Weekly Update 1/21-1/24

Language Arts

This past week we learned a new sight word, "his." We are continuing to use the paper books in class to use during our Daily 5 read to someone activity. These books will begin coming home on a regular basis in the next month or so. Please remember to continue practicing sight words and reading the paper books with your student so they continue to learn their sight words and their reading skills!

We're moving along in our Fundations work. We learned four new uppercase letters last week, Gg, Hh, Ii and Jj. The practice pages will come home next Tuesday. I ask that your student also practice writing both their first and last name on these pages. They should be using only uppercase letters for the first letter of their first and last names.

Guided reading groups are in full swing! Your students are off to an amazing start. If you have questions about the books you see come home, how best to read with your student, or strategies to try if they're becoming frustrated (or "bored" as they most likely will call it), please let me know and I will be happy to talk more with you.

Math

We've completed learning our numbers to 20! We're becoming pros at using 10-frames to see the parts of numbers and will complete Chapter 6 next week.

We have also continued discussing the correct names for 3-D shapes during our Daily Calendar time. This week, we introduced the term sphere for round objects like balls, oranges or bubbles; cones like ice cream cones or party hats, and understand the difference between a cone and pyramid. We will continue to discuss these shapes along with flat shapes and learn about corners, sides and faces.

Science

This week we had the opportunity to visit with Ms. Stella from the Discovery Museums and learn more about bubbles. The students loved every moment of this activity and learned a lot about the properties of bubbles. We learned that a bubble touched with something dry will always pop, but if touched with something wet, can be touched and manipulated without popping. The students also saw that even when we create bubbles with different shaped objects like a triangle bubble blower, the bubble will always become a sphere.

The students had a wonderful time and learned many new and excited concepts with Ms. Stella. I hope they came home and shared everything they learned with you!

Important Reminders

*Students need to return their plastic Ziploc bag which contains their guided reading books (not the paper sight word books) to school each Tuesday. If this bag along with the book is not returned, I cannot send another book home for them to practice. These books will continue to come home until the student has become masters at reading the book and it will be cycled out of their bag to make room for new practice books.

Reminder and Request

Good morning 309 parents!

I have a reminder and a request to send out to you all today:

1. Please remember to send a snack in with your child even if they're buying lunch.

2. We are in need of more baby wipes! As the cold and flu season is upon us, we are using more wipes than even and are almost out in the classroom. If you can send one package in with your student this week, we should have plenty to finish off our year together.

Thank you and have a wonderful week!

Our New Year So Far

Language Arts

Over the past two weeks, we've learned three new sight words including "and," "this," and "that." There were a few sight word cards left on the floor yesterday while we were packing up and I could find the folder that was missing their cards. So, if your student didn't come home with theirs yesterday, please let me know and I'll be sure to send them home on Tuesday!

We've started our Guided Reading Groups. Each of your students should have brought home a plastic bag with a letter home to parents and a book that we've read together once, they've read by themselves once and I'm hoping, can read to three people at home by Tuesday. Please remember that these books are ones they can use pictures to figure out the more difficult words written on the page. They are also using their knowledge of sight words and beginning letter sounds to figure out other words that might trick them up while reading.

Our new Fundations unit is underway and we're learning the Fundations way of writing both upper and lower case letters. This coming Tuesday, I will be sending home a new homework packet for them to practice their new letter formations including A, B, C, D, E and F. This homework packet needs to be completed by the following Tuesday so that your student can take their time practicing writing all of our new letters.

Math

As we begin the New Year, we also are beginning a new unit in Math focusing on numbers to 20. We've begun using 10-frames to count to 20. Your student will use these 10-frames throughout the year to help see the composition of numbers and to build (add) and take apart (subtract) numbers to 20.

We're also learning the correct names of 3-D shapes like cylinders, rectangular prisms and cubes during our daily calendar.

Science

Our conversations since the beginning of the year are focusing on living and non-living things. We've discovered that a tree is living because it needs water, food and air to survive. This past week, we've begun discovering the properties of non-living things like rocks, buttons and pom-poms. Next week, we'll have our Bubble Workshop and learn more about liquids and gases.

Important Reminders

*The new share calendar is up on the website. This new calendar also includes all important school dates, too.

*Please remember to send your child to school with both snow boots AND snow pants. If they do not have both items, they will not be able to play in the snow or on the playground structure.

New Share Calendar for 2014

Hi 309 Parents! I hope that you all had a wonderful vacation and that your student is ready to come back to Kindergarten! I know I'm ready to start the new year! I updated the share and classroom calendar with a new Google Calendar feature and I just learned today it wasn't visible for you all. I've changed it so that everyone can see the information. Please let me know if you have any questions about the new calendar or if you have any problems accessing the information. Thanks!