Newsletter Updates for the Week of February 25th

DATES TO REMEMBER:

-Thursday, Feb. 28th—Parent Teacher Conferences

-Fri., March 1st—Dress as a Jungle Explorer + Popcorn

-Thursday, March 7th—Whispering Pines Mobile Zoo

-Friday, March 8th—Wear Crazy Colors + Popcorn

-Wednesday, March 13th—Celebrity Reading Day

-Friday, March 15th—Animal Print Day + Popcorn

-Friday, March 22nd—Dress as Favorite Storybook Character + Popcorn

-Thursday, March 28th—Jammies in the Jungle

 CONFERENCES: 

I am looking forward to meeting with each of you this week for conferences.  In addition to discussing your child’s progress, we will look ahead and discuss how to support their next steps to learning.  We have some very exciting things coming up as we look to the future!  Please be sure to return your yellow conference slip so that I can make adjustments in times if needed. :)

PLEASE SEND IN: 

I am still needing a few more toilet paper/paper towel rolls for binoculars and a lot more shoe boxes—each student needs an empty shoe box for a project this week.  I am blessed to have 4 parent volunteers this week and they will be helping the students make several special projects for Reading Month, so please send them in ASAP. :)

MATH:

This week we will continue to work on addition, with manipulates and calculators.  We will also be doing some measuring with our feet and learning about how big a ‘foot’ is.

READING: 

Our focus letter this week is Jj and our focus text is Jump Into the Jungle—perfect since we will be jumping into our Jungle Reading Theme—GO WILD FOR READING!  Students will be ‘shopping’ for Good-Fit Books in preparation for Take-Home Reading Folders—so exciting!  I will also be completing Running Records with the students to determine their Reading Levels.  We will introduce the sight word what, as well as a new Beanie Baby for Accuracy—Helpful Kangaroo.  She reminds us that after we try ALL of our Accuracy Strategies, and if we are still stuck on a word, we should ask for help.  We will also spend time this week practicing rhyming and breaking words down into syllables—excellent skills for both reading & writing.

WRITING: 

Our Abe Lincoln sketches turned out fabulous—be sure to check them out at conferences! This week we will begin writing another pattern book; this time with a ‘question and answer structure.’  We will also complete a journal page about our favorite American Symbol and another journal related to Dental Health.  I continue to be impressed with the students’ writing development and their positive attitudes for writing. :)

SCIENCE/SOCIAL STUDIES: 

This week we will begin our Dental Health Unit.  We will read several narrative and informational texts related to Dental Health and learn about the importance of good Dental Hygiene through several hands-on activities.

BOOK FAIR: 

The PTO is sponsoring our annual Book Fair March 21, 22, 25, 26, 27, & 28.  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.

 *I will be out of the classroom this Wednesday to attend a training with the Kindergarten Team.  Mrs. Low & Mrs. Rees will be here and they are very familiar with the students and our routines. :)

Pictures from 100's Day

The 100th Day of School Assembly

 Captain Zero the Hero (aka Mr. Smith) made his grand appearance!

 Building Trains of 100 with Unifix Cubes

 So Excited that 100's Day Finally Came!

Newsletter Updates for the Week of February 18th

DATES TO REMEMBER:

-Tuesday, Feb. 19th—100th Day of School

-Friday, Feb. 22nd—Next Visit to the Library & Progress Reports Sent Home

-Thursday, Feb. 28th—Parent Teacher Conferences

-Fri., March 1st—Dress as a Jungle Explorer + Popcorn

-Thursday, March 7th—Whispering Pines Mobile Zoo

-Friday, March 8th—Wear Crazy Colors + Popcorn

-Friday, March 15th—Animal Print Day + Popcorn

-Friday, March 22nd—Dress as Favorite Storybook Character + Popcorn

-Thursday, March 28th—Jammies in the Jungle

PROGRESS REPORTS & CONFERENCES: 

Progress Reports will be coming home with students this Friday.  You will be receiving your child’s DIBELS & AIMSWEB results for Winter.  I look forward to meeting with you to discuss your child’s progress at Parent Teacher Conferences on the 28th. :)

BOOK FAIR: 

The PTO is sponsoring our annual Book Fair March 21, 22, 25, 26, 27, & 28.  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 MONTH: 

March is Reading Month and it is right around the corner!  Our theme this year is Go Wild For Reading—a jungle theme.  I am looking for jungle-related decorations that I could borrow for decorating our hallway, if you have anything around your house, please send it in.  Each classroom has picked a Jungle Animal to focus on and ours is the Spider Monkey. 

