Weekly News: January 30-February 2

We had so much fun celebrating 100 days in kindergarten! Pictures coming soon! :)

We are in need of LOTS AND LOTS of empty Capri Sun boxes!!!! If you have any please send them to school with your child! Thank you very much!!!

I placed our Scholastic Book Orders this weekend! Thank you for your order!! 

A Look Ahead: NO SCHOOL Monday, February 13th and February 20th due to President's Day and NO SCHOOL March 5 through March 16 due to Spring Break. Our second round of Parent Conferences will be shortly after Spring Break.


Community Service Project: Every student at Inland Leaders is required to participate in a Community Service Project of his or her choosing. The requirement for kindergarten students consists of 6 hours of service. Projects in the past have included: collecting food and clothing for homeless shelters, collecting and donating to various organizations and charities, volunteering at senior citizen homes, animal shelters, and the humane society. Each child is then required to present their project in class. Presentations in the past have included: posterboards, journals, slideshows, books, and pictures documenting the project from start to finish. This is a great way to serve the community as a family. Completed projects will be due and presentations will take place at the end of our school year, but we wanted to tell you about it now so you have time to start thinking about what you would like to do. 

What Are We Learning This Week??: 

Sight Words: QUESTION, WRITE, WITH, SAW, FROM.

Letter Team: QU (we are learning that QU are married because they are always together!) and WR (the W is silent!).


Reading: This week, we will read books about Groundhog's Day and our poem of the week, “Mr. Groundhog”.

Writing: We will continue working on making three or more SEPARATE sentences on ONE topic. We have been thinking of topics in our brain then counting our sentences on our fingers before we begin writing. Please practice this 3-sentence-writing with your child at home. It will help students to realize when one sentence ends and when another begins.

Math: Students are doing really well on our Excel Math Curriculum. We are starting to learn how to subtract and how that is different than addition. Some of us are getting tricked by the signs, so please help your child to remember to look at the sign and tell you if they are supposed to add + or subtract -. Students will continue working on worksheets at their level. Please continue to work on circled problems that students are missing and reinforcing these concepts at home.

Leadership: Our new theme for February and March is THOUGHTFULNESS.

Homework: January 30-February 2

Flashcards: Make new flashcards for each sight word and letter team. New words for this week are: QUESTION, WRITE, WITH, SAW, FROM and new letter teams are QU and WR. Remember to study ALL your old flashcards too!!!!
  
Reading: READ your books in your book bag, READ your fluency THREE TIMES EVERY NIGHT, READ those old books in your book box, and READ online at RAZ KIDS!!!!!

Math: Please correct the circled problems on the Excel Math from each day. Please also continue to reinforce ALL concepts at home that we have learned in class! Study your math facts for Friday's Math Timed Test! Also, count the money in your bank! Name and count each coin!

Writing: WRITE EVERYDAY! Write your sight words, write your sight words in a sentence, write your sight words in alphabetical order, write a story from your life. Just keep WRITING, WRITING, WRITING. 

Sharing: Write two sentences about how you can show thoughtfulness. Draw a picture to go with your sentences.

A Few Reminders...

We are so excited for our 100th Day of School on Friday!!! Please remember to bring your 100th Day Snack! This DOES NOT need to be 100 items... just any type of snack that you would like to share with the class {candies, teddy grahms, cheez-its, goldfish... any type of small snack!}

Also.. thank you so much for the capri sun boxes we have received. Please please PLEASE bring in empty capri sun boxes if you have them! All we need is ONE capri sun box from each child. Thank you!

Weekly News: January 23-27

FRIDAY, WE ARE CELEBRATING OUR 100TH DAY OF SCHOOL!!!!!! The students will have a special 100th Day of School Sharing Homework and 100 Day Snack. Please check HOMEWORK for our special 100 Day Sharing Homework. Also - on Friday, please send your child to school with some kind of small snack to share with the class (goldfish, gummy bears, cheerios, etc.) We will be mixing all of the snacks and counting 100 items for our "100th Day Hash". I can't believe that we have already been in school for almost 100 days!!!

We are in need of LOTS AND LOTS of empty Capri Sun boxes!!!! If you have any please send them to school with your child! Thank you very much!!! 

Instead of Friday Prep Parties, each classroom will now be prepping individually. If you would still like to help prep materials for our kindergarten classroom, please stop by the classroom on Thursday or Friday mornings. There will always be copies that need to be made and projects that can be taken home. We appreciate your help so much!! 

