Newsletter Updates for the Week of January 16th

DATES TO REMEMBER:
-Thursday, January 19th—1/2 Day of School (11:55)
-Friday, January 20th—1/2 Day of School (11:55)
-Friday, January 20th—Sledding Party
-Friday, January 27th-Report Cards Sent Home

STUDENT OF THE WEEK:
Our student of the week is Baylie Eisenga. Baylie enjoys playing outside, taking walks with her family, and riding her bike. She also enjoys playing video games, playing with Barbies, and dressing up. She is a family-girl; she likes spending time with her grandparents and her favorite place to be is home. When she grows up, Baylie would like to become a nurse. Congratulations to Baylie on being student of the week!

SLEDDING PARTY:
The Kindergarten classes are planning a sledding party for this Friday, January 20th from 10:30-11:30 on our playground. We will enjoy a time of sledding together and then come inside and warm up with some hot cocoa. We could use a couple of parent/grandparent volunteers to help push and pull kids outside, as well as a couple of volunteers to stay in and prepare our hot cocoa. If you would be willing to come in and help out, please let me know. The 20th is a half day of school with dismissal at 11:55.

HALF DAYS:
As you know, this Thursday and Friday are half days, with dismissal at 11:55. Lunch will NOT be served on these two days. I am asking the snack providers on these two days (Brenden & Kasey) to still bring in 2 snacks as usual. We will have our normal morning snack and then a second snack right before dismissal to hold students until they get home for lunch. I know this is inconvenient for young Kindergartners.

READING:
This week we will finish up the letter Pp and then start working on the letter Nn. Our sightwords this week are me & look. Our focus book is No, No Titus! and we will be using the Comprehension Strategy—Jabber the Reteller—to recall and retell important elements from the story. We will be playing several games to review all of the sightwords we have learned so far this year and we will continue working on blending sounds and segmenting words. We will also read the story Snowmen at Night and do some predicting and retelling with the story during our literacy stations. Later in the week, we will learn about ‘Good-Fit’ books and how to PICK a ‘Good-Fit’ book that matches our interest and reading level. This is so exciting because next week, students will begin picking their own ‘Good-Fit’ books to put in their book boxes for Read-to-Self time!

WRITING:
This week we will use the book The Mitten to work on Organization and to give us inspiration as we write about mittens and hibernating animals. We will also complete a Type 3 writing about a snowman later in the week. On Monday, we will be reading about Martin Luther King Jr. and his important dream of equality, freedom, & fairness. Students will be writing in their journals about their own dreams for the world. We are also starting to work on reading and writing our last names.

MATH:
This week we will have only 3 days of math because of our two half days. We will be working on grouping pennies, as well as trading up: 10 unit cubes for 1 rod of ten. We will also continue to work on telling time to the hour and begin learning about 3-D/Solid shapes.

SCIENCE/SOCIAL STUDIES:
This week we will continue our study of Winter. We will be learning about what different animals do during the Winter. We will be reading several books about hibernating & migrating animals, as well as animals that remain active in the Winter. Students will also practice their detective skills by trying to identify who or what might have made various tracks in the snow.