Monday, December 12, 2011

Newsletter Updates for the Week December 12th

DATES TO REMEMBER:
-Tuesday, Dec. 20th—Christmas Party
-Wednesday, Dec. 21st—Pajama Day & Sing-a-long with Mr. Smith

BOX TOPS:
Our class has done such a great job of bringing in box tops this year! I just found out that our class is currently in 2nd place for the number of box tops brought in. The top class earns a pizza party + Mr. Smith with be doing individual drawings for prizes next week. We’d really like to take 1st place, so please clean out your cupboards and send in those box tops in the next couple of days! Go Kindergarten!!!!

SCIENCE/SOCIAL STUDIES:
This week we will continue our Science Unit on The Five Senses. We will be using our sense of touch to identify objects and textures. We will use our sense of hearing to distinguish sounds in our environment. On Friday, we will taste test several different foods and describe them. We will also be reading several books related to Christmas.

WRITING:
This week we will use the book and movie How the Grinch Stole Christmas to discuss Word Choice, Voice, and Ideas. We will complete several journal entries related to Christmas and we will complete a Type 3 Writing about 3 things we can smell at Christmas time.

READING:
This week we will be working on the letter Cc as well as the sightwords red & blue. We will be reading books about Christmas and Cookies to correlate with our letter. We will also be reading Cat’s Colors as we work on predicting, comprehension, and vocabulary. We will practice reading and writing color words during our literacy stations activities. At guided reading groups, we will be playing sightword Bingo and read through our 5 Senses of Christmas booklets. This week will be very exciting in that we will start reading from our book boxes. Students will have an opportunity to read independently each day and practice using their Accuracy and Comprehension strategies, while building their stamina for reading.

MATH:
This week we will continue to practice telling time to the hour and continue our work with identifying and counting pennies.

Wednesday, December 7, 2011

Christmas Party Information

CHRISTMAS GIFT EXCHANGE:
I know that many of you are beginning your Christmas shopping, For our class Christmas party we are planning to have a gift exchange. We are asking that girls bring a gift for a girl and boys bring a gift for a boy. Please select a gift between $3.00-$3.50 and send it in wrapped and labeled with who it is FROM. Our Christmas party will be in the afternoon on Tuesday, December 20th.

CHRISTMAS PARTY SIGN-UP
Tuesday, December 20th

Special thanks to those who volunteered to provide supplies and goodies, as well as those who are planning to come in and help out.

Here’s a copy of the sign-up sheet:

24 Plates—Taylor
24 Napkins—Claydon
24 Cups—Taylor
2 Containers of Raspberry Sherbet—Ryan
2—2 Liter Bottles of 7-Up—Camden
24 Candy Canes—Maisie
Finger Jello—Clara
Snack Mix—Baylie
Cookies—Aiden
Cheese & Crackers—Kaden


Parent Volunteers:
Gail Cook, Dianna Powell, Jessica Ouwinga, Cassie Shepardson, & Roxanne Eisenga

Newsletter Updates for the Week of December 5th

DATES TO REMEMBER:
-Friday, Dec. 9th—Next visit to the Library
-Friday, Dec. 9th—STAND Strength Assembly
-Monday, Dec. 12th—Delayed Start
-Tuesday, Dec. 20th—Christmas Party
-Wednesday, Dec. 21st—Pajama Day & Sing-a-long with Mr. Smith

STUDENT OF THE WEEK:
Our student of the week is Kaden Abrahamson. Kaden enjoys playing a variety of sports: basketball, football, baseball, and soccer and he can usually be seen wearing a jersey from one of his favorite teams. Kaden’s favorite place to go is the beach and he aspires to be a football player when he grows up.
Congratulations to Kaden on being student of the week!


RETURN REMINDERS:
Please remember to return these items:
*Completed November Book-it Calendars
*Library Books
*Completed Yellow Student Release Forms

STAND STRENGTH TEAM ASSEMBLY:
The STAND Strength Team will be visiting our school this Friday, December 9th. They will bring an important message to our students regarding self-esteem, teamwork, and bullying. The assembly begins at 9:00 in the Middle School Gym if you'd like to join us.

WRITING:
This week we will use our senses to identify
details that we can include in our writing. We will also work on sequencing the story Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? And use Eric Carle’s brilliant idea to create our own class book titled: Children, Children, What Do You See? On Thursday, we will be completing a Type 3 Writing: What do you see at Christmas time? I’m really encouraging students to try to sound out words while writing and to ‘write the sounds they hear.’

MATH:
This week we will review ordinal numbers (1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, etc.) We will also begin working on Concepts of Time; we will learn about the parts of a clock, talk about different lengths of time (hour, day, week, month, year) and practice telling time to the hour. This can be quite an abstract concept for Kindergarteners, but we will be working on this throughout the year.

SCIENCE/SOCIAL STUDIES:
This week we will continue our Social Studies Unit on Families and begin our Science Unit on The Five Senses. We will be using our sense of smell to identify different scents as well as our sense of sight to search out details in our environments.


READING:
This week we will be working on the letter Ff as well as the sightwords like & is. We will be reading Follow the Leader as we work on predicting, comprehension, and vocabulary. We will be introducing 2 new Beanie Baby Accuracy Strategies this week: Eagle Eyes & Lips the Fish. When we come to a word that we don’t know, we can use our Eagle Eyes to check the pictures for clues. Since pictures match the words, looking at the pictures can help us figure out a word we don’t know. We can also look at the first letter of the word and get our lips ready to say the sound using Lips the Fish. We are trying to get a few strategies in our ‘tool kit’ before we begin reading from our Book Boxes next week. We will have another full week of literacy stations; students will be busy sequencing and retelling stories, working on the letter F, rhyming, and sightwords, as well as handwriting Christmas lists. During strategy groups, students will practice using Eagle Eye & Lips the Fish while reading leveled readers, and work on blending individual sounds into words.