Scholastic Book Orders were sent home last week. If you would like to order books, please go online! Every student who orders will get a free prize from our classroom store! Orders are due on Friday. 

A Look Ahead: NO SCHOOL Monday, February 13th and February 20th due to President's Day and NO SCHOOL March 5 through March 16 due to Spring Break. Our second round of Parent Conferences will be shortly after Spring Break.


Community Service Project: Every student at Inland Leaders is required to participate in a Community Service Project of his or her choosing. The requirement for kindergarten students consists of 6 hours of service. Projects in the past have included: collecting food and clothing for homeless shelters, collecting and donating to various organizations and charities, volunteering at senior citizen homes, animal shelters, and the humane society. Each child is then required to present their project in class. Presentations in the past have included: posterboards, journals, slideshows, books, and pictures documenting the project from start to finish. This is a great way to serve the community as a family. Completed projects will be due and presentations will take place at the end of our school year, but we wanted to tell you about it now so you have time to start thinking about what you would like to do. 


What Are We Learning This Week??: 

Sight Words: ONE, TWO, THREE, FOUR, FIVE.

Letter Team: ONG (like in SONG) and ONK (like in HONK).  

Reading: This week we are reading books all about the 100th day of school!!! We will also continue to practice making connections as we read. We are practicing text to text, text to self, and text to world connections. We will also remember use our schema before, during, and after we read. We will also read our poems “100 Day Song” and "100 Day Chant".

Writing:We are working on making three SEPARATE sentences on ONE topic. We have been thinking of topics in our brain then counting our sentences on our fingers before we begin writing. For example, if my topic was DISNEYLAND, I would count my sentences... 1. I went to Disneyland on Saturday with my mom and dad. 2. We went on a lot of rides. 3. We saw the fireworks show and it was so pretty. Please practice this 3-sentence-writing with your child at home. It will help students to realize when one sentence ends and when another begins.This week, we will also meet a new friend named "Homonym Harry"!!! Homonym Harry teaches us that there are words that SOUND the same but MEAN something different - like TWO & TO and FOR & FOUR.

Math: Students are doing really well on our Excel Math Curriculum. This week we are starting to differentiate our math groups. Students will be working on worksheets at their level. Please continue to work on circled problems that students are missing and reinforcing these concepts at home.

Leadership: Our theme of the month is: DETERMINATION. We are working hard to reach our goals that we made!

Homework: January 23-27

Flashcards: Make new flashcards for each sight word and letter team. New words for this week are: ONE, TWO, THREE, FOUR, FIVE and new letter teams are ONG and ONK. Remember to study ALL your old flashcards too!!!!
  
Reading: READ your books in your book bag, READ your fluency THREE TIMES EVERY NIGHT, READ those old books in your book box, and READ online at RAZ KIDS!!!!! Students will also be self-selecting some of our classroom books to take home in book bags. Remember to use all of your reading strategies to decode those hard words! 

Math: Please correct the circled problems on the Excel Math from each day. Please also continue to reinforce ALL concepts at home that we have learned in class! Study your math facts for Friday's Math Timed Test! Also, count the money in your bank! Name and count each coin!

Writing: WRITE EVERYDAY! Write your sight words, write your sight words in a sentence, write your sight words in alphabetical order, write a story from your life. Just keep WRITING, WRITING, WRITING. 

SPECIAL SHARING HOMEWORK!!!!!!: We would like our students to practice counting to 100 by collecting 100 things to bring to school. Help them choose something small like beans, buttons, Cherrios, M&Ms, etc. Help them put their collection into a paper “mystery bag” (like a brown paper lunch bag that we cannot see through!). When they bring it to school, the class will try to guess what they brought! Students may bring their collection in any day this week, just like they would sharing.

Weekly News: January 17-20

I hope you all had a wonderful and relaxing four-day weekend with your families! 

Our Early Morning Reading Time has started! We had a great time with parents and students last week and we hope to see more of you! Early Morning Reading Time" is on Tuesdays and Wednesdays at 7:30 AM. It is meant to provide additional time on text for your child along with supporting parents on the use of reading strategies used in the classroom. Research shows that additional time on text improves fluency, comprehension, and even writing! We would like this Early Morning Reading Time to focus on the partnership between teacher, parent, and child. In order for this program to be successful, parent involvement is necessary. Our goal is to build a community of readers with a ratio of one adult for every two children. Please take advantage of this wonderful opportunity by participating in this program with your child. Please also note that this extra reading time is a privilege and disruptive behavior will distract other students from the learning process. We are excited about this program as we have done it in the past and seen much reading growth occur. We look forward to taking your kids beyond the limits! 

