MRS. ANDREA H. DAVIS
Weekly Newsletter
September 18, 2015
THEME: All About Me
UNIT: Friendship & Communication
EXTENSIONS: Feelings
Key Measures: Friends are important at home, school and in the community. I can be a friend.
Knowledge of myself helps me understand who I am. An appropriate display of feelings is
important.
Dear Parents,
My weekly newsletters include the highlights of our week and it’s my way of helping
you understand some of the activities that take place in our classroom. (I hope you are
finding time to read it!!) Some of the mentioned activities are done in Group time, when all
the children are participating. Other activities are available during Work time when your
child is free to choose where s/he will work. I introduce new games or activities each day.
Some children have tried every new game I have provided. Others have chosen to
participate in a limited variety of activities and still some others have not left the Block
center or the kitchen area unless I've asked them to do so. The choices your child makes
at Work time can be indicative of his/her social skills, developmental readiness and the
length of his/her attention span. I will be able to give you information about your child's
choices and behaviors at our Parent Teacher conference in October. If I am having any
problems or concerns with your child, I'll contact you before conference time and please
do the same if you have any concerns. Next week our unit will be on the FIVE SENSES.
LANGUAGE ARTS
LISTENING: Listening center: one choice was a book on tape called Boo-Hoo.
SPEAKING: We learned a new form of the abc’s called, “The Monkey Alphabet.” Ask your
child to recite it for you.
PHONEMIC AWARENESS AND PHONICS: We know that rhyming words are those that
end with the same sound. See if your child can tell you the 9 letters that we discovered
rhyme with the word ME.
WRITING: The students drew pictures depicting the four feelings that we’re making a
book about: happy, sad, afraid and angry.
READING: These great books were available for the kids to look at, but we didn’t have
time to read them all!: Best friends for Francis, Faces, Hug, Will I have a friend?, Bright
Eyes-Brown Skin, Wimberly Worried, Armadillo Tattletale, How are you Peeling (foods
with moods), Feelings, Little Miss Shy, Berenstain Bears - Get in a Fight, Mr. Silly, Mr.
Nervous, Mr. Worry, The Way I Feel and The Care Bears’ book of Feelings.
SOCIAL STUDIES
The students are developing competence showing an awareness of others differences and
feelings. We are practicing using “I messages” with our friends to let them know what we
want. For example, “I don’t like it when you take my marker” or “I like it when you share
your crayons with me.” I-messages are used at every grade level at SE.
MATH
The students are having a great time playing a Mr. Happy board game and a Mr. Noisy game
with a friend. They use a plus(+) or minus(-) dice to move their man. We played a game of
concentration by matching cards with expressive faces. We looked through a series of
pictures of people with expressions on their faces and classified the expressions into
groups of Happy or Not Happy.
SCIENCE
We graphed the number of pets we have at home and we have had discussions about pets
having feelings, too. Our Pet/Animal care unit is coming up in a few weeks.
ART
VISUAL: Soon you’ll see the book we have been hard at work making.
MUSICAL: Did you know that Southeast Elementary has it’s own song? We’re learning it
so we can sing it with the rest of the school at our assemblies.
MOVEMENT: I drew a letter L on the kids left hands to help them during the movement
records that give directional clues. We do movement songs everyday to help us get our
wiggles out!
DRAMATIC PLAY: The students are acquiring experience learning negotiation skills
through dramatic play.
TECHNOLOGY
On Mondays we go to the computer lab. We played a great game called Starfall which
offers differentiated games to enhance reading skills.
There are other games like
ABCya, Jigzone and PBS Kids. Soon we’ll have Raz-Kids too. Each child has their own
computer and log in card.
Have a great weekend!
Andrea Davis