Week of 1/22

We have Snow Day this week. It will be on Friday, at the beginning of school, for both K1 & K2. 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 be having a "snowball fight" using wadded up recycled paper & later we'll have some hot cocoa at snack!  Our STEAM centers that day will all be snow-themed. It is always lots of fun. If you want to stick around to collect snow gear back up or just to watch the fun, feel free.

Language Arts:
This week, we will begin studying digraphs. The two digraphs we will introduce are th and sh. Children will be reading and spelling words with these digraphs. We will also have a new sight word: he. Our story this week is Snowmen at Night by Caralyn Buehner. We will write our own "Snowmen at Night" adventures after reading this story.

Math:
We will conclude Module 3 this week by comparing lengths of things. We will also compare numbers to 10.

The Great Kindness Challenge
This week, Union School District is participating in The Great Kindness Challenge. We will be promoting acts of kindness each day, and asking the children to try different acts of kindness. We will encourage small things, like smiling at a friend, picking up extra pieces of trash to help beautify our school, asking a new friend to play, etc. We hope by promoting a culture of kindness at our school and in our district, that it will permeate to our local community as a whole.

Reading Response Journal
The journals in the blue bags looked great last week! I just want to reiterate that your children should be writing as independently as possible on the journal page. If they become over-dependent on an adult spelling words for them, they will have great difficulty when we write in class. We do have a writing assessment coming up in February. I want all the children to be comfortable and able to put a sentence together on their own so that this assessment is not stressful for them.

This Week's Helpers & Activities:
Monday: Blue Bags returned (Ying), Daily 5, Independent Centers
Tuesday: Daily 5, Centers (Pantea & Josie)
Wednesday: Recess 101, Blue Bags w/ Journals go home

Thursday: Daily 5, Centers (Ying & Tanya)
Friday: Snow Day Fun, Daily 5, STEAM Centers (Ching & Celeste)

Upcoming Events:

Tuesday 1/23: Incoming Kindergarten Orientation (tell your friends!)
Friday 1/26: Snow Day
Tuesday 1/30: 100 Day
Friday 2/9: Valentine's Dance @ 6:30 pm
2/19-2/23: President's Week Vacation
Saturday 3/3: Back to the 80s Auction @ 6:00-11:00