Weekly News & Homework: January 30th-February 3rd

We had so much fun celebrating our 100th Day of School! Thank you for all of the help, donations, and snacks!! I can't believe we are more than half way through our school year together! I am so proud of your children for working so hard and for everything they have learned so far.

Our field trip is THIS Tuesday! We will be going to the Children's Museum of the Desert. We will be leaving school around 8:15 and returning around 12:45. Mark your calendars and adjust schedules for the late pick up on this day and please note that your child may be missing any electives they may have on this day. On this day, please pack your child a lunch in a paper bag.  No lunch boxes please. We will be eating our “sack” lunches at the museum following the tour. The kids will be wearing their field trip t-shirts, so please send them to school in something that we can easily slip their shirt on over. (We are missing three shirts of students who wore their shirts home for the last field trip. So please send your child to school wearing their t-shirt if you have it at home!) Chaperones will be riding on the bus with our classes (if they wish) and need to pay a small fee at the Museum door (Approximately $5.00) Please remember that school policy states NO SIBLINGS. Thanks! We are looking forward to a wonderful field trip! Don't forget to donate $15  into our Dollar a Day fund. This donation will help cover the cost of the tickets and bus. Here is the link: Dollar A Day. 

This week we will be learning all about our country. Please see our Reading section for more information. You and your child can use the following website to check out fun facts on our National Symbols. http://bensguide.gpo.gov Have fun learning and playing some of these fun activities!

A Note About Absences: If you are absent for two or more consecutive days, we ask you to please sign up for independent study in the office. You may back-date this as well - meaning, there is still time to make up for days missed in the past! 

Upcoming Events:  
Tuesday, January 31: Field Trip to the Children's Museum
Monday, February 13: NO SCHOOL 
Tuesday, February 14: Valentine's Day Centers 
Monday, February 20: NO SCHOOL 


What Are We Learning This Week?:

Sight Words: QUESTION, WRITE, WITH, SAW, FROM.

Letter Team:  QU (we are learning that QU are married because they are always together!) and WR (the W is silent!) 

Reading: This week we are reading books all about our country. We will be learning all about our American symbols (flag, liberty bell, bald eagle, White House, Statue of Liberty, etc.) We will learn the meaning behind the words of the Pledge of Allegiance. 

Writing:  We will continue practicing writing a Step Up to Writing paragraph with a topic sentence, three things about that topic, and a conclusion sentence. 

Math: Since we have passed our 100th Day of School, we will start working on place value to the hundreds. We'll be learning that Zero the Hero (I'm sure you heard a lot about him on Friday!) is now our place holder in the tens place. We will discuss how many hundreds, tens, and ones are within a given number and create number sentences to match. You can help at home by asking your child about tens and ones. ("My number is 16, how many tens and ones does that have?" Your child should be able to tell you that it has one ten and six ones, as well as give you the number sentences to match 10+6=16 or 16-10=6.)

Leadership: We will continue to ROAR and discuss what it means to have a growth mindset!

Homework: January 30-February 3

Flashcards: Make flashcards for our new sight words (QUESTION, WRITE, WITH, SAW, FROM), and letter teams (QU and WR). Study flashcards every day. STUDY OLD FLASHCARDS AS WELL. I WILL BE TESTING STUDENTS ON ALL SIGHT WORDS FROM THE FIRST AND SECOND TRIMESTER IN A COUPLE OF WEEKS!

Phonemic Awareness: Please work with your child on the following Phonemic Awareness skills - rhyming, blending, segmenting, syllables, and beginning/middle/ending sounds. 

Reading: Play Smarty Ants for 10-15 minutes each night. In addition to Smarty Ants, we ask that you read your Book Bag every night. This includes: fluency passage, paper books, and library books. 

Writing: Write three to five sentences every day in your at-home journal. 

Math: Play Dreambox for 10-15 minutes each night. Discuss place value with your child. Ask them how many tens and ones belong in each number and have them give you the number sentence to go with that number. Example: The number 14 has one ten and four ones. 10+4=14. 

QR Codes: Download and print the QR Code practice pages on ParentSquare. Work on these pages together. 

SPECIAL HOMEWORK!!!!!!: On Monday, we are sending home our homework project for the week. It is a little book called "Me on the Map". It is meant to teach your child where he or she lives from the big picture (North America) to the small (your street address). Please complete this book together and return it any day this week.

