We have enjoyed our “getting acquainted” time with your children during the first two months of school. The children have made new friends and are feeling more comfortable, confident and settled in with school routines.

The next couple of months will be busy both at home and at school with holiday and seasonal happenings. We would like to share some important dates and information with you.

Parent-Teacher Conferences

            Wednesday, November 4th  and Friday, November 6th are the days for our parent-teacher conferences (unless other arrangements have been made). I look forward to meeting with you!

Veterans’ Day

            There will be no school on Wednesday, November 11, in observance of Veterans’ Day.

            School pictures will be taken on Thursday, November 19, for children who were absent on the first picture day and for those whose photographs were unsatisfactory.

Rutland Food Pantry

            Our annual food drive to help stock the Rutland Food Pantry will be from November 16-20. Items need are: canned fruits, vegetables, meats, soups, and sauces; pasta, rice, cereals; bath tissue, facial tissue, napkins; detergents, cleaners; shampoo, soap, toothpaste; baby food; coffee, tea, juices.

Students who bring an item during the week may wear a hat to school on November 20.

Thanksgiving Recess

            This year, Thanksgiving falls on Thursday, November 26. Our Thanksgiving recess begins at the close of school on Tuesday, November 24. Classes will resume on Monday, November 30.

Planning Ahead

            Naquag’s annual Winter Concert will be held this year on Friday, December 18 (snow date: December 22). There will be two performances:  10:00 AM for half-day K and full-day K and grades 1-5 and 2:00 PM for full-day K and grades 1-5. The concerts are the same, just at different times for parents’ convenience.

Curriculum

            This month in Math, we will focus on exploring two-dimensional shapes (triangle, circle, square, rectangle, rhombus, hexagon and trapezoid); using numbers 0-10, and writing numerals, 0-10. We will also learn about teen numbers and

symmetry. We will spend more time with graphing and predicting.

            Our Fundations reading program is progressing and we are noticing some very important phonics and reading readiness skills developing in the children. Skills we have recently been working on are: alphabetical order; letter names and letter sounds – specifically, beginning sounds in words; rhyming – identifying and generating rhyming words; vowels – naming and hearing vowels in words; segmenting - understanding that words are made up of smaller units of sound. We have been working on segmenting words into syllables and into the onset and rime – separating the first sound in words from the rest of the word. After we segment the parts of a word, we then blend the parts back together to say the whole word. These two skills, segmenting and blending, are important for children to understand and to practice. 

            The letters and letter sounds we’ll cover in November are: /e/, /u/, /l/, /h/, /k/, /p/, /j/, /v/, and /w/.

            We will continue to work with children on re-telling stories in proper sequence. You can practice at home after you read a story to your child. Have your child re-tell the story in his/her own words, using pictures as clues. Ask questions about the people in the story, where they were, why they said or did certain things, what they might have been thinking, and so on. It’s also important to be able to predict the outcome of a story or to change the endings of stories. All of these skills are necessary language skills to develop and the time is right for Kindergarten children to begin, given their naturally high interest and enthusiasm for stories and storytelling!

            As part of our district’s balanced literacy approach, children are also participating in read-alouds (stories we read to the class); shared reading (stories, poems, rhymes, chants, songs that we read together as a class); “turn and talk” (we turn to a partner, take turns answering a question or talking about a story we have read); picture walks (“reading” the pictures in a book to aid in comprehension); literacy centers (activities designed to extend literature experiences) and much, much more! We are also teaching that good readers read from left to right and top to bottom on a page and that we do a “return sweep” at the end of a line of print to go on to the next line.

Other reading strategies, concepts and skills that we are teaching are: that print contains a message; that we point to words as we read them (especially, for beginning readers); that words and pictures are different as are words and letters; and that there are spaces between words.

November is also the time when we teach children about environmental print. It includes all the words you see everyday on signs, food containers, street and highway signs, everywhere you go. Children will soon have environmental print homework to do.

            Please be sure to have your child practice forming the letters on the handwriting papers that we send home for each letter. For Kindergarten children, diagonal lines and curved lines are often challenging for them to execute. Any at-home practice that you can provide for your child would be beneficial.

            Trick words/high-frequency words we’ll be teaching this month are: she, he, do, look, in, like, color and number words. Children need to be  practicing all the sight words in order for them to learn these words.

Literacy Corner

            The next time you take your child for an outing in the car, pack a notepad and pencil and jot down all the environmental words that your child is able to read as you drive along. Keep the notepad in the car and see if your child can add to the list on the next drive. You’ll be amazed at how familiar street signs and business signs are to your child and he/she will be rightly proud of themselves for recognizing them!

Pencil Grasp

            We are working on correctly holding all types of writing utensils (pencils, pens, crayons, markers). Many children are using pencil grippers whenever they use pencils in school.

            The reason for emphasizing the correct pencil grasp at a young age is to establish good habits early on and to reduce the hand fatigue that can occur later when children write more often and for longer periods of time.

            Also, when children begin cursive writing in the higher grades, an incorrect or immature grasp can handicap their ability to execute the pencil in the more fluid strokes needed in cursive writing. Please watch your child when he/she is writing at home and encourage the correct pencil grip.

            Children should be writing their names with a capital letter in the first position only and lower-case letters in all other positions. Also, please monitor that your child is writing these letters starting at the top position and going down toward the bottom. For correct letter formation, please refer to the Fundations handwriting alphabet.

We are also stressing the appropriate scissor grip with the children.

Second Step

            We’ve begun our Second Step social skills program in Kindergarten. We use a 15 – minute time block once a week to talk about feelings, fairness, friendships and kindness. If your child has mentioned “Impulsive Puppy,” or “Be Calm Bunny,” he/she is referring to two of the program’s mascots.

Winter Clothing

            It’s almost that time of year when we will be starting to wear winter clothes. This would be a good time to have some “practice runs” with getting winter clothing on and off. Please label all outer clothing with your child’s name, including boots.

We Are Thankful For…

            Attached to this newsletter, you will find a form to fill out and return to school on which you may write to your children and tell them why you are thankful for them. This will be a surprise letter, which we will read to them at Thanksgiving time. We will then put this note from you into your child’s All About Me book, which we are compiling during this school year. It will be brought home in June.

Thank you for all of your support at home in reinforcing skills and behaviors that we are teaching at school. It makes an impact on your children when they know that we are working together as a team for their educational benefit.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

Paula Hedlund

Jennifer Gentleman