This week we began Jolly Phonics and both classes have had so much fun learning the first four letter sounds which are S, A, T, and I. With learning each letter we learned the correct letter formation and the sound it makes with the Jolly Phonics letter motion. My kinders have learned all the letter names, sounds and motions very quickly and I am so impressed how well they can recall the right sound and motion when I say a letter name out loud. Ask your son or daughter to show you all the motions and sounds we learned for each of the letters we learned. Way to go, K-1 and K-3! We learned the sounds for:

Letter Ss- like in the words: snake, smile, sand. 

Letter Aa- it's the short a sound like in the words: ant, apple, alligator.

Letter Tt- like in the words: tall, turtle, tennis.

Letter Ii- it's the short i sound like in the words igloo, iguana, insect. It's very important that they know the i makes the short letter sound NOT like the i sound in ice cream. That's the long i sound.

With learning the first four sounds, we are now able to read some words that contain all the letter sounds we learned such as at, sat, as, a. Today, we reviewed all the letters and sounds we learned so far and I showed them how to blend the sounds together to begin reading. They did such a great job when we read some words today. Way to go, K-1 and K-3!

In math, we talked about the meaning of the number 2 and we learned about the meaning of the word pair. We found pairs of things and talked about how they are the same and how they are different. We then practiced this new skill in our student math workbooks. They all did such a great job showing me what they learned while working on their own and I was so impressed with how well they followed directions! They are having so much fun learning math!

This week, I also did two lessons with both classes where we talked about what you should and should not do with scissors and glue bottles. Both lessons were great because it gave me the opportunity to talk to both classes about how to take care of their scissors and glue bottles so that they used them correctly. They had fun doing both lessons and I was impressed with how well my friends cut cut on the jagged or curvy lines and how well they could control their glue bottles with only doing a little dot on each circle. I told my kindergarten friends that in kindergarten we follow my rule of "Dot, Dot, Not Alot!" They had fun saying this phrase with me and they did a great job following my rule. Here are some pictures of the classes doing these two activities in class:

Other than all these activities we have completed in the classroom, my kindergarten friends have loved going to their "specials" for the first time this week! We had a wonderful first full week and I am truly amazed with how well they are all doing following directions, sustaining attention and all they are learning! Have a wonderful weekend, everyone!