Weekly News: March 16-20

We will be celebrating St. Patrick's Day on Tuesday by wearing green, sharing our Leprechaun Traps and having fun St. Patrick's Day centers.  

There are no electives and there is no Success Academy this week!

This is our last week of school before spring break. We have NO SCHOOL for the next two weeks. Spring break is a perfect time to work on your Community Service Projects! I hope you have a wonderful two weeks off with your families! We will see you back on Tuesday, April 7th. 


What Are We Learning This Week?:

Sight Words: There will be no new sight words introduced until after Spring Break.  Please take this time to review ALL of our words introduced so far.  Remember, sight words are words that your child should recognize instantly.  These are not words your child should be sounding out!  Please continue to work on these words. Each student has a sight word review page in his or her book bag for trimester 1, 2, or 3. Once one "level" is mastered, students get a prize from the treasure box and the next "level" is given. Practice these review pages every day! 

Letter Team: There will be no new letter teams introduced until after Spring Break.  Please take this time to review ALL of our letter teams introduced so far. Many children know most of the letter teams, but have a hard time applying them into decoding words. A great idea would be to write words (or make flashcards) with letter teams inside them and have your child decode the word for you, applying the letter team. (example: FARM - "I see the letter team AR inside the word FARM.")

Reading: We will read books about leprechauns and spring. Students will continue to read fluency passages at their levels and their self-selected good-fit books from the library. Many students have begun taking AR quizzes on books they have been reading. 

Writing: This week, we will write about Spring. 

Math: We will continue to work hard on decomposing and composing numbers within ten, as well as addition and subtraction problems, and identifying the place value (tens and ones) of two-digit numbers. Keep practicing those addition/subtraction and number bond tests that are coming home each week. 

Leadership: We will continue to ROAR and discuss what it means to have a growth mindset!

Weekly News: March 9-13

We had so much fun dressing up and celebrating Dr. Seuss's birthday. Thank you for all of your help, time, donations, and to all of our guest readers! Make sure to check out our pictures on the ParentSquare post. 

Over the next week, your homework job as a family is to build a tricky leprechaun trap! We are going to be talking and writing about how we might catch a leprechaun. You will have the whole weekend and beginning of this week to build your leprechaun trap with your family - be as creative as you can! A good idea is to google or pinterest leprechaun trap examples for lots of fun ideas! You will bring these traps to school to share this next week, Monday through Friday, with Friday, March 13th being the LAST day to turn it in! We are going to have a leprechaun trap museum and do a special project with them! Have fun!

Second trimester parent conferences are coming up. Conferences for this trimester will be on a NEED ONLY basis and will be taking place the last week of school before Spring Break. I have already contacted the families that I will be conferencing with. Report cards will be going home on Friday, March 20. 

Upcoming Events:  
Tuesday, March 17: St. Patrick's Day Centers 
March 23-April 6: SPRING BREAK! 

If you are at the store and think of us, our class needs:
Baby Wipes 

Kleenex Tissue Boxes 

Items for our Class Store 
Elmers Gluesticks 

Black Expo Markers

What Are We Learning This Week?:

Sight Words: SIX, SEVEN, EIGHT, NINE, TEN. 

Letter Team: EIGH (sounding like "a" like in EIGHT and NEIGHBOR).

Reading: We will begin taking our leveled fluency passages home again. We will continue reading books from our classroom library. 

Writing: This week, we will also write letters and posters to leprechauns, thinking of tricky ways that we can lure him into our classroom to trap him. We will also write a "How-To" piece on how to catch our leprechaun step by step. 


Math: We will focus hard on decomposing and composing numbers within ten. You can help at home by asking your children problems like, "If I need 10 cupcakes and I only have 4, how many more would I need?" I am finding that students do a great job referring to the tens frame and answering "ways to make 10" questions, but struggle with ways to make other numbers, so let's make sure we are also asking, "If we need 7 apples and we have four, how many more would we need?" We will be discussing different strategies for this in class. 

Leadership: We will continue to ROAR and discuss what it means to have a growth mindset!

Homework: March 9-13

Flashcards: Don't forget to make new flashcards for each sight word and letter team. New words for this week are: SIX, SEVEN, EIGHT, NINE, TEN and the new letter team is:  EIGH (sounding like the long "a" like in EIGHT and NEIGHBOR).

Phonemic Awareness: Please work with your child on: rhyming, blending, segmenting, syllables, and beginning/middle/ending sounds. 

Reading: Read everything in your book bag each night! This includes sight words, letter teams, fluency, and library books.  Continue to read TO your child every night, having conversations about the stories you are reading. 

Continue to log onto Smarty Ants for 10-15 at least a few times a week. You can find the link for Smarty Ants on the right side tab of our website. Our class username is: JCBESS@INLANDLEADERS.COM and our password is: READ.

Writing: Keep writing each day in your at-home journal. The goal should be three sentences on one topic. 

Math: It would be a great idea to print the addition and subtraction pages as well as all the number bonds pages for your child to practice at home each day. Stick these in a page protector and use an expo marker so you can reuse them day after day and not have to print a billion copies :) 

QR Codes: Download and print the QR Code practice pages on ParentSquare. Work on these pages together.