Newsletter Updates for the Week of January 25th

DATES TO REMEMBER:

-Friday, January 29th—Report Cards Home

-Friday, January 29th—Homecoming Game

-Thursday, February 11th—Valentine’s Party (pm)

-Friday, February 12th—No School

-Monday, February 15th—No School

REPORT CARDS & ASSESSMENTS: 

We’ve been diligently working on assessing the students for upcoming report cards. Special thanks to my faithful parent/grandparent volunteers who helped me complete many of these assessments—it is a time consuming task! Report Cards will be coming home with students this Friday, you will also be receiving your child’s Dibel’s Report and copies of their classroom assessments.  I’m not certain if I’ll have the Aimsweb Data back in time to send home or not and we are in the middle of our NWEA testing, so that information will be shared with you a little later.  If you have any questions or concerns regarding your child’s progress, please feel free to contact me.

VALENTINE’S DAY:  

I’ve attached the sign-up for our Valentine’s Day Party, as a reminder of who volunteered to bring what:) I’ve also attached a class list. As part of our Valentine’s party, students will be able to exchange valentines. Filling out valentines is a great opportunity to practice handwriting. :)

READING: 

This week our class will be reading stories about how living things, such as trees, change as they grow. Your child will learn to name the parts of a tree, such as the trunk, bark, branches, leaves, and roots.

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

· Vocabulary—develop, amazing—Draw a picture of a tree. Encourage your child to tell facts about trees. Write the facts on the picture of the tree.

· High-Frequency Words—are & had— Write the words on paper. Then have your child practice writing the words Have your child think of a sentence using these words. Write it down and ask your child to circle the word.

· Category Words—tree parts—Have your child draw a picture of a tree. Help your child label the tree parts, such as trunk, bark, branch, leaves, ,and roots.

· Phonics—Ee—Have your child think of words that include the letter e, such as egg. Draw pictures of these words, then label each picture, having your child underline the letter e in each word.

· Beanie Baby Strategies—This week we will use Chunky Monkey to read and write words with the en, ell, ed, & et word families & use Flippy the Dolphin to read and write words with the short & long e sounds. We will introduce Helpful Kangaroo who reminds us that if we are trying to figure out a tricky word, it’s okay to ask for help, after we’ve tried all of our strategies.

· Raz-Kids—The students will learn how to use Raz Kids this week to read ‘good-fit books’ on their ipads.  Our Reading Buddies will be helping us this week.  I’ll be sending information home soon so that you can help your child access Raz Kids at home on a computer, or hand-held device. 

WRITING: 

This week we will complete a journal about hibernating animals and work on editing our January Journals, which will be coming home with their Report Cards.  We will also begin a new pattern book this week that has a ‘surprise ending.’

MATH:  

This week we will work on graphing—collecting data and interpreting it on various graphs. We will also be working on ten frames, building teen numbers, and introduce the ‘cone.’

SCIENCE/SOCIAL STUDIES:  

We will continue our study of Winter this week—as we read some narrative and informational texts related to Polar Animals.  Smokey the Bear will be making his annual visit soon to teach us about Fire Safety and Prevention.