Weekly News: October 20-24

News:

We are investigating pumpkins this week! On Friday, we will be measuring and carving pumpkins and counting seeds. Part of our study will be to pull out the insides of the pumpkin to count the seeds. This is REALLY MESSY - it would be a good idea to send an old button-up shirt or apron for your child to wear over their clothes on this day! We are excited for this fun activity! 

We will be celebrating Halloween with fun Halloween games and activities next Friday from 10:30-12:30! For Halloween, our school will be having a fun pajama dress-up day! We are very excited to come to school in our PJs and celebrate Halloween! 

Last week, we started sending home Book Bags. The book or books in your child's book bag will be books we are working on together in reading groups and/or books self-selected by your child. Book Bags are to be brought back and forth, home to school, every day. Book bags are also an ESSENTIAL part of your child's home reading - they should be reading these books EVERY DAY for homework. 

This Week's Winners:

RAZ-Kids: Congratulations to June and Gideon!!  They were our top readers last week! Way to go!!

Smarty Ants: Our top Ant of the week award goes to Sloan! Great job! Keep working hard.  

IXL Math: Congratulations to Whitney!!  She spent the most time practicing math skills on IXL math! Awesome work!

We Give Books: We have read 19 books so far! Way to go class!! 

Upcoming Events: 

Friday, October 24: Pumpkin Investigation Day 
October 27-31: Spirit Week :) 
Monday, Oct. 27: Disney Day 
Tuesday, Oct. 28: Sports Day
Wednesday, Oct. 29: Blast to the Past Day (wear your favorite decade!)
Thursday, Oct. 30: Twin Day (I will be wearing my ILCS shirt and jeans if you want to be twins with ME!)
Friday, Oct. 31: PJ DAY!
Friday, October 31: Halloween Centers! 

If you are at the store and happen to think of us, our classroom would love: 

Headphones  

Treasure Box Prizes 

What Are We Learning This Week?: 

Sight Words: ARE, BIG, LITTLE, FOR, WAS.

Letter Team:  IGH (like in HIGH, BRIGHT, LIGHT, RIGHT) and AR (like in CAR, FAR, JAR).

Word Family: -IG. Please help your child with word families of the week by asking them to create different words with  the word family -IG (for example: BIG, PIG, WIG, DIG). I am sending home a fun worksheet/activity that you can do at home this week!

Reading: We will read many fiction and non-fiction books about pumpkins and their life cycle. I will continue pulling small reading groups this week, as well as conferencing one on one with individual students. Students are working hard at their independent activities and reading their self-selected "Good Fit Books". 

Writing: We will continue to write three sentences on the same topic, using an uppercase at the beginning of a sentence, finger spaces after each word, and a period at the end.

Math: We will continue our unit on "Counting with Friends". Our goal is to give each student a deep number sense as we explore questions like, "How can numbers be represented?" and "How can we show numbers in different ways?" This week we will dive into fun Halloween math story problems, including addition, subtraction, and comparing (more or less) problems. 

Leadership: Our leadership theme for the month of October is TEAMWORK. Our kindergarten definition of teamwork is: working together to get a job done.