Welcome to Kindergarten!

There is a wonderful sense of home when you walk through the front doors of Samsula Academy. I deeply believe that your child will find our school to be a warm and friendly place. I am very proud to be a part of the Samsula Academy School family. Once you have opened those doors you are a member of our family too.

I wish to welcome you to Kindergarten. Kindergarten is a new and exciting time for you and your child. It’s a time of change… new beginnings, new friends, new challenges and exciting discoveries! I would like to take this opportunity to express my sincere appreciation for allowing me to be a part of your child’s life during this precious time of growth and discovery!

This is my honor to welcome you and your child into Kindergarten and into… my life. I will do my best to make this year in Kindergarten enjoyable but also filled with academics. My motto is: “The seeds I plant today will blossom into a flower tomorrow.” It will be my pleasure and privilege to watch your child’s personality and learning abilities blossom and unfold day by day.

I run a very effective classroom which is well structured but allows for fun and growth. I hold high expectations for all my students. Furthermore, I strongly believe in differentiated instruction. Research reveals that all students learn differently. Therefore, I plan my lessons to meet the needs of all students. It will be my honor to expand the growing minds of tomorrow and encourage them to become the great leaders of the new generation.

You will find very useful information on this blog. I will update it with events that are happening in our classroom, student work, and other related events. If you have any questions, you may contact me at cgibbs@readingedgeacademy.org

-Mr. Christopher Gibbs

The Week Ahead

I hope you had a very thankful Thanksgiving! I hope you enjoyed the times you spent with your child; however, I am sure you are all ready to send them back! There is exactly three weeks before the Christmas/Winter break and we have a lot of cover. In this post, I will review everything that we will be doing in the month of December.

Tomorrow, there will be a lot of information sent home with your child. Although a lot is completed work and crafts, there are also three letters mixed in. These three letters are very important. One of which discusses our Kindergarten Gift Exchange. Another encourages your child to bring in a Christmas Ornament for our tree. The third is a list of items we will need to create our Christmas related crafts, projects, and activities.

Tomorrow, your students will experience a slight shift in instruction. Before, the focus has been on letters and sounds. Now, the focus will be more on building, blending, and spelling basic (and more complicated) words. Each week, we will be working with a new word family. Your child will learn to build, blend, and spell words within that family. Students will have a spelling test every Friday. Your child is expected to understand the spelling pattern, not memorize how to spell a word. You child will have basic words (hat, cat, mat) and will also have more complicated words (flat, etc...) We will have direct instruction every day, there is no excuse for students not to understand these by Friday. We will be working with the -an family this week.

We will continue our sight words this week. Students will be introduced to the "Sight Word King," this week. I will be wearing a lab coat during sight word instruction that has every word we have learned so far. At the end of the week, we will add the words to the coat. This will be fun and something students have to look forward to. This week, we will have 6 words because students are already familiar with like and he. The words this week are: good, have, he, into, like, must.

We will be learning about sequencing in a story this week as we read The Gingerbread Man. We will learn about events in order as they happen. Students will have to retell the story to either Mr. Gibbs or Mrs. Shannon on Friday. This is a formal assessment to see if students understand how to properly retell a story. Afternoon workshops will all be related to this story and on Friday, we will go on a hunt to find the Gingerbread Man! This will begin our holiday season.

Writing is also becoming more intense. I expect students to be able to write three sentences correctly. Students need to be using capital letters and periods. Students should also be able to write three sentences to a related topic having a beginning, middle, and end. We are becoming great writers and the more you practice at home - the better!

We will begin Number Patterns in math this week. We will be working with counting orally to 100 by 1s, 2s, 5s, and 10s using a hundreds chart this month. We will also explore odd and even numbers. We will learning how to write numbers to 40. Before break, students will have a short test on all the math concepts learned and writing numbers to 40.

In science, we will begin exploring matter tomorrow. We will learn about ways we can change paper. We will be making Christmas paper chains learning about ways we can change paper (bending). This week, we will also explore: wood/metal, water, and solid/liquid/gas. Students will have a formal assessment on these concepts on Friday. The remainder two weeks will be all holiday related as we explore different holidays around the globe.

The first trimester report cards will be going home on Wednesday. We are already two weeks into the new trimester. If you have any comments or concerns or would like to schedule a conference, please let me know. Also, I will send home a small informal progress report before break so that you are aware of concepts and skills that need to be practiced over the holiday. Remember, the December Family Project is due this week and we will be making another digital story. We are 21st century learners and we love it!

Remember to read and practice!

Mr. Gibbs and Mrs. Shannon

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