Knowing Jesus, Growing in Faith, Serving God’s Children
Dear Parents,
Fall has arrived and now October is almost here. Keep looking for leaves and pressing them in old phone books. They need time to dry.
Next Thursday and Friday, Oct. 7th and 8,th we have no school for Teacher In-service and conference in Chamberlain. There is also no school on Monday, Oct. 11th, for Native American/Columbus Day.
This Thursday and Friday and next Monday and Tuesday Mrs. Graumann and myself will be going to two classes specifically for kindergarten teachers. One is on classroom management skills and the other is on early literacy teaching skills. We signed up for one class last November and forgot about it when we signed up for the other! I’ve never been away from the class for four days, but this group will handle it very well. I’ll be checking in every afternoon with Mrs. Likens and I’ll have her visit before this Thursday so they can meet her. Some children find this a little stressful, but most enjoy the experience!
Our Bible lessons this week take us back to Moses and the Israelites. We’ll learn about their movable tent church, or tabernacle, and the gifts they brought to God. Our Bible verse this week is Psalm 100:2 “Worship the Lord with gladness; come before Him with joyful songs.” We will make special banks this week that encourage the children to put some in savings, some for spending, and some for offering to God. We’ll also sing many songs that worship and praise God! This is the last week our offerings will go to Mainstreet Living.
We work with “Dd” this week. Keep practicing the name of each letter, the sound it makes, and how to write it. Even through we emphasize a letter during the week we also are always taking opportunities as they arise to talk about other sounds, too. Don’t expect as many papers home in the coming weeks. I’m saving them for their portfolios to show you at conferences in November. We are also working with rhyming words. This is an important skill to help listen for similarities and differences. In the car is a good place to see if you can think of rhymes! Find something that begins with “d” to bring tomorrow!
We’ve begun simple guided reading lessons. Some groups are working with letters and the sounds they make and we play many games to learn these. Others are reading little books, learning to take a “book look” first; to see what they can discover before they actually read the book. They learn a few specific sight words, or “fast words” as I call them. This helps them read confidently and saves their “stretching out” strategy for bigger words. Then they reread for fluency practice. The homework bag should have a page in it with ideas to use when working with your child.
In math we are finishing our exploring of math materials and now will really begin working on counting and comparing skills. Rote counting is important, but it’s more important for them to have many experiences counting sets of things and comparing them to other sets. It is a very hands-on approach, as they need to see what they are doing and verbalize why they do what they do.
Math binders always need to come back on Tuesdays, along with library books and the folder and lunch menu. By Thursday we have them loaded with a new game and ready to go home again. You can play any of the games, not just the new one. If something is difficult for your child then that is a good one to bring out and practice with. I notice that some still count their buttons too quickly and don’t match the right numeral to the card. Practice helps them internalize what numbers look like. Today I heard someone say; “ I know that’s 7 because I see the 3 in the middle and the 4 on the outside. I know 3 and 4 are 7.”
We have finished our Self unit and the one on senses and will now begin learning about fire safety, autumn, and about animals and plants. Our books, “All About Me,” will come home in a day or two. The firemen will bring their puppets next Tuesday. The next two weeks we’ll enjoy making our room look like fall has arrived!

God’s blessings,

Roxi Withee