Newsletter Updates for the Week of February 27th

DATES TO REMEMBER:
-Thursday, March 1st—Reading Month Kick Off
-Thursday, March 1st—Conferences—3:30-7:30
-Friday, March 2nd—No School
-Wednesday, March 7th—Finish Conferences
-Thursday, March 8th—Reading @ the Beach
-Friday, March 9th—Beach Hat Day
-Monday, March 12th—Delayed Start
-Friday, March 16th—Sunglasses Day, Wii Resort, & Irish Dance Assembly

STUDENT OF THE WEEK:
Our student of the week is Emerson Huttenga.
Emerson enjoys playing softball, and playing with Tinker Bell & Barbies. Her favorite place to go is the beach, where she enjoys spending time with family and friends in the water and in the sand. When she grows up, Emerson would like to be a veterinarian and help animals. Congratulations
to Emerson on being Student of the Week!

MARCH IS READING MONTH:
Our Reading Month Theme is Oceans—A Whale of a Tale & Flip Over a Good Book! Throughout the month, we will be learning about Ocean Animals and creating artwork to add to our hallway, as well as the Elementary Aquarium. We have several special activities planned for the month. Students will have ‘splash time’ each week for ‘read to self’ and partner reading. We have dress-up days and fun activities planned for each
Friday. Be sure to check the March Snack Calendar and newsletters for special events!Get ready to Splash into Reading!!

BOOK FAIR:
The PTO is sponsoring our annual Book Fair March 22, 23, 26, 27, 28, & 29. I am currently working on organizing the event and am seeking parent/grandparent volunteers to help run the fair during school hours (11:30-3:00) as well as Thursdays after school from 3:00-6:00. If you, or someone you know, is interested in helping out please contact me at sherrybrinks@gmail.com.

READING:
This week we will work on the letter Dd and the sightwords yellow & green. We will be reading In the Rain with Baby Duck as we work on predicting, comprehension, vocabulary, & sequencing story events. At literacy stations we will practice reading, writing, & stamping sightwords, building sentences, reading sentences, writing rhyming words, and sorting l blends. In small groups, we continue to practice segmenting words, blending sounds into words, and using our Accuracy strategies while reading ‘good-fit’ books.

WRITING:
This week we will edit our February Journals, which I will be sharing with you at conferences. We will also be talking about poetry and practice writing a poem about snow. Students will brainstorm and complete their ‘Idea Sheet’ in preparation for launching Writer’s Workshop next week! Be sure to check out our sketches of Abe Lincoln when you come in for conferences!

SCIENCE/SOCIAL STUDIES:
This week we will kick off Reading Month by beginning our study of Oceans and Sea Life. In correlation to our letter of the week, we will be reading several books about Dolphins this week.

MATH:
This week we will continue to work on identifying 3-D/solid shapes and practice paying for items using dimes. We will practice our measuring skills by comparing lengths of various objects and using inchworms to determine lengths. We will also continue to play several games involving addition.

CONFERENCES: You should have received your conference notice along with your child’s progress report on Friday. Please try to be flexible with arranging your schedule to meet. If you have a conflict, please contact me ASAP, as I have limited time slots for rescheduling. I am looking forward to meeting with you!