Weekly News & Homework: January 23rd-27th

On FRIDAY, WE ARE CELEBRATING OUR 100TH DAY OF SCHOOL! We will be celebrating the 100th day with special 100th day Fun Friday Centers!  

For part of our 100th Day Centers, we are asking that each student bring a snack item to be shared with the class on Friday. Some examples include: a box of goldfish crackers, a box of teddy grahms, large bag of gummy bears, large bag of skittles, box of cheerios, large bag of mini Oreos, etc. The students will be sharing these snacks with their classmates to make “100 Day Hash” in celebration of our 100th day!! (You do NOT need to count out 100 of them, just bring the whole box/bag so the students can count out their own snacks!)

We also have a SPECIAL TURN-IN HOMEWORK this week - please read more in our homework section. 

Don't forget to keep working on those Community Service Projects! Our kindergarten requirement is 6-8 hours of community service. These projects and presentations will be in May. You do not want to wait until the last minute! 

We are getting excited about our field trip coming up on Tuesday, January 31st. We will be going to the Children's Museum of the Desert. Permission Slips for this field trip need to be turned in BY THIS FRIDAY - please sign and return ASAP! Chaperones are welcome to follow us or ride the bus and will need to pay a small chaperone fee at the door (approximately $5.00) Please remember that school policy states NO SIBLINGS. Thanks! We are looking forward to a wonderful field trip! 

Upcoming Events:  
Friday, January 27: 100th DAY OF SCHOOL CELEBRATION 
Tuesday, January 31: Field Trip to the Children's Museum
Monday, February 13: NO SCHOOL 
Tuesday, February 14: Valentine's Day Centers 
Monday, February 20: NO SCHOOL 

What Are We Learning This Week?:

Sight Words: ONE, TWO, THREE, FOUR, FIVE.

Letter Team:  ONG (like in SONG) and ONK (like in HONK).  

Reading: This week we are reading books about having a growth mindset and all about our 100th Day of School!

Writing:  We have some fun writing assignments this week. We will be writing all about our first 100 days of school, what we would do if we had $100, and what we would look like if we were 100 years old. 

Math: We will continue our unit on measurement. We will also have fun counting to 100 by 1's, 5's, and 10's, writing tally marks to 100, writing numbers to 100, and counting 100 objects!

Leadership: We will continue to ROAR and discuss what it means to have a growth mindset!

Homework: January 23-27

Flashcards: Make flashcards for our new sight words (ONE, TWO, THREE, FOUR, FIVE), and letter teams (ONG and ONK). Study flashcards every day.

Phonemic Awareness: Please work with your child on the following Phonemic Awareness skills - rhyming, blending, segmenting, syllables, and beginning/middle/ending sounds. 

Reading: Play Smarty Ants for 10-15 minutes each night. In addition to Smarty Ants, we ask that you read your Book Bag every night. This includes: fluency passage, paper books, and library books. 

Writing: Write three to five sentences every day in your at-home journal. 

Math: Play Dreambox for 10-15 minutes each night. Continue to discuss measurement and help your child to measure items at home. Reinforce addition and subtraction math facts through 5. Count the money in your "wallet" each day. Tell addition and subtraction word problems to your children and have them explain to you how they got the answer.

QR Codes: Download and print the QR Code practice pages on ParentSquare. Work on these pages together. 

SPECIAL SHARING HOMEWORK!!!!!!: We would like our students to practice counting to 100 by collecting 100 items to bring to school. Help them choose something small like 100 beans, 100 buttons, 100 pennies, 100 cotton balls, etc.Be creative! Help them put their collection into a paper “mystery bag” with their name on it (like a brown paper lunch bag that we cannot see through!). When they bring it to school, the class will try to guess what they brought! We will be doing fun activities with these collections all week long! These 100 Collections will be due Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday! Please DO NOT BRING ON FRIDAY! 

Weekly News & Homework: January 17th-20th

I hope you had a wonderful and relaxing three-day weekend with your families!

Last week, we began taking Math Fluency Tests on adding and subtracting math facts through five. These tests will come home every Monday. The goal is to finish the whole page in 2 minutes (to demonstrate fluency in this standard), so the students are given 2 minutes to complete it in pencil. After 2 minutes, they switch to crayons. Their calculated score is based only on what is done in pencil. Please take some time to review these tests, and reinforce and practice these skills at home. Thank you for your support!

