Dear Parents,
I hope you are having a great Superbowl Sunday.
The 100th day of school is this Wednesday, and we will have lots of fun projects and activities in class in celebration of the day! We have 180 total school days, so we are more than half-way through the year. Spring conferences are rapidly approaching (March) and I sent out those sign-ups in a separate e-mail last week. Thank you to so many of you for already signing up-- if you haven't done so already, please select a time.
This week's letter is Kk, and our Alphafriend is Keely Kangaroo. We will be learning a new word this week, here. We are now up to 20 sight words. Please check the sight word link on the website and make sure that your child knows the words we've introduced, as this is a heavy emphasis at this time. If your child is struggling with these words, a good website to go to is http://www.spellingcity.com
and log in under my name for the "40 Word List" of all the sight words we're covering this year. Last week, we learned a new vowel, Ii, and met the Alphafriend Iggy Iguana. Now we can read and spell CVC words with both short a and short i.
We will begin a new math chapter on numbers to 20 this week. In this chapter, not only will children learn to recognize and write numbers to 20, but they will also learn how to decompose these numbers into parts. For example, nineteen can be 10 & 9. Decomposing numbers is a common core strategy to create innate number sense. Although we are done with our chapter on subtraction, it will not be forgotten! Both subtraction and addition will continue coming back, as it is a real emphasis in kindergarten math.
Our art activities this week will center around Chinese New Year and 100 Day.
In celebration of 100 Day, this week's share is 100 Day collections. Please have your child bring in 100 of the same item that they'd like to show on his/her share day. This is a fun counting activity at home, plus a fun way to see the many ways 100 can look. I will probably ask your child how they counted out their items (by 1s, 10s, 5s, etc.), so have him/her prepared to talk about the process. Remember that it can be as simple as 100 cheerios-- whatever your child has 100 items of that s/he would like to share. If they want to glue down the 100 items and make a picture out of them, that's fine, too.
Homework is due tomorrow, and then we will have a special homework project coming home this week. In honor of President's Day, we will be doing a very simple project honoring George Washington and Abraham Lincoln. The children will complete and color a dot-to-dot of each president. There are two dot-to-dots in the packet, one of Abraham Lincoln, and one of George Washington. On the back of each of these pictures, your child is to write one sentence about each President. The children will present these facts next week for sharing. It is always fun when the children bring in little-known facts about the Presidents, so do a little research on the web and see what you can find! Of course, it is also okay to stick with basic facts such as "He was the first President." and "He was the sixteenth President." This is their first exposure to doing an oral report, so it is most important to choose a sentence that you think your child will be able to remember and present on his/her own. There will be no homework/blue bags on February 12th, due to the upcoming President's Week holiday.
On Friday, February 14th, we will be celebrating Valentine's Day in class. This is not a party, but we will be passing out valentines. Just a reminder (since I know your children will be eagerly shopping for valentines soon!) in kindergarten, we have the kids sign their valentines, but we do not have them write who the valentine is "to." This makes distribution MUCH easier, since many kids cannot read the names. So please sign the cards, but leave the "to" box blank. Please send in 22 valentines so that there are enough for each child in the class. Thanks!
See you all tomorrow, Blue Bags in hand!
Upcoming Events:
2/5: 100 Day
2/13: "Helping Your Child Succeed at School" 6:00-7:30 in the AV Cafeteria
2/14: Valentine's Day celebration-- bring cards that are signed by your child
2/15-2/23: President's Week Vacation
2/26: February's Wacky Wednesday
3/13-3/21: Parent-Teacher Conferences
3/29: Bocce Ball Tournament & Auction @ Campo Di Bocce
