Newsletter Updates for the Week of November 17th

DATES TO REMEMBER:

-Wednesday, Nov. 19th—NWEA Testing (am)

-Mon., Nov. 24th—Thanksgiving Activities (am)

–Tuesday, Nov. 25th—Making Friendship Soup

-Wednesday, Nov. 26th—Our Feast (pm)

-Thurs., Nov. 27th—Thanksgiving (No School)

-Friday, Nov. 28th—No School

-Saturday, Nov., 29th—PTO Craft Show

FRIENDSHIP SOUP:

In celebration of Friendship and Thanksgiving, we will be making and sharing Stone Soup together the week of Thanksgiving.  As in the story of Stone Soup, everyone will bring in an item to contribute to our soup and then work together to create a delicious meal.  On Monday, we will be trading amongst the Kindergarten classes to obtain all of the ingredients we need for our soup.  We will peel and cut up all of the vegetables on Tuesday, November 25th and then eat our soup together on Wednesday, November 26th at our Feast.  Our class is responsible for bringing the potatoes; we are asking each student to bring in 1 large potato on or before Monday, November 24th.

READING: 

This week our class will be focusing on the rules they follow at home and in school. Children also will be reading stories about the laws people follow in their neighborhoods and communities. Our focus text is How Do Dinosaurs Go to School?

Here are some activities that you can do with your child to help reinforce the skills we will be practicing.

Word Workout

· Vocabulary: cooperate, rules Make a chart of the rules your child follows. Encourage your child to think about the ways we cooperate, or work together with others.

· My Words to Know

High-Frequency Words: to  & it.  Fill a small pan with shaving cream. Have your child write the word to in the shaving cream each time you use the word to in a sentence.

Category Words: action words Encourage your child to think of laws and rules to follow at home, at school, and in the community.

Phonics: i Help your child think of words that include the letter i, such asink, pin, inch, if, sit, hid, and in. Write the words on paper. Then ask your child to underline the letter i in each word.

Beanie Baby Strategies:

This week we will introduce Chunky Monkey—he helps us read and write by identifying ‘chunks’ or ‘word families’ that we know within words.  We will be using Chunky Monkey to read and write words with the chunks—it, ip, in, & ig.

WRITING: 

This week we will complete a couple of journals related to turkeys and practice writing an apology letter to Farmer MacNugget.  Students will also compile a list of their own rules/safety tips and write about them.

MATH: 

This week we will work on comparing numbers, comparing weights of objects using a pan balance, and practice matching dominoes with the corresponding numbers.  Students will also create patterned macaroni necklaces.

SCIENCE/SOCIAL STUDIES:  

This week we will read several informational texts related to the Pilgrims and learn how they endured many hardships. We will also compare and contrast their lifestyle then to our lifestyle now.  We will continue to discuss wants, needs, and fair trades as we prepare to make fair trades for our friendship soup ingredients next Monday.

Wednesday morning we will be taking a computer-based assessment for Reading —the NWEA.  Please be sure your child is well-rested and in attendance.