Week Twenty

With such a short week, I still have a few updates for everyone...

* As you know, tomorrow is PJ/Pancake Day! Your child can wear their pajamas to school and will wear them all day! They may bring slippers too if they'd like. If you have signed up to help, please plan on being here at 9:45 to start making those pancakes! So far I have two electric skillets, which should be okay. But if you happen to have one that you wouldn't mind sharing, please sign-up tonight.

* I'm still missing a few yellow parent comment sheets. It is very important that these are returned to school tomorrow. If you need a new one, please e-mail me asap.

* Our kindergarten lost and found continues to grow and nothing is being claimed. Please remember to put your child's last name on the tag of all of their snow gear. If you know you are missing something, check the school's lost and found located by the library.

* During conferences, I talked with many of you about mastering the kindergarten sight words. This means your child has "full control" over the 25 words- they can read them in isolation, they can read them in a text and they can write them. If your child has mastered these skills, you will find a first grade sight word list in their blue homework folder tomorrow (Friday). 

* I have posted a class list with just first names to help with writing valentines. (See the "class list" heading above)


What we are learning about in school...

* Language Arts: I introduced a whole new concept this week! ABC order! We have practiced putting winter words into ABC order by looking at the first letter. We have also learned that if there are two words with the same first letter then we need to check the second letter and see which one comes first in the alphabet. I have also recently introduced long vowel sounds. We sorted picture cards by long and short vowel sounds and have slowly started reading long vowel words. We will continue to practice this skill during the remaining months of the year.

* Math: We are learning about number patterns and finding patterns on a number line. We are also working on counting by 5's and 2's.

* Science: We are wrapping up our unit on the five senses. Everyone seems to understand this concept really well and we had a lot of fun experimenting with our different senses. Your child will be bringing home a pink science journal that they have been working on about the five senses. You will notice that some pages were left blank... this either means that your child was absent, OR I chose to skip that particular page of the book due to the level of difficulty.

* Social Studies: We did a quick unit on needs and wants. Your child should be able to distinguish between something they need (they need it in order to survive) and something they want (something they can live without). The five needs we talked about were: food, water, air, shelter and clothes.

* Writing: We are still writing true-story narratives but are focusing on making our writing "readable" to others and ourselves. We have spent a lot of time talking about what we need to include in our writing and in our pictures to help us read our stories. See if your child can share a few ideas that we've talked about with you. We will also begin using a "checklist" to help remind us what needs to be included in our stories to make them the best that they can be.