

Week of October 10

Mrs. Borden & Mrs. Jones’ Nifty Newsletter (week of October 10)

We will have school October 10. It is a make- up day from the September flooding. Lunch will be a hamburger or meatball hoagie.

In Phonics, our new letter will be P as in pig. We will celebrate learning the letter P with a Pajama Party on Friday, October 14. Students may wear their pajamas and slippers if they like. If your child wants to wear slippers in school, please send them in their backpack and they can wear sneakers on the bus and at recess.

Our Reading story is Life in an Ocean. It is a nonfiction book about ocean environments. We will compare and contrast different environments.

In Math, we will be working on numbers to 10 by identifying, writing, counting and putting them in order. We will also continue to review sorting and patterns.

Upcoming events in the month of October include: Fire Prevention all month long, Columbus Day, the Fall Festival, Kindergarten Fear Factor (5 senses unit) and Halloween Party.

Next week a sheet will come home to help you review sight words, reading concepts, numbers, letters, and writing. The end of the first marking period is quickly approaching and report cards are coming soon!

Don’t forget…Homework should not take a long time. If your child is reaching frustration:
Take a break, write us a note, read their reader to them and have them pick out words. *The important part is that they are seeing and hearing the material each night to reinforce what we do in school.*

The Kindergarten Fall Festival will be on Thursday, October 20th (No rain date). Please send in your child’s Fall Festival money ($3) if you haven’t already done so. There will be a meeting for anyone interested in helping on Wednesday, October 12th at the Mineshaft in Ashland at 6:00.

October is Breast Cancer Awareness month and in an effort to promote awareness students are invited to wear pink every Thursday during the month of October.

Monday is Day 4. Don’t forget your sneakers for Gym.

week of October 3

Mrs. Borden and Mrs. Jones’ Nifty Newsletter (week of October 3)
Homework:
Monday: ½ sheet and reader
Tuesday: ½ sheet and reader
Wednesday: ½ sheet and reader and Handwriting
Thursday: ½ sheet and reader and practice talent
For those helping with the Fall Festival, there will be a second meeting at the Mine Shaft in Ashland. The meeting starts at 6:00 pm.
In Phonics, we are learning the letter Tt like in Tent. In a few weeks, we will be practicing our very first Phonics reader, “Hot, Hot, Hot” that will have words that we can blend and sight words. To celebrate our letter Tt, we will be having a “Talent Show” on Friday. It will be held in our own classroom and the children can perform their very own talent. We have had anything from joke telling, cheerleading, reading, to karate, singing, and dancing. It is just something simple and short and everyone gets a star for participating!
Our new Reading story is “Dig, Dig, Digging” and it is about how machines help people. We will be working on classifying and categorizing and this is our last story In our unit, “All Together Now”.
In Math, we will continue to work on AB patterns like in our Math Meeting. We will also be working on graphing like we did with our apples this past week. Please continue to work on numbers 1-5, both writing them and counting. We will also be working on naming shapes by their attributes and sorting them.
Your child might come home with more papers on certain days than others. There will also be some papers that are marked and some papers that are not. The daily Phonics and Math will be looked at and checked to make sure that the directions were followed and they tried their best. Several times a week, there will be morning work that isn’t checked but correlates to either the letter or the theme going on at that time. There will also be groups of papers coming home after we complete one of the center rotations. They are only checked to make sure that they are handed in and worked on the concept. Centers relate to the various concepts we are working on such as word work, science, math, art, and writing and are completed independently while they are waiting to be called to work with the teacher in small group.
Please continue to check our blog under the North Schuylkill Website, Homework Helpline, Borden, J. That will contain not only this week’s information, but past posts in case you are looking for information on a particular subject. Keep up the great work!

Week of September 26

Mrs. Borden & Mrs. Jones’ Nifty Newsletter (Week of September 26)

Homework
Monday-1/2 sheet & Reader/sight words
Tuesday –1/2 sheet & Reader/sight words
Wednesday-1/2sheet, Reader& Handwriting
Thursday-1/2 sheet & Reader/sight words

We will celebrate learning the letter H with a Hat Day on Friday, September 30!

There will be a Fall Festival Meeting on Wednesday, September 28 at 6:00 at the Mine Shaft for anyone who would like to help with our Fall Festival. Clearances are needed to participate in school on the day of the festival. If you do not have clearances but would still like to help in the preparation it would be much appreciated.
Our Phonics letter next week is the consonant H as in hat and hippo. We will apply our first phonics rule that we began this week and begin to sound out words.
Rule: If a vowel is followed by a consonant, the vowel is short, and we code it with a breve.
Example: cat log sit tug wet
We will also identify initial sounds and separate words into compound words.
This week our Reading story is “Julius” and we will be discussing how people and animals work together. The Comprehension Skill is character.

**Great job to everyone who did their reading this week. We really saw the progress when we were working in small groups this week. We are going to attach an envelope to everyone’s folder. In the envelope we will store the reader for the week along with our sight words. This way nothing will get lost going back and forth. Please continue to sign and comment each night.**

In Math, we will act out story problems, identify describe and compare circles and rectangles, and order numbers 1-5.

Next week we are celebrating Johnny Appleseed Day with books, activities, and crafts. We are asking that you please send in one apple with your child as soon as possible. It can be any size and any color. We will use the apples to investigate, sort, graph, compare and contrast, and to make applesauce.

We attended the Homecoming Pep Rally in our Gym this Friday! Go Spartans!
As the weather starts to get cooler, we ask that you write your child’s name in their coat. Many Kindergarten students have the same coat and are having a hard time to keeping track of their own.

Please continue to help your child practice their 4 digit computer number. This will help them log into their computer quickly and give them more time to work.

Don’t forget to check our blog on northschuylkill.net under Homework Helpline, click on Borden, J.
Monday will be Day 4. Our special will be Gym. Don’t forget your sneakers.

School store began this week. If students want to purchase anything from the school store they need to do so before entering our classroom in the morning. By the time we get the money from their folders, the school store is closed. Please remind your child in the morning before sending them to school.