Mrs. Willis’ Class News 19th – 23rd, 2019 Rockhill PTO Show & Tell It’s not too late to sign up for the PTO! You get a free Rockhill calendar when you sign up. Contact me if you would like a registration sheet! PTO Game night is Friday 8/23! Hope to see you there  Rockhill PTO Show & Tell Please only send one item for show and tell. Souvenirs from family trips, awards earned through hard work and pictures of special memories make great show and tell items. Your child’s show and tell day is listed on the monthly calendar in their folder. Please do not send in toys for Show and Tell. The children have enjoyed taking their turn to share this week. Please help them prepare to be able to answer their friends questions. Thanks!! Scholastic News We read a Scholastic magazine each week to learn about social studies and science topics while practicing our literacy skills. These magazines come with access to videos, digital games, a digital copy of the magazine, and printable activities. The $6.50 Scholastic fee on the Kindergarten supply list goes towards this website and magazine. If you haven’t had a chance yet, please send your $6.50 as soon as possible; you can send cash or a check made out to Rockhill Elementary School. Thank you so much for supporting this fantastic program! 9/22 – Red, White & Blue Day 9/26 – RES Chick-Fil-A Night 9/27 - Early Release Day 9/29 - Johnny Appleseed Day (More information coming home soon!) and Super Hero Spirit Day 10/2 - September reading record is due. Please check your child’s folder for more information. 10/16 – Pumpkin Patch Field Trip Important Dates 8/30 – No School for Labor Day holiday 9/2 – No School for Labor Day holiday 9/3 - August reading record is due. Please check your child’s folder for more information 9/6 – School Spirit Day – Wear Blue and Yellow or Rockhill Spirit wear. 9/11 – Red, White and Blue Day. 9/13 – Dot Day (Wear Polka Dots) 9/18 – 1:10 Early Release Day Fine Motor Skills We have been spending a lot of time on fine motor activities in class to build up our hand muscles for better handwriting (fine motor skills also help us pack/unpack our backpacks, open food packaging, tie our shoes, and undo our zippers and buttons without help). Cutting and tearing paper, making designs in paper using hole punches, stringing beads, picking up pom poms with clothespins, and picking up small objects like buttons from our sorting station are just a few of the ways we play while increasing our fine motor skills. You can try any of these ideas at home and, of course, playdough is your child’s best friend for fun fine motor play!

Language Arts & Social Studies What We’re Learning… Language Arts & Social Studies This week we read books about colors, numbers and letters. We read several Pete the Cat books and made our own Pete the Cat. We read Chrysanthemum and Chicka, Chicka Boom Boom and talked about letters as well as beginning our ABC boot camp to focus on a letter each day. We are finding the letters in friends names, making a circle map and looking at beginning sound words in alphabet tubs. We are learning the three ways to read a book: Read the words, read the pictures, and retell what we remember. Please help your little one practice these three ways to read when they do their nightly reading homework. We have been talking about our color names and started our Color Creature books (coming home soon!). When reading books at home, encourage your child to go on a hunt for these color words. We are also working on building our classroom community by getting to know one another during our morning meetings and by practicing taking part in conversations. The class has done a great job of practicing eyes on the speaker, still hands, and waiting one’s turn to talk. In writing we have been practicing holding our pencil correctly, sitting up tall, keeping our feet flat on the floor, and holding the paper with our free hand. Each day we have been making a book for the King or the Queen of the day. By the beginning of September each child in the class will have had a turn as the King or the Queen! Math This week we learned a new game called Counting Jar in which we count a set of objects, recount to check ourselves, and then create an equal set. We have also been practicing sliding the object we are counting to a new place in order to keep track of what we have counted. We counted the number of letters in our names and compared the lengths to our other friends in the class uses the words “shorter,” “longer,” and “equal.” Lastly we spent time learning our calendar routine. Our calendar routine includes recording the current date, recording how many days we’ve been in school (which will lead to talking about place value), checking the calendar for any special days, checking and recording the temperature and weather, building a pattern of the month (AB), and singing songs about the days of the week and the months in the year. We have also been talking about reading and writing the numerals 0 – 10. On Friday we celebrated the tenth day of school with a visit from Zero the Hero. Zero will visit our room on school days ending in a zero to help us count up to the 100th day of school. Poetry Our poem this week was Hickory Dickory Dock. We will work all year to develop a “concept of word,” for all students. Students who have a firm concept of word can memorize a poem, point to the beginning letter of each word as they recite, and read various words from a poem using what they have memorized and the beginning sound of the word. Encourage your child to recite all the poems and songs they have learned. Also, encourage your child to point under the first letter in each word and not move their finger until they have said all the syllables in that word. Together we will grow strong readers!