St. Stephen Martyr

Well, can you believe it is 2012! A new year and new beginnings for everyone. That is so cool. and that is the way it is with God. Always new beginnings, forgiveness and starting again. Our God is good.

At conference time I discussed with many of you some exercises to help development of small motor muscles and brain balance. I would like to review them here for you. 1. rip pages from magazines and do it from top to bottom. 2. use those same pages by using one hand only to wad it up into a ball and then use the other hand to unfurl it. Do both activities with each hand. 3. Wad them up again and use them for a basketball toss game with the trash can or another container. See who can score the most.

Here are some other ideas you may want to do: Do a little exercise each day that requires your child to cross their arms all the way across the body. This is called crossing the midline. Each time your child crosses their midline, more dendrites grow in the brain. The longer their dendrites the quicker their brain can make connections with new ideas and concepts. So do the Macarena (spelling not sure) and laugh together.

More to come later.

In Religion we try to pray a decade of the rosary each day for Ryan and Joey. We ask for healing for them in body and spirit. We are also discussing many of the Hebrew Testement stories. Your children have become good church singers especially for the Lamb of God. When you go with them on Sundays watch how they can sing it.

In Math we are working with graphing since we completed the chapters on number order to 30. Help your child make graphs of simple things at home like favorite foods or toys. We are also practicing the idea of one more than and one less than. Some have even been working on 2 less than or 2 more than.

The math website is www.macmillianmh.com. When you get that site there should be a box in the lower left-hand corner and you click the math word. The next screen shows math books and you click on the yellow kindergarten book. That should bring you to a page with tools, games and the pages on line.

In reading we are in the third unit. We have discussed characters, rhyming, positional terms of first through sixth and learned many new words. They are listed below. We are doing a lot of comparing and contrasting, likenesses and differences. We have also been working with nouns and adjectives. We enjoyed doing a project with a stuffed animal and adjectives. We worked hard and had fun.

Word list to study:

I am red God blue orange to little a

green yellow purple have to mat Tam at

for my tip sit sat brown black dog mom the cat dad is white sat we pat Tim sit sip me she with pit they you of pot hop can top stop see on pop dot rat nap not look lot map pink Tom cap like Pam pat he pass have

We use our smartboard a lot and the children like some of the sites. Here are some great websites for you to share with your child: and new ones.... www.create-a-reader.com (then click on letters of whatever you want your child to practice),

www.ixl.com

www.mgfl-cymru.org.uk ,

www.nlvm.usu.edu/en/nav/vlibrary.html

www.funbrain.com

www.eduplace.com

www.bbc.co.uk we like to listen to the stories from England (http://www.oswego.org.ocsd-web/games.StoptheClock.sthecl.html)www.squiglysplayhouse.com ,

www.pbskids.org,

www.funschool.com

www.alfy.com,

www.KidsKonnect.com and

www.LearningPlanet.com.

johnnie's math page

Here is a new one; www.picadome.fcps.net/lab/interactive/kindergarten.htm (this one gives a wide variety and you can choose many options.)Also www.oswego.org is a good one but you need to click the educational resourses link. That will take you to some great games. One that is good but is not free is www.brainpopjr.com I will send more of these as the year progresses. Enjoy.

About Sister Karen

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