*Items needed: Toilet paper rolls/paper towel rolls & shoe boxes (1 for each student).

READING: 

We will finish up with the Letter U this week; we will be using Chunky Monkey to help us read and write words with the following word families: ug & uck. We will also use Flippy the Dolphin to help us practice reading words with both the short and long U sounds.  We will introduce the sight words two & three, as well as a new Beanie Baby for Accuracy—Skippy the Frog.  He reminds us that if we get stuck on a word while reading, we can skip the word, read on, then hop back, and re-read the sentence to try to figure it out.  This week students will also be introduced to ‘Good-Fit’ books and how to determine if a book is a ‘Good-Fit’ book.  They will practice picking out their own ‘Good-Fit books to add to their book boxes and will soon begin bringing them home to read, once we begin Take Home Reading Folders. :)

WRITING: 

This week we will take a break from Pattern Books to work on a couple of Journals.  Students will be writing about “If I were President I would . . .” and we will compile a list of facts about Abraham Lincoln, write about him, and complete a pencil sketch of our 16th President.

SCIENCE/SOCIAL STUDIES: 

We will continue our Unit on American Symbols and Democratic Values.  This week we will learn about Abraham Lincoln, the Bald Eagle, the Liberty Bell, the Statue of Liberty and the Democratic Values of Liberty, Truth, & Common Good. 

MATH:

Our math activities this week will focus around 100’s Day!  We will practice counting to 100 by 1’s, 5’s, & 10’s, as well as counting 100 objects in various different ways.  Our very own Mr. Smith will make his grand appearance as ‘Zero the Hero.’  In addition to 100’s Day, we will also practice reading and writing 2 digit numbers, practice sequencing daily events in chronological order, and continue to work on addition.

A Few Changes - Thanks to our Snow Day :) & Book Fair Help Needed

Due to today's snow day, 100's Day will be next Tuesday & will not fall on Valentine's Day.  Here are just a few changes to the newsletter I posted on Sunday for this week:

DATES TO REMEMBER:

-Monday, Feb. 11—Theme Basket Drawing

-Wednesday, Feb. 13th—Student Count Day

-Thursday, Feb. 14th—Valentine’s Party (pm)

-Friday, Feb. 15th—No School—Professional Dev.

-Monday, Feb. 18th—No School—President’s Day

-Tuesday, Feb. 19th—100th Day of School

-Thursday, Feb. 28th—Parent Teacher Conferences

MATH: 

Our math activities this week will focus around Valentine’s Day!  We will practice building numbers 0-30 with base 10 blocks and work on patterning, sorting, & graphing.

WE NEED YOUR HELP!

Dear Parents (and Grandparents), 

The PTO is looking for volunteers to help with the upcoming Book Fair. 

We are seeking volunteers to help students browse and purchase books on March 21^st, 22^nd, 25^th, 26^th, 27^th, and 28^thfrom 11:30am-3:00pm.  The Book Fair will be set-up in the Library and students will come down with their entire class - - so the more volunteers we have to help, the smoother it will go.  If you’d be willing to help out for an afternoon (or partial afternoon) please let us know.

We are also extending our hours on Thursday March 21^st & Thursday March 28^th from 3:00-6:00 so that families & community members can browse and shop.  We are looking for volunteers to run the fair during these extended hours as well.

If you would be willing to help out with the Book Fair, please contact Sherry Brinks at sherrybrinks@gmail.com (825-2021/884-9566) or LeighAnn Sikkema at lasikkema@mcbain.org (825-8041).

Thanks for supporting your PTO.

Newsletter Updates for the Week of February 11th

DATES TO REMEMBER:

-Monday, Feb. 11—Theme Basket Drawing

-Wednesday, Feb. 13th—Student Count Day

-Thursday, Feb. 14th—100th Day of School & Valentine’s Party (pm)

-Friday, Feb. 15th—No School—Professional Development

-Monday, Feb. 18th—No School—President’s Day

-Thursday, Feb. 28th—Parent Teacher Conferences

STUDENT OF THE WEEK:  

Our student of the week is Daniel McElhinney.  Daniel enjoys going to the beach, climbing trees, and being outside with his family.  He would like to be a professional baseball player when he grows up!  Congratulations to Daniel on being Student of the Week!

