Mr. Cooper's Class

March

PARENTS

We are getting closer to the end of school; this is the time of the year that Mrs. U. and I really enjoy.  The children are capable of doing so much more in school.  For the next couple of weeks we will be studying about money (identifying coins and counting using pennies, nickels and dimes).  After money we will start to learn about addition and then subtraction.  We will also be learning about leperachauns, and animals. 

I hope you have noticed we have been doing a lot more writing since winter break. At home please continue to work with your child on their writing skills 2 or 3 days a week (we are writing about 3 sentences in class).  Also remember to have your child read to you every night.  However, you still need to read to them some nights. We have just learned about telling time.  Please practice telling time at home with your child.  The children should be able to tell time to the hour and the half-hour.  We did learn a little about the rest of the minutes (counting by 5). 

February

 I hope that everyone had a great Winter Break.  We are off to a great second half of the school year.  It has been great to see how each child has grown and changed in every way since the beginning of the school year. We are now starting a new program. The program is   “Book in the Bag” (Please read about it in the next column). In the next couple of weeks in school we will study about Martin Luther King, map keys, and day and night.  We will finish up talking about Measurement (Capacity, long, short, and weight).  We will also study about Time (to the hour, half-hour and also maybe to the 10min.) Following that we will study about money (identifying coins and counting using pennies, nickels and dimes).

Book in the Bag

            I am excited to say that we are starting the “BOOK IN THE BAG.”  This is a program that will help the children practice their reading skills that we have been working on all year. We will be sending a book home in a BAG to each student this week (If you have sent in the permission slip).  When the book comes home, you and your child will need to read the book together (they read to you).   Together you practice reading the book until the child is able to read the whole book by themselves and answer the questions that are with the book (in bag or in inside the cover).  This may take one day, two days or three days.  When they are able to do this please return the Book in the Bag to us.  Mrs. U. and I then will have the kids read the book to us.  If they are able to read the book to us we will then give them a new book to take home. It may take us a day or two to exchange the books.  This program will start the week of January 26^th.  Thanks for your help with this program!!!

November

     The school year is going quick.  It will be Thanksgiving before we know it.  Then the Winter Holidays will be here very shortly after that.  I am pleased with how the class is progressing.  I am starting to really work on the children’s writing.   I am talking about phonically spelled word sentences and finger spacing.  We are finishing up our pattern unit.  However, please continue to make patterns at home or point them out when you see them. Patterns are still a big theme over the school year.  Over the next couple of weeks we will quickly touch on the 8 basic shapes as well as spheres and cubes.  Also do more work on bar graphs.  We will also study about Nutrition (food pyramid), and the Thanksgiving holiday.  As always, we will be studying our phonics.  Please make sure that your child can now identify all the letters in the alphabet, lower and upper case.  Then start working on the letter sounds.

          After the winter break we the teachers will not be tying shoes, zipping or unzipping, buttoning, opening milk cartoons, putting on jackets or sweaters, and etc….  If your child needs assistance with these, please start working with them now.  We are trying to make them as independent as possible, as well as solving their own problems.  Velcro is not the solution to tying shoes. Tying shoes is a life skill that they need to know how to do.  Also if your child does not know their left and their right hands please work with them. Thanks for your help!!!

October

The children are doing very well. It is hard to believe that it is already the 40th day of school. Last week in school we were sorting different objects by size, shape, color, and they way they feel. We will still continue to sort objects throughout the school year. You would be surprised but, a lot of the children have trouble sorting objects by their size. We are now starting to study about patterns’ (ABA, AABB, ABBC, and so on). We will also learn about Columbus Day, Fire Safety, Vowels, and do fun Halloween activities. As always, we will be working on our alphabet and the letter sounds. Please continue to work with your child on recognizing the alphabet letters or sounds. At this point in the year I expect the children to be able to recognize all the uppercase and most of the lowercase letters. Also at home you can work on making and identifying patterns (AB, ABC, and ABBC). You can make patterns with almost anything (Lego’s, markers, shapes, blocks, or beads). Please continue to work on your phone number and address.

September 1

     The year is off to a great start.  The children have done a great job of learning the routine of school and what Mrs. U’s and I expectations are.  Labor Day has come and gone and we will be learning about community workers. The students will be learning about the jobs that people do (police officer, fire fighter, soldier, mail carrier, baker, farmer, doctor, mechanic, and teacher) to help others. The next unit that we will study about is the 5 senses.  We will study what the five senses are and how we use them to sort different items.   In Math we will be studying about Numbers 1-10 We will be counting objects to 10, recgnozing number words through ten, labeling sets and using ordinal numbers 1^st – 5^th.  Then we will look at Spatial Words (top, left, over, on).  We will also be working on our color words, and as always we will be working on our alphabet and the letter sounds

August 18th

Cooper’s  Chronicle

A Cooper Publication                                            August 18, 2008

     We are off to a great start in Kindergarten!  We have spent last week learning about our new class, our new school and our new teachers. We started our “Shape Monster” books, built a number train and centipede, learned to read the “First Day of School” poem, made a bar graph, learned about the calendar and read many books.  We have spent a lot of time this week talking about our school and classroom rules and learning about our classroom routines.   Next week well will be doing some “Chicka-Chicka Boom Boom” activities, learning about “Me and My Family,” and working on shapes, numbers and colors.   We have learned so much last week and this week in Kindergarten!  It certainly has been a busy time in Kindergarten!  WHAT FUN WE HAVE HAD!  I look forward to seeing you again Curriculum Night, September 2 from 6:30-8:00 (please do not bring the children, if possible). If you have any question or concerns please Email me at, worth.cooper@cobbk12.org