Happy New Year!

Hello Families,
I am sorry it has been so long!!  There are many updates to inform you of with our homework (again?!), available websites for enrichment activities and our schedule.  I will try to keep it brief.
Homework will not be checked or graded and is for the enrichment of skills taught during the week.
Spelling City can be used to practice high frequency words.  I will send home a letter this week on how you can access your learner's sight words (a.k.a high frequency words and heart words).
Here is a powerpoint you can use to practice sight words as well http://www.slideshare.net/mllc04/storytown-sight-words.
IXL is a math website to be used in addition to our math series.  You will also receive a letter with login and password information for your learner.
If you are completely bored and have nothing to do (ha, ha, ha), you can go to Mr. Maffesoli's Math Common Core Standards to see what your learner is expected to know before they leave Kindergarten.  Thanks to his hard work, you can even do activities that correlate to the standard.
The common core Writing standard I would like to focus on for homework is W.K.1 which says your learner will use a combination of drawing, dictating and writing to compose informative (we say expository) texts in which they name what they are writing about and supply some information about the topic.  The framework we use is a topic sentence, for example, "My favorite book is The Wizard of Oz for three reasons.  Then we use transitional phrases first, next, last and in conclusion to form our explanation.  I will send home a copy of the framework and the rubric used to assess your learner's progress.  I will also write in the planner the topic we are working on each week so that you can help them write at home.  Please be sure to let your learner sound out each word they attempt to write using the sound charts that went home.  If that is too difficult, they can draw what they are trying to express.
On a lighter note, we are trying to go to the computer lab, every other Tuesday.
Your children have grown so very much in such a short period of time, sometimes it astounds me.  I am so very grateful to be a part of their learning experience.  Thank you for your trust and patience.

If you have any questions at all, please contact me, we are in this together!

Fondly,
Mrs. C.