We are in need of LOTS AND LOTS of empty Capri Sun boxes!!!! If you have any please send them to school with your child! Thank you very much!!! 

Don't forget to go on RAZ Kids and our SONGS tab - the links are working now! 


What Are We Learning This Week??: 

Sight Words: WOULD, COULD, SHOULD, WALK, TALK.

Letter Team: ANG (like in HANG, SANG) and ANK (like in TANK, BANK). 
Reading: This week we are studying and reading about Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King Jr., and the Civil Rights Movement. We will also continue to practice making connections as we read. We are practicing text to text, text to self, and text to world connections. We will also remember use our schema before, during, and after we read. This week, we will read books about equality for all people, and our poems “Freedom, Freedom, Let it Ring!” and "Would Have, Could Have, Should Have".
Writing: We are working on writing three to four good sentences on ONE TOPIC, adding details and our Five W's (who, what, where, when, why). 

Math: This week, we will learn our 'position' words like right, left, above, below, in between, etc. Please reinforce this at home. We are also working on counting by 2's. We have been working on addition in the classroom. We are trying to use all of our addition strategies instead of just using our fingers. Some of our strategies include drawing a picture, using a number line, using a manipulative, counting our fingers, memorizing our math facts. Our favorite is putting the big number in our brain and popcorn counting up. We also discussed that the fastest way to pass our math timed tests is by MEMORIZING OUR MATH FACTS. You can help at home by making addition flashcards for your child. For example, if your child has just passed the +2 test on Friday, make flashcards for +3 and work on those at home. 

Leadership: Our theme of the month is: DETERMINATION. We have learned that determination is setting goals and sticking to them, even when it gets hard. If you have not turned in these goals, please do so ASAP! Better late than never! I have sent home our "goal sheets" with your child's goals. My hope is that each child will look at those sheets everyday as a reminder to use determination!!! 

Homework: January 17-20

Flashcards: Don't forget to make new flashcards for each sight word and letter team. New words for this week are: WOULD, COULD, SHOULD, WALK, TALK and new letter teams are ANG and ANK.
  
Reading: READ your books in your book bag, READ your fluency THREE TIMES EVERY NIGHT, READ those old books in your book box, and READ online at RAZ KIDS!!!!! Students will also be self-selecting some of our classroom books to take home in book bags. Remember to use all of your reading strategies to decode those hard words! 

Math: Please correct the circled problems on the Excel Math from each day. Please also continue to reinforce ALL concepts at home that we have learned in class! You DO NOT need to turn these in.. they are simply for you to go over with your child to reinforce concepts they might not be understanding. NOTE: NUMBERS THAT ARE REVERSED ARE NOW BEING GRADED AS INCORRECT... WE ARE WORKING ON WRITING ALL NUMBERS CORRECTLY. 

Writing: WRITE EVERYDAY! Write your sight words, write your sight words in a sentence, write your sight words in alphabetical order, write a story from your life. Just keep WRITING, WRITING, WRITING. 

Sharing: Write two sentences about what we are learning about Martin Luther King Jr. Draw a picture to go with your sentences. THERE ARE MANY STUDENTS NOT TURNING IN SHARING. THIS IS THE ONLY HOMEWORK WE ASK THAT YOU TURN IN. PLEASE REMEMBER THAT IT IS PART OF YOUR HOMEWORK GRADE ON REPORT CARDS.

Weekly News: January 9-12

Mrs. Stanley's new website is up and running! Please follow her site at www.mrsstanley.com.

Our RAZ-Kids link and Songs link have been fixed! You may now click on those links! Remember that our RAZ-Kids username is missreeve (no spaces!)

Students have been doing such a wonderful job on writing last names! If your child is still struggling with this, please practice at home!

Our "banks" have been a big hit in the classroom! Students are excited to "earn money" for staying on yellow and green, for making good use of classroom time, and for good behavior throughout the day. On Friday, we had our first visit to the bank and classroom store. Students could trade out their money for larger coins (5 pennies for a nickel, etc) and choose to spend money on a treasure or save it for a larger prize later. Please continue to count money received everyday and reinforce the responsibility of taking care of banks. Thank you for your continued support! 

