Newsletter Updates for the Week of March 25th

DATES TO REMEMBER:

-Thurs., March 28th—Jammies in the Jungle & Report Cards Sent Home

-Fri., March 29th—Spring Break Begins

-Mon., April 8th—School Resumes

STUDENT OF THE WEEK: 

Our student of the week is Maisie Eling.  Maisie enjoys baking with her mom, riding her horse, swimming, and being a big sister.  Her favorite places to visit are the water parks @ Wisconsin Dells and Boyne Mt.  When she grows up, Maisie aspires to be a horse rider, a farmer, & a babysitter.  Congratulations to Maisie on being Student of the Week!

 ODDS & ENDS: 

-The students are doing a fabulous job with returning their Reading Folders!  Thank you for taking the time to read with your child at home!!

-Please be sure to return your child’s Book-It Calendar for March—this is the last month for Book-It.

-Welcome to Aiden R.—the newest addition to our classroom.

-I will send blankets home to be washed over break.

-We are gearing up to roll out iPads after break. :)

REPORT CARDS: 

Report cards will be sent home this Friday.  As indicated on the report card, any areas that your child receives a  —  or  √—  are areas that they need to work on.  As the year progresses, the expectations continue to increase.  If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me; I am always happy to discuss your child’s progress.  Special thanks to all of the parent volunteers who helped complete some of the assessments with the students—it is a time-consuming task.  Assessing the students’ growth was difficult this marking period, since we lost 9 days of instruction, due to the snow days!

READING: 

Our focus letter for this week is the Bb and our focus text is Corduroy; which will use to draw conclusions using Iggy the Inferring Iguana.  We will introduce the sight words  to & get.  Students have been earning reading prizes each week for their time on-task reading.  This week we will learn and practice a new Comprehension strategy - Check for Understanding - while partner reading.

WRITING: 

This week we will continue our unit on Informational Text—students will be editing their second book.  I will be sending their 1st book on Monkeys home with their report cards—I hope you find them very informative! :)  This week we will complete a couple of journals—one on motion and the other about our favorite book.  Students will be bringing their March journals home at the end of the week.  Again, they will not have many entries since we have been working on our Informational Books.

MATH:

This week we continue to work on identifying 3D/Solid Shapes.  Wednesday we will be sorting and graphing the shapes that the students have brought from home.  We will also practice identifying and counting Pennies & Nickels.

SCIENCE/SOCIAL STUDIES: 

This week we will continue our Science Unit on Motion.  We’ve been learning about different forces—pushes, pulls, gravity, wind/air, and their effect on objects.  We will have many hands-on experiments to conduct again this week!  We will also be reading some informational and narrative books related to Bunnies/Easter.

Have a safe and restful Spring Break!  Let's hope for some Spring-like Weather!!!

Newsletter Updates for the Week of March 11th

DATES TO REMEMBER:

-Wed., March 13th—Celebrity Reading Day

-Fri., March 15th—Animal Print Day + Popcorn

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

-Mon., March 25th—First trip to the Book Fair To Shop

-Wed., March 27th—2nd trip to the Book Fair To Purchase Materials

-Thurs., March 28th—Jammies in the Jungle & Report Cards Sent Home

-Fri., March 29—Spring Break Begins

READING FOLDERS: 

The students were excited to bring their Reading Folders home over the weekend.  Just a reminder that I will be sending Reading Folders home 2-3 times a week.  Kindergarten is a great time to develop good reading habits; please spend a few minutes listening to them read, sign their Reading Log, and pack it safely in their backpack for a quick return to school.  Students must return their Reading Folders and books in order to check out a new book. :)  This reading time counts towards their Book-It Reading time as well, so don’t forget to mark their Book-It Calendars. :)

MATH:

This week we will be working on measuring length using feet, rulers, and measuring tapes.  We will also introduce the 3-D solid shape—cylinder and practice identifying flat (2-D) and solid (3-D) shapes by their different attributes.  We will practice skip counting by 2’s this week and we will complete a Pet Bar Graph and analyze the data.  On Friday, we will incorporate some St. Patrick’s Day activities into our math lesson—reviewing symmetry and also completing a graph using Lucky Charms

cereal. 

