May 13th - Newsletter Updates

DATES TO REMEMBER:

-Monday, May 13th—Dibels Testing

-Wed., May 15th—NWEA Testing—Reading

-Thursday, May 16th—Fieldtrip—Midland Center for the Arts & Plymouth Park

-Monday, May 20th—Delayed Start

-Mon., May 27th—No School—Memorial Day

-Wed., May 29th—K-2 Track & Field Day—pm

FIELDTRIP: 

We are looking forward to a great day for our fieldtrip this Thursday to the Midland Center for the Arts.  We will be inside for the morning and then be outside in the afternoon at the park for lunch, so please dress appropriately.  We are blessed to have several parents joining us on the trip, which will make our day even better.  A couple of quick reminders:

-Please send your child with a sack lunch, labeled with their name—no glass bottles please.

-In compliance with school rules, as well as Plymouth Park rules, there is no smoking or vaping allowed. Also, no weapons are allowed.

-When taking photos of your child, please keep in mind that some parents prefer to keep their children’s photos off of Facebook and other social media sites.

SCIENCE:

We are planning some Science outside this week; in addition to our fieldtrip on Thursday . . . . .

-Monday afternoon we are going down to the creek that runs along the school to dip for critters and see what we can discover about a wetland habitat.

 Please be sure to send your child with boots or old shoes.

-Wednesday afternoon we are hoping to go outside and plant our sunflowers along the playground fence.

-Friday afternoon we are planning to go back one final time to the butterfly garden to see what new signs of life we can observe in the Spring.

READING:

This week our class will be reading stories about how children can be good citizens. They will lean how to listen, share, help others, respect one another, work together, & take turns. Here are some activities that you can do with your child to help reinforce the skills we will be practicing:

· Vocabulary—citizen & respect—Discuss ways your child can show good citizenship and respect for others at school and in the community.

· Sightwords—play, has, & all—Keep on practicing reading and writing those sightwords from memory using flashcards and/or their fluency charts in their take-home reading folders.

· Category Words—farm animals—practice naming farm animals and their babies (cow/calf, pig/piglet, etc).

· Phonics—long I & ch—make a list of words with short i—fin, pin, etc, then rewrite the words with the magic e and ‘flip’ the vowel sound to make a new word—fine, pine, etc. Also, make a list of words that begin and end with the digraph ch.

WRITING: 

This week we will use the information we’ve collected last week in small groups to write 3 new informational pieces—one group is doing Beavers, another Frogs, and the third group chose Butterflies.  I’m very excited to see how these books turn out.  We will also be writing about our fieldtrip and some favorite things we saw/experienced.

MATH: 

This week we will practice building numbers to 100 using base 10 blocks, we will also be working on subtraction using dice, bears, & ants on a log.  We are practicing and assessing lots of skills in preparation for Report Cards—counting, writing numbers, 3D shapes, addition, subtraction, etc.