YOU ARE INVITED! Mrs. Stanley and I will be opening up our classroom door (Miss Reeve's Classroom) for "Early Morning Reading Time" on Tuesdays and Wednesdays at 7:30 AM. We would like to provide additional time on text for your child along with supporting parents on the use of reading strategies used in the classroom. Research shows that additional time on text improves fluency, comprehension, and even writing! We would like this Early Morning Reading Time to focus on the partnership between teacher, parent, and child. In order for this program to be successful, parent involvement is necessary. Our goal is to build a community of readers with a ratio of one adult for every two children. Please take advantage of this wonderful opportunity by participating in this program with your child. Please also note that this extra reading time is a privilege and disruptive behavior will distract other students from the learning process. We are excited about this program as we have done it in the past and seen much reading growth occur. We look forward to taking your kids beyond the limits!

NO SCHOOL Friday, January 13th and Monday, January 16th. Enjoy the four-day weekend!

Spelling and Math tests will be on Thursday this week due to NO SCHOOL on Friday.

What Are We Learning This Week??:

Sight Words: OF, BACK, SAY, SAYS, PLEASE.

Letter Team: CK (We are learning that CK makes the K sound and helps the vowel to say it's short sound, like in BACK, NECK, PICK, LOCK, DUCK - notice how all the vowels are the short sound!)

Reading: This week we are studying and doing projects with "The Mitten" by Jan Brett. We will also continue to practice making connections as we read. We are practicing text to text, text to self, and text to world connections. We will also remember use our schema before, during, and after we read. This week, we will read books winter and our poems “The Mitten” and "Warm Mittens".

Writing: We are working on writing three to four good sentences on ONE TOPIC, adding details and our Five W's (who, what, where, when, why).

Math: We have been working on addition in the classroom. We are trying to use all of our addition strategies instead of just using our fingers. Some of our strategies include drawing a picture, using a number line, using a manipulative, counting our fingers, memorizing our math facts. Our favorite is putting the big number in our brain and popcorn counting up. We also discussed that the fastest way to pass our math timed tests is by MEMORIZING OUR MATH FACTS. You can help at home by making addition flashcards for your child. For example, if your child has just passed the +2 test on Friday, make flashcards for +3 and work on those at home.

Leadership: Our theme of the month is: DETERMINATION. We are learning that determination is setting goals and sticking to them, even when it gets hard. For part of our determination study, each student will be making two goals (this is our sharing homework!). We will be making one goal for school and one goal for home. Some good examples of goals might be memorizing our sight words, passing our math tests every week, getting 100% on our Excel Math, reading fluency three times every night, making our bed every day, helping with the dishes, eating more vegetables, etc. We will write down our goals and hang them up in the classroom. There will also be a sheet with our goals coming home so that YOU can hang it up and students can look at it everyday as a reminder to use determination to reach those goals!

Homework: January 9-12

Flashcards: Don't forget to make new flashcards for each sight word and letter team. New words for this week are: OF, BACK, PLEASE, SAY, SAYS and new letter team is CK.
 
Reading: READ your books in your book bag, READ your fluency THREE TIMES EVERY NIGHT, READ those old books in your book box, and READ online at RAZ KIDS!!!!!

Math: We are done with Kindergarten (Saxon) Math and focusing on our 1st Grade (Excel) Math. These are those long math sheets you have seen coming home. For math homework, please correct the circled problems on the Excel Math from each day. Please also continue to reinforce ALL concepts at home that we have learned in class! You DO NOT need to turn these in.. they are simply for you to go over with your child to reinforce concepts they might not be understanding. NOTE: NUMBERS THAT ARE REVERSED ARE NOW BEING GRADED AS INCORRECT... WE ARE WORKING ON WRITING ALL NUMBERS CORRECTLY.

Writing: WRITE EVERYDAY! Write your sight words, write your sight words in a sentence, write your sight words in alphabetical order, write a story from your life. Just keep WRITING, WRITING, WRITING.

Sharing: For our leadership this month, we are working on DETERMINATION. With that, we will be making goals for ourselves and using determination to reach them. For sharing this week, please write TWO goals for yourself - one goal for school and one goal for home (example: I will memorize all my sight words this trimester. I will make my bed everyday.) Draw a picture to go with your sentences.THERE ARE MANY STUDENTS NOT TURNING IN SHARING. THIS IS THE ONLY HOMEWORK WE ASK THAT YOU TURN IN. PLEASE REMEMBER THAT IT IS PART OF YOUR HOMEWORK GRADE ON REPORT CARDS.