A LOOK AHEAD: Our next kindergarten field trip is scheduled for Tuesday, January 31st. We will be going to the Children's Museum of the Desert. It is sure to be an exciting “hands on” experience.  We will be leaving school at 8:15 AM and returning at approximately 1:00 PM. Permission slips for our field trip went out this week. Please make sure they are signed and turned in by FRIDAY (1/20). If you are interested in being a chaperone please email me (bbobrink@inlandleaders.com) and let me know BY FRIDAY JANUARY 20th, as we need to give our final head count to the museum. Chaperones are welcome to follow us or ride the bus and will need to pay a small chaperone fee at the door (approximately $5.00) Please remember that school policy states NO SIBLINGS. Thanks! We are looking forward to a wonderful field trip! 

Upcoming Events:  

Monday, January 16: NO SCHOOL
Friday, January 27: 100th DAY OF SCHOOL CELEBRATION 
Tuesday, January 31: Field Trip to the Children's Museum
Monday, February 13: NO SCHOOL 
Tuesday, February 14: Valentine's Day Centers 
Monday, February 20: NO SCHOOL

If you are at the store and happen to think of us, we'd love....  
Black Expo Markers 

Valentines Day stickers

What Are We Learning This Week?:

Sight Words: WOULD, COULD, SHOULD, WALK, TALK.

Letter Team:  ANG (like in HANG, SANG) and ANK (like in TANK, BANK). 

Reading: This week we are reading about penguins in both fiction and non-fiction books!

Writing:  We are learning how to write a five sentence paragraph. I have been modeling a structure for paragraph writing called, "Step Up to Writing" for the students. Kindergarten Step Up to Writing is writing a paragraph with a topic sentence, three sentences about that topic, and a conclusion sentence. This week, we will write five sentence step up to writing stories about Martin Luther King Jr. 

Math: We will continue our unit on measurement. This week we will focus on measuring length and height. 

Leadership: As always, we will continue to ROAR. This week, we will discuss how to use our growth mindset to accomplish our goals at school and at home. 

Homework: January 16-20

Flashcards: Make flashcards for our new sight words (WOULD, COULD, SHOULD, WALK, TALK), and letter teams (ANG and ANK). Study flashcards every day.

Phonemic Awareness: Please work with your child on the following Phonemic Awareness skills - rhyming, blending, segmenting, syllables, and beginning/middle/ending sounds. Please check your child's report card from first trimester and see the Foundational Skills areas where they may still need support.

Reading: Play Smarty Ants for 10-15 minutes each night. In addition to Smarty Ants, we ask that you read your Book Bag every night. This includes: fluency passage, paper books, and library books. 

Writing: Write three to five sentences every day in your at-home journal. 

Math: Play Dreambox for 10-15 minutes each night. Continue to discuss measurement and help your child to measure items at home. Reinforce addition and subtraction math facts through 5. Count the money in your "wallet" each day. Tell addition and subtraction word problems to your children and have them explain to you how they got the answer.

QR Codes: Download and print the QR Code practice pages on ParentSquare. Work on these pages together. 

Turn-In Homework: Please write THREE SENTENCES about what we learned about Martin Luther King Jr. Draw a picture to go with your sentences.

Weekly News & Homework: January 9th-13th

Weekly News: January 9-13

 

There is no school next Monday, January 16th due to Martin Luther King Jr. Day. Enjoy the three day weekend with your families!

Students have been doing such a wonderful job on writing last names! If your child is still struggling with this, please practice at home! You can make it a part of your writing homework. 

Our "wallets" have been a big hit in the classroom! Students are excited to "earn money" for making good use of classroom time and for good behavior and hard work throughout the day. On Friday, we had our first visit to the classroom store. Students had the opportunity to trade out their money for larger coins (5 pennies for a nickel, etc) and choose to spend money on a prize or save it for a larger prize later. Please continue to count money received everyday and reinforce the responsibility of taking care of wallets. Also, if you are able, we'd love more prizes for our "class store"!!! Thank you for your continued support!

This week, we will begin taking Math Fluency Tests on adding and subtracting math facts through five. Our Common Core Standard is that by the end of kindergarten, students will fluently (meaning without fingers or manipulatives) be able to add and subtract within five. Students will have the opportunity to practice these facts and take weekly tests. Please remember that we would like all students to master this standard by the end of the year. My hope is that each week, we will accomplish a little bit more on these tests. Please reinforce and practice these skills at home. Thank you for your support!

