Weekly News: January 9-13

 

There is no school next Monday, January 16th due to Martin Luther King Jr. Day. Enjoy the three day weekend with your families!

Students have been doing such a wonderful job on writing last names! If your child is still struggling with this, please practice at home! You can make it a part of your writing homework. 

Our "banks" have been a big hit in the classroom! Students are excited to "earn money" for making good use of classroom time and for good behavior and hard work throughout the day. On Friday, we will have our first visit to the classroom store. Students have the opportunity to trade out their money for larger coins (5 pennies for a nickel, etc) and choose to spend money on a prize or save it for a larger prize later. Please continue to count money received everyday and reinforce the responsibility of taking care of banks. Also, if you are able, we'd love more prizes for our "class store"!!! Thank you for your continued support!

This week, we will begin taking Math Fluency Tests on our Number Bonds (ways to make 3, ways to make 4, etc.) and adding and subtracting math facts through five. Our Common Core Standard is that by the end of kindergarten, students will fluently (meaning without fingers or manipulatives) be able to add and subtract within five. Students will have the opportunity to practice these facts and take weekly tests. Please remember that we would like all students to master this standard by the end of the year. My hope is that each week, we will accomplish a little bit more on these tests. Please reinforce and practice these skills at home. Thank you for your support!

A LOOK AHEAD: Our next kindergarten field trip is scheduled for Tuesday, February 7th. We will be going to the Children's Museum of the Desert. It is sure to be an exciting “hands on” experience.  We will be leaving school at 8:15 AM and returning at approximately 1:00 PM. Permission slips for our field trip will be coming home as the field trip gets closer. If you are interested in being a chaperone please email me (jcbess@inlandleaders.com) and let me know BY FRIDAY JANUARY 27TH, as we need to give our final head count to the museum. Chaperones are welcome to follow us or ride the bus and will need to pay a small chaperone fee at the door (approximately $5.00) Please remember that school policy states NO SIBLINGS. Thanks! We are looking forward to a wonderful field trip! 

We are in need of LOTS of empty Capri Sun boxes!!!! If you have any please send them to school with your child! Thank you very much!!! Note: if you could please open the boxes at the side (not in the middle around the edges) that would really help us out! Thank you!

Upcoming Events:  

Monday, January 16: NO SCHOOL
Friday, January 27: 100th DAY OF SCHOOL CELEBRATION 
Tuesday, February 7: Field Trip to the Children's Museum
Monday, February 13: NO SCHOOL 
Tuesday, February 14: Valentine's Day Centers 
Monday, February 20: NO SCHOOL

If you are at the store and happen to think of us, we'd love.... 
Gluesticks  
Black Expo Markers 

Valentines Day stickers and trinkets

Any sort of small {or big} prizes for our class store

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).

Reading: This week we are studying and doing projects with "The Mitten" by Jan Brett. We will discuss and record story elements such as author, illustrator, setting, and characters. We will read books about winter and other stories by the author, Jan Brett. In our fluency passages, we are learning how to be "reading detectives" and answering comprehension questions by going back to find evidence in the text to support our answer. 

Writing:  We are learning how to write a five sentence paragraph. I have been modeling a structure for paragraph writing called, "Step Up to Writing" for the students. Kindergarten Step Up to Writing is writing a paragraph with a topic sentence, three sentences about that topic, and a conclusion sentence. For example, "We had a great day at school today. First, we learned about measurement in math. Next, we colored snowmen at centers. Last, we read a lot of books about winter. As you can see, we had a fun time at school." 

Math: Last week, each student took a pre-test for our measurement unit. I will use those results this week for some fun measurement lessons. We will learn different ways things can be measured, including length, height, width, weight, and capacity. We will have fun measuring various items around the classroom. A big part of this unit is also sorting and graphing. You can help by discussing measurement, sorting, and graphing at home. Tell your child to sort different things around the house and ask how they sorted those things. 

Leadership: As always, we will continue to ROAR. We will also discuss New Year's Resolutions and make goals for 2017. We will learn and discuss what it means to have a growth mindset and work hard on accomplishing those goals.