PARENT TEACHER CONFERENCES:  

Parent teacher conferences are scheduled for Thursday, February 28th from 4:00-7:00.  The administration has reserved this short amount of time for us to meet with just a few of our families, those that we feel we need to meet with.  However, the Kindergarten team feels strongly that we would like to set aside time to meet with all of our families.  I am going to try to fit in as many as possible on the 28th.  I am also hoping to do Anna’s, Lauren’s, & Lydia’s conferences when their moms are in to volunteer that week. :)  You should be receiving your conference notices soon.  I would encourage you to try to work it into your schedule to come in and meet.  If you decide that you cannot make your conference during your scheduled time, please let me know if you’d like to arrange a phone conference, a face-to-face conference at another time, or if you would prefer not to meet at all.

 READING MONTH:  

March is Reading Month and it is right around the corner!  Our theme this year is Go Wild For Reading—a jungle theme.  I am looking for jungle-related decorations that I could borrow for decorating our hallway, if you have anything around your house, please send it in.  Also, we will be making binoculars, so please start sending in toilet paper rolls, paper towel rolls, or wrapping paper rolls.  Each student will also need a small shoe box. :)

READING:  

Our focus text for this week is The Wolf’s Chicken Stew and our focus letter is Uu.  Since U is a vowel, we will be using Chunky Monkey to help us read and write words with the following word families: ug, un, uck, & ub.  We will also use Flippy the Dolphin to help us practice reading words with both the short and long U sounds.  We will introduce the sight words one, two, & three, as well as a new Beanie Baby for Accuracy—Skippy the Frog.  He reminds us that if we get stuck on a word while reading, we can skip the word, read on, then hop back, and re-read the sentence to try to figure it out.  The students are doing a fabulous job of using their accuracy strategies and building their stamina for reading during Read-to-Self time!

WRITING:  

Last week we wrote pattern books with a see-saw pattern; we went through the entire writing process of thinking of our ideas, thinking of a pattern, and then transferring our ideas to paper.  On Thursday, we worked on adding a Title and a ‘WOW’ cover.  This week they will conference with a friend and with me in preparation for ‘Author’s Chair.’  This week we will also complete a class 100’s Day Book and begin writing a new pattern book—with a question and answer structure.

SCIENCE/SOCIAL STUDIES:  

We will continue reading books related to friendship & kindness, in preparation for Valentine’s Day.  We have just begun our Unit on American Symbols and Democratic Values—last week we learned about the American Flag, the Pledge of Allegiance, the Star Spangled Banner, Equality, & Patriotism.  This week we will learn about Presidents (past & present) & the White House.  We will also learn about the important role that our heart plays and listen to our heartbeats.

MATH: Our math activities this week will focus around 100’s Day!  We will practice counting to 100 by 1’s, 5’s, & 10’s, as well as counting 100 objects in various different ways.  It will be a very busy and exciting week!

Our Friend Smokey the Bear

Updates for the Week of February 4th

I am not sending home a detailed newsletter this week because our snow days last week, resulted in me shuffling most of the planned curriculum to this week.

Just a few reminders:

*Friday is Homecoming – Green & Gold Day

*Friday is our next trip to the library

*The students have filled our classroom marble jar and have earned a class reward afternoon.  They have chosen to have a movie afternoon - so we will be celebrating 'being bucket fillers' this Friday afternoon.

*Please be sure to send your child with snow pants, boots, gloves/mittens, hat, & a winter coat – in case we are lucky enough to go outside for recess this week. J

Valentine’s Party - Updated :)

24 Plates - Alaysia

24 Napkins - Jazmine

24 Cups - Dayvi

2 Liter Bottle of Cherry 7-Up - Maisie

2 Liter Bottle of Cherry 7-Up - Alaysia

Cheese - Paige

Crackers - Max

Finger Jell-O (Sugar Free) - Alaysia

Cookies - Teagan

Parent Volunteers—Thursday, February 14th (pm)

Megan Cornell

Terry Grames

Kathy DeWitt

**Please plan to arrive by 12:15.  You are welcome to come early and have lunch with your child.