A LOOK AHEAD: Our next kindergarten field trip is scheduled for Tuesday, January 31st. We will be going to the Children's Museum of the Desert. It is sure to be an exciting “hands on” experience.  We will be leaving school at 8:15 AM and returning at approximately 1:00 PM. Permission slips for our field trip will be coming home as the field trip gets closer. If you are interested in being a chaperone please email me (bbobrink@inlandleaders.com) and let me know BY FRIDAY JANUARY 20TH, as we need to give our final head count to the museum. Chaperones are welcome to follow us or ride the bus and will need to pay a small chaperone fee at the door (approximately $5.00) Please remember that school policy states NO SIBLINGS. Thanks! We are looking forward to a wonderful field trip! 

Upcoming Events:  

Monday, January 16: NO SCHOOL
Friday, January 27: 100th DAY OF SCHOOL CELEBRATION 

Tuesday, January 31: Field Trip to the Children's Museum
Monday, February 13: NO SCHOOL 
Tuesday, February 14: Valentine's Day Centers 
Monday, February 20: NO SCHOOL

If you are at the store and happen to think of us, we'd love....   
Black Expo Markers 

Valentines Day stickers and trinkets

Any sort of small {or big} prizes for our class store

What Are We Learning This Week?:

Sight Words: OF, BACK, SAY, SAYS, PLEASE.

Letter Team:  CK (We are learning that CK makes the K sound and helps the vowel to say it's short sound, like in BACK, NECK, PICK, LOCK, DUCK).

Reading: This week we are studying and doing projects with "The Mitten" by Jan Brett. We will discuss and record story elements such as author, illustrator, setting, and characters. We will read books about winter and other stories by the author, Jan Brett. In our fluency passages, we are learning how to be "reading detectives" and answering comprehension questions by going back to find evidence in the text to support our answer. 

Writing:  We are learning how to write a five sentence paragraph. I have been modeling a structure for paragraph writing called, "Step Up to Writing" for the students. Kindergarten Step Up to Writing is writing a paragraph with a topic sentence, three sentences about that topic, and a conclusion sentence. For example, "We had a great day at school today. First, we learned about measurement in math. Next, we colored snowmen at centers. Last, we read a lot of books about winter. As you can see, we had a fun time at school." 

Math: We will learn different ways things can be measured, including length, height, width, weight, and capacity. We will have fun measuring various items around the classroom. A big part of this unit is also sorting and graphing. You can help by discussing measurement, sorting, and graphing at home. Tell your child to sort different things around the house and ask how they sorted those things. 

Leadership: As always, we will continue to ROAR. We will also discuss New Year's Resolutions and make goals for 2017. We will learn and discuss what it means to have a growth mindset and work hard on accomplishing those goals.  

Homework: January 9-13

Flashcards: Make flashcards for our new sight words (OF, BACK, SAY, SAYS, PLEASE), and letter team (CK). Study flashcards every day.

Phonemic Awareness: Please work with your child on the following Phonemic Awareness skills - rhyming, blending, segmenting, syllables, and beginning/middle/ending sounds. Please check your child's report card from first trimester and see the Foundational Skills areas where they may still need support.

Reading: Play Smarty Ants for 10-15 minutes each night. In addition to Smarty Ants, we ask that you read your Book Bag every night. This includes: fluency passage, paper books, and library books. 

Writing: Write three to five sentences every day in your at-home journal. 

Math: Play Dreambox for 10-15 minutes each night.  Please continue to work on Counting and Cardinality and Geometry areas your child may still need support with.  We will begin our Measurement and Data Unit.  Please see the Measurement and Data Goal sheet below. Work with your child on the Measurement Vocabulary and encourage them to use these words to describe everyday objects. (I can measure my weight with a scale, this cup measures capacity, the height of the chair is 4 books tall, the spoon is shorter than the knife, I can measure a book’s height, weight, and length, etc) Keep going over those Daily Math worksheets that go home each day to see if your child needs help with a particular skill. 

QR Codes: Download and print the QR Code practice pages on ParentSquare. Work on these pages together. 

Turn-In Homework: Please write THREE SENTENCES