Dear Parents,
The upcoming week is a review week in language arts. We will start to have many more of these, as we have now learned 19 of the 26 letter sounds. We will be reviewing Dd & Zz this week, as well as reviewing for and have. From our expanded word list (those that are also covered in first grade) we will introduce the words of and not.
We will continue the study of shapes this week in math. Last week was mostly a review of the plane shapes-- square, rectangle, circle, and triangle. This week we will focus more on the solid shapes-- sphere, cone, cube, cylinder. Again, whatever reinforcement you can provide at home on this vocabulary will be helpful. Additionally, to reinforce the solid shape names, we will have "solid shape sharing" this week! Have your child bring in something shaped like a sphere, cone, cube, or cylinder. They need to tell which shape the item is. It will be fun to see the different way that solid shapes can look.
We will begin our science unit, "Wood & Paper," this week. This is a really fun unit for the children, with many fun hands-on projects for identifying wood, paper, and their properties. Look forward to lots of dinner-time talk about wood & paper!
This Wednesday, your child will bring home a special homework assignment. We will be building leprechaun traps! Get creative and have fun-- traps are due on Monday the 14th, along with the Red Bag journal (there will be no other homework this week). There will be more specific directions in the Red Bag this week, but we do ask two things-- that the traps not contain any unwrapped food items (we've had trouble with ants in the past!) and that the traps are not overly large-- shoebox sized is perfect. We have to store traps from both the a.m. class & the p.m. class, and it gets tricky if we have huge traps. Plus, we're only catching tiny leprechauns :) We will share the traps during the week of the 14th, then on the 16th, we will set the traps in hopes of catching the little guys!
Parent-teacher conferences begin next Monday. If you have forgotten your date/time, please e-mail us. This trimester, we will be meeting in the office conference room. Go to the main office, past Miss Vicki's desk, and we will be in the 2nd door to the right. We will not have centers during conference time since Mrs. Lawson is not available to help since she will be conducting her own conferences.
There is no school this Friday due to a teacher inservice day.
Parent Helpers: the helper schedule (see tab at right) has now been updated through the end of the year. Please check it out and let me know if there are any conflicts. Thank you all of you for being so reliable & for always finding replacements when there is a conflict. We REALLY appreciate it! Centers have run so smoothly this year, thanks to all of you.
If you have not yet sent in February's "I Love to Read" calendar, please do so in tomorrow's Red Bag.
Helpers/Activities This Week:
MONDAY: Centers (Megan & Tammy), Sharing
TUESDAY: Centers (Margaret & Jamie), Sharing
WEDNESDAY: Weds. Envelopes & Red Bags prepped (Karla/Derek/Angie), Sharing, Computers (Tim), Red Bags go home
THURSDAY: Centers (Matt/Lorraine & Kristi), Sharing
FRIDAY: NO SCHOOL: INSERVICE DAY
Upcoming Events:
3/9: Leprechaun Trap building homework
3/11: No School: Staff Development Day
3/14-3/25: Parent-Teacher Conferences
3/25: Author Tim Myers visits Alta Vista
3/29: Spring Pictures
4/7: Field Trip to Prusch Farm
4/8: Spring Fling
4/11-4/15: Spring Break
5/5: Cinco de Mayo Hat Dance