READING: 

Our focus sounds for this week are the digraphs Sh & Ch.  Our focus text is On the Go; which will tie in nicely to our new sight words for the week: on & go.    For comprehension, we will work on text structure—organizing and classifying things according to groups/categories, which goes nicely with our writing unit on Informational Text.  We will continue to practice all of our accuracy strategies during Read-to-Self time, as well as work on building our stamina for reading.  This week I will begin assessing the students on many of their Math and Reading skills in preparation for the end of the marking period.

WRITING: 

This week we will continue our unit on Informational Text.  I will guide the students through writing their first informational booklet using our compiled list of facts on Monkeys.  We will go through the process together and on Friday, students will begin brainstorming their own list of topics that they are experts on and could write an informational piece about.  Our Post Office is ready to open this week!  Students will be writing letters at the writing station, addressing their letters, and then taking them to the class ‘Post Office’ to purchase stamps and mail during free choice time.

 SCIENCE/SOCIAL STUDIES: 

This week we will wrap up our ‘Me on the Map’ Unit and our study of maps and globes.  We will also be reading several books related to Jungle animals.  Towards the end of the week we will read some narrative and informational texts related to St. Patrick’s Day.

Photos from Safari Day

Check out these Jungle Explorers . . . 

The Rarest of all Jungle Creatures . . . a principalopolis (I think)

Newsletter Updates for the Week of March 4th

DATES TO REMEMBER:

-Thursday, March 7th—Whispering Pines Mobile Zoo

-Friday, March 8th—Wear Crazy Colors + Popcorn & Cup Stacking Assembly—12:45-1:30

-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

STUDENT OF THE WEEK: 

Our student of the week is Karly Mattison.  Karly enjoys coloring, drawing, being creative and playing with her Barbies.  Her favorite place to go is to her Aunt Julie’s house.  When Karly grows up she aspires to become a dancer. Congratulations to Karly on being Student of the Week!

CONFERENCES: 

Thank you for taking time out of your busy schedules to attend parent teacher conferences.  I enjoyed meeting with you and having the opportunity to discuss your child’s progress.  I have just a handful left to complete :)  Believe it or not, it’s time, once again, to begin assessing for report cards—this year is flying by!

MATH:

This week we will be working on skip counting by 5’s.  We will also compile survey results using tally marks, and practice estimating.  We will play some games that reinforce making a ‘fair trade’ in preparation for making ‘fair trades/exchanges’ for coins (in the future).  We will also learn about the 3-D solids—cones & cubes—and look for things in our world that share their characteristics.

READING: 

Our focus letter this week is Ss and our focus text is Honk, Honk A Story of Migration.  We will be using our Comprehension Strategy—Digger the Dog—to work on identifying Main Idea & Details.  We will introduce the sightwords said & and, as well as a new Beanie Baby for Fluency—Dot the Giraffe.  She reminds us to look at the punctuation as we read and to always read with expression.  I hope to help all of the students shop for their ‘Good-Fit’ books this week so that they can begin bringing home their Reading Folders either this Friday or next Monday.

WRITING: 

Last week we wrapped up our unit on Pattern Books.  I will be conferencing with students this week and letting them select one of their pattern books to bring home to share.  The other two books will go into their portfolios, which you will receive at the end of the year. :)  This week they will be bringing home their February Journal—which is very small since we had such a short month and most of our writing time was spent working on our pattern books.  This week we will be reading several Informational Texts related to Monkeys and compiling some interesting facts in preparation for our next unit of study—Writing Informational Texts.  We will also create a class book from the Leveled Reader—The Tree House and work on writing sentences with the sightword said, which will include the use of quotation marks.

SCIENCE/SOCIAL STUDIES: 

This week we will begin our Social Studies Unit—Me on the Map.  We will be learning about maps & globes and our place in the world—Country, State, & City.  Later in the week we will be opening up a Post Office in our dramatic play area for students to practice writing and address letters and sorting the mail.

**Please be sure to return your child’s library book by Friday, so that they can check out a new book :)

**Don't forget to send in a stuffed animal for your child to read with during Reading in the Jungle time.