I hope you are enjoying some fun family time on this long weekend!
Of course, we have tomorrow off school in observance of Martin Luther King Jr. Day. On Tuesday, it will be very important to return the Blue Bags on time since we only have a day to turn them back around. So please put them by the door or wherever you will remember them Tuesday morning :)
We have a new letter this week, Ff, and the Alphafriend is Fifi Fish. We have a new sight word, we. This week, we will be more than half-way through our kindergarten year. This is where the kindergarten curriculum really takes off, and your continued support with the curriculum will be especially important at this time. Completing homework weekly, including the journal, reading to your children and asking them questions about what they are reading, and reinforcing math facts and sight words is really important at this time. We want to ensure that everyone is prepared for first grade, and we definitely need your help :).
We will continue working on subtraction this week. In class, I have been using a math technique called "Number Talks," which really makes computations and number sense much more innate for children. In the "real world," most computations that we do are in our head-- figuring out the tip at a restaurant, how much an item will be after taxes, how much of a discount we are getting, etc., are all computations we do on a regular basis in our heads. Number talks are one way to encourage mental math at an early age to build up these skills as they go through school. Continue talking to your children about math computations and how they are solving problems. Common Core encourages much more of the explaining how you arrived at an answer versus just stating the answer. Conversations like, "I know that 9 + 5=14 because 9 is one less than 10 and I know that 10 + 5 = 15, and 9 is one less than 10" are the types of conversations we will be encouraging in class.
We also have Snow Day this week. It will be on Friday, right at the beginning of class for both the a.m. & p.m. classes. This is a day when the children come to school all dressed in their snow gear-- whatever items you have. Mittens, knit hats, jackets, snow boots, scarves, goggles, etc. are all welcome! Please do not buy anything special for this day, just use what you have or borrow from a friend. They wear their gear, and then we will have some snow-themed fun! We will be having a "snowball fight" using wadded up recycled paper & have an icy treat! It is always lots of fun. After the snowball fight, they can take off all their extra gear as temperatures & weather for Friday don't look too snowy!!
On February 19th, we have the start of Chinese New Year/Tet/Lunar New Year. Since we are not in school at that time, we will celebrate early-- the first week of Februaray. We have several fun art projects surrounding this theme. If any parents would like to come in and talk about this holiday, we would love to have you. Please e-mail us!
Another fun day to mark your calendars for is 100 day on February 3rd. This is an in-class celebration of our 100th day of school. We will have many fun activities for counting out 100. This is another very memorable day for the children. The sharing theme Feb. 2-6, in honor of 100 day, will be a collection of 100 things. This does not have to be anything fancy-- the kids can bring in 100 pennies, Legos, Cheerios, etc. The main thing is that you & your child sit down together to count out the item. You can count them by 1s or put them into 10 groups of 10-- whatever your child prefers. It is a fun activity for them to see the different ways that "100" can look, so start discussing with your children what they'd like to bring in for 100 day. Many children are quite surprised that 100 pennies fit into a sandwich baggie!
This week's share is Letter of the Week sharing. Please have your child bring something in that starts with the letter Ff. The children like to bring this sharing in a bag with clues, so please help them with that. Many children are writing their own clues now, which is wonderful! Children who normally share on Monday can share any other day this week.
We look forward to seeing everyone on Tuesday, Blue Bags in hand!
Upcoming Events:
1/19: Martin Luther King Holiday: No School
1/23: Snow Day
1/28: January's Wacky Wednesday
2/3: 100 Day Celebration
2/16-2/20: President's Week
2/25: February's Wacky Wednesday
3/14: Bocce Ball Fundraiser at Campo di Bocce
