3 day weekend!

DIBELS

After reading the title of this section, you may be thinking, "Huh?"  :)  A couple weeks ago we began DIBELS testing.  These tests are administered by Mrs. McCullough, our wonderful Literacy Coach/Title One teacher and her assistants.  DIBELS simply means Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills.  Translation?  How well does your child know letter names and sounds and picture/sound association? 

These tests give me a really good indicator of what your child is ready for and help me guide instruction to meet YOUR child's needs. The results are being sent home in folders today.  Please look over them, and practice needed skills at home.  We will be doing lots of practice at school!  And of course, please feel free to ask any questions about the test or results! 

Learning Objectives

Each of our 4 core subjects will have a learning objective to go along with the lesson.  This tells the children what they will be learning.  Often, they will learn more than one thing during Reading, Language (those are both Superkids) and Math, but we will just recite one.  At the beginning of each lesson, I point out, read, and explain the objective.  The children then read it with me.  Many times they will learn new vocabulary during my explanation of the objective.  For example, yesterday they learned what it means to "identify."  As the boys and girls get more and more used to the objectives, you can start asking your child to tell you what they were each day.  Don't expect them to remember all 4.  Maybe just one or two.  Here is a picture of today's learning objectives board:

Superkids Parent Portal

I have seen that many of you have completed the Superkids parent portal account set-up for your children!  That is GREAT!!  As we do more activities, and meet more Superkids, your child will have more books and games open to play at home.   I hope you will let them get on the website at home and have fun!  If you don't already have an account set up, please do so.  You should have gotten an email from Superkids.  If you need me to resend the email with instructions on how to finish the set-up, please let me know.

Math
This year we are setting a goal for 100% of Kindergartners to count to 100 by the 100th day of school.  I will often assess the children on counting on their own.  If a child reaches 100 WITHOUT hints or help, and without skipping any numbers, their star in our classroom climbs to 100 on our counting chart, they color a slice of pizza to hang on the Kindergarten wall in the hallway, and they are invited to come to a pizza party soon after we celebrate our 100th day of school in January.  So far we have 5 friends from our classroom that have a slice of pizza hanging in the hallway.  Keep practicing at home!  :)

Have a great 3 day weekend and Happy Labor Day!  See you Tuesday!