Happy Birthday, Hamilton!

We celebrated Hamilton's 6th Birthday yesterday!!! Happy birthday, Hamilton! We hope you had a wonderful day!

Weekly News: January 3-6

Happy New Year and welcome back to school! I hope you had a wonderful Christmas and a very Happy New Year with family and friends!

PLEASE MAKE SURE TO READ THIS ENTIRE SECTION AS THERE IS A LOT OF NEW INFORMATION!

Beginning after the holiday break we will now have each student write his/her first and LAST NAME on all papers, homework, etc.  If your child does not know how to write his/her last name, please practice this at home (it can become part of homework writing!). Each student will now have last names written on their NEW GO Folders and name tags for support in the classroom.

Also beginning after the holiday break each child will have a “bank” attached to his/her new GO Folder. The “bank” is a ziploc baggie taped to the GO Folder. Each day your child will have the opportunity to earn money at the end of the day - the money will replace the stickers! Students will receive a penny for staying on yellow and green for the day. Students will also have the opportunity to receive nickels in the classroom as rewards throughout the day. Instead of Treasure Box on Fridays, now they will visit the BANK! Each student will count money, trade money (example: five pennies for one nickel) and have the opportunity to spend their money on the items that are now “on sale” in the treasure box. Of course bigger treasures will cost more money, which I hope will reinforce self-control and teach students about saving. Each child will be responsible for keeping track of their own bank and for counting the money in it. (This too will be great homework practice). Please encourage your child to take care of and keep track of his/her bank, as lost banks and/or money WILL NOT BE REPLACED!  Also, if students forget GO Folders at home, they will not receive money for that day. The bank is designed to teach responsibility and accountability as well as reinforce math skills. This is a great life skill your child will benefit from in the future!! Thank you for your continued support.

As promised, we will be testing students this week on sight words, letter teams, and numbers. Our 100% CLUB will be announced on Friday. There will also be a special prize for the student who has read the most on RAZ KIDS over break!

NO SCHOOL Friday, January 13th and Monday, January 16th.

Winter Electives begin this week!

What Are We Learning This Week??:

Sight Words: WORK, ALL, AWAY, JUST, US.

Letter Team: WOR (the OR sounds like Mr. ER, like in work and word) and TION (sounds like SHUN like in vacation, invention, connection).

Reading: This week we will continue to practice making connections as we read. We are practicing text to text, text to self, and text to world connections. We will also remember use our schema before, during, and after we read. This week, we will read books winter and our poem “I’m a little Snowman”.

Writing: We will continue to use our "Writer's Checklist" - a list of things that all good writers do, such as proper punctuation, uppercases at the beginning of a sentence and name, finger spaces between each word, spelling word wall words correctly, adding details, making sure our writing makes sense, and trying our best! We will read this checklist everyday to make sure we are applying each of those skills in our writing. We are working on writing three to four good sentences on one topic.

Math: The students are doing well with the  MATH TIMED TESTS. I have seen so much improvement.  Keep practicing addition facts at home 5 to 10 minutes each day or more if your child is struggling.   Students are timed on addition skills and move up levels at their own pace. We will also continue practicing the addition "DOUBLES" in our fun DOUBLES SONG. Notice there is a copy of the DOUBLES song on the GO Folder for your child to practice at home. The goal is for students to memorize all the double facts. Please practice these at home.  Please also work on basic addition facts at home. We will practice the directions right and left.  Please continue to reinforce this at home.

Leadership: PERSEVERANCE.

Homework: January 3-6

Flashcards: Don't forget to make new flashcards for each sight word and letter team. New words for this week are: WORK, ALL, AWAY, US, JUST and new letter teams are WOR and TION.
 
Reading: READ your books in your book bag, READ your fluency EVERY NIGHT, READ those old books in your book box, and READ online at RAZ KIDS!!!!!

Math: We are done with Kindergarten (Saxon) Math and focusing on our 1st Grade (Excel) Math. These are those long math sheets you have seen coming home. For math homework, please correct the circled problems on the Excel Math from each day. Please also continue to reinforce ALL concepts at home that we have learned in class!

Writing: WRITE EVERYDAY! Write your sight words, write your sight words in a sentence, write your sight words in alphabetical order, write a story from your life. Just keep WRITING, WRITING, WRITING.

Sharing: Write TWO sentences about winter activities/things you like to do in winter. Draw a picture to go with your sentences.