Newsletter Updates for the Week of March 5th

DATES TO REMEMBER:
-Wednesday, March 7th—Mrs. Brinks will have a sub in the afternoon to finish up parent teacher conf.
-Friday, March 9th—Reading @ the Beach (10:45)
-Friday, March 9th—Beach Hat Day
-Monday, March 12th—Delayed Start
-Friday, March 16th—Sunglasses Day, Wii Resort @ 9:10, & Irish Dance Assembly (pm)
-Friday, March 23rd—Flip-Flops/Sandals Day & Ocean Guy Assembly
-Friday, March 30th—Beach Day, Final Assembly

MARCH IS READING MONTH:
This week we will be ‘reading at the beach.’ Since we have so many elementary classes, some will go Thursday & some classes will go on Friday. Our class will be reading at the beach on Friday at 10:45. Your child is welcome to bring in a beach towel to sit on while reading. We will also enjoy a snack at the beach. You are welcome to send in a small ziploc baggie of small items (m & m’s, cereal, pretzels, raisins, etc.) to add to our class ‘beach mix.’ Friday is also beach hat day; students are encouraged to wear their favorite beach hat to school.

CONFERENCES:
Thank you for taking time out of your busy schedules to meet for conferences. It is such an exciting time of the year, and it is great to have the opportunity to share your child’s progress with you and discuss goals together. I still have a couple of time slots available on Wednesday afternoon if you missed your conference and would like to meet. Just a reminder that Wednesday’s conferences will be held in the elementary conference room, by the elementary office.

NEW STUDENT:
We would like to officially welcome our new friend Alaysia; we are excited to have her join our class! The children are eager to make her feel welcome! This brings our classroom count to 22 students; 11 girls & 11 boys!

READING:
This week we will be working on the letter Gg and the sightword on. We will be reading Honk, Honk, A Story of Migration (geese) as we work on
predicting, comprehension, vocabulary, and sequencing story events. We will also be reading and retelling The Three Billy Goats Gruff, which is always a favorite! We will be reviewing our letters and sounds by playing beach volleyball & we will be fishing for sightwords. This week we will
introduce ‘partner reading’ as another way to practice our stamina for reading as well as our reading strategies.

WRITING:
We have reached a new milestone; this week we will launch Writing Workshop! Students will begin by brainstorming a list of things they can write about—an idea sheet. Then we will begin the process of choosing an idea and writing and publishing our very own books. We will be working on introducing the various stages of the Writer’s Workshop during the next couple of weeks—Ideas, Writing, Editing, Conferencing with Peers, Conferencing with the Teacher, & Author’s Chair.

SCIENCE/SOCIAL STUDIES:
This week we will continue our study of Oceans and Sea Life—focusing our learning around sharks and coral reefs. We will also begin our Science Unit on Motion, which will extend for several weeks.

MATH:
This week we will practice identifying and naming 3-D/solid shapes (sphere, cube, cylinder, cone, & rectangular prism). We will also continue to
practice buying with dimes and counting by tens, & ordering objects according to their lengths. We will complete a shark addition page, discuss ‘more’ and ‘less’ using goldfish crackers, & create a pattern using fish.