Week of 1/29

I wanted to thank parents and students for having such a great first month of journal entries with the Blue Bags! Everyone is working on letting their children do all their own spelling, and are encouraging them so well in their efforts! I already see improvement in the writing just in this short time. Remember that the focus in kindergarten is giving kids the ability to use their phonics skills to write on their own and get their thoughts down on paper. As they move through the grade levels, spelling will become more of a focus. Right now the focus is the process and applying phonetic sounds so that they have that framework to fall back on whenever they need to write on their own.

We had a wonderful "Snow Day" on Friday-- thank you!  The kids all looked so cute in their snow gear and I think they enjoyed all the snow-themed activities. Pictures from the day will come soon!

Language Arts:
We will continue working on the digraphs sh and th this week, especially since our new sight word, she, starts with one of those digraphs. We are now up to 16 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.

We will continue reading and writing with a snow theme. We will read Elmer in the Snow by David McKee this week and do a fun art project. We will also read many 100 Day-themed books. Finally, we will sneak in a few Groundhog-themed books, in honor of Groundhog's Day on Friday.

Math:
We will begin Module 4 this week, Number Pairs, Addition, and Subtraction to 10. Parent tips for this unit can be found here. This is the "heart" of kindergarten math skills, and will be our focus for quite a while. We will build on our knowledge of 10 frames this week by using two-color counters to look at number combinations. We will be using a math app called "10 Frame Fill" to look at combinations for the number 10.  Please continue reinforcing math concepts at home using apps on iPhones & iPads or logging into their ixl.com account.  Although ixl isn't a "game," it does provide solid reinforcement of the facts & concepts covered in kindergarten and beyond. If you need a reminder of how to log into your child's ixl account, please email me.

Another site to continue taking advantage of is lexia.com.  Both of these sites-- ixl and lexia, are paid for by the district, and you should definitely make use of them.  These are great sites to use for the children who'd like more homework.  If you are having trouble accessing any of these sites, please email me.

UPCOMING

100 Day:
100 Day will be on Tuesday, and the students are very excited about it! Because another main focus of kindergarten math is number sense, number recognition, and counting, we count out the number of days we've been in school as part of our calendar activities each day. During this time, we study place value and number recognition to 100. We study patterns on the 1-100 number chart and do mental math using the chart. On the 100th day, we have a fun celebration and look at the value of 100 in different ways. We have been looking forward to filling our 1-100 chart for quite a while now, so Tuesday will be a special day!

Valentine's Day:
On Wednesday, February 14th, we will be celebrating Valentine's Day in class. We do not have a party, we just pass out valentine cards. Just to give you some advanced notice (since I know your children will be eagerly shopping for/making 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. So please sign the cards, but leave the "to" box blank. Please send in 21 valentines so that there are enough for each child in the class. Thanks!

Conferences:
A link has been sent out to sign up for Spring conferences, which run from March 8th through March 15th. Please contact me if you did not receive the link or if you need any assistance with scheduling a conference.

This Week's Helpers & Activities:
Monday: Blue Bags returned (Touria), Daily 5, Centers
Tuesday: 100 Day!, Daily 5, Centers (Camille & Josie)
Wednesday: Recess 101, Blue Bags w/ Journals go home

Thursday: Daily 5, Centers (Tanya & Surbhi)
Friday: Daily 5, STEAM Centers (Mary & Celeste)

Upcoming Events:

Tuesday 1/30: 100 Day
Wednesday 2/7: Global Play Day & Art Vista Fish Prints
Friday 2/9: Valentine's Dance @ 6:30 pm
Wednesday 2/14: Valentine's Day Celebration
2/19-2/23: President's Week Vacation
Saturday 3/3: Back to the 80s Auction @ 6:00-11:00
3/8-3/15: Parent-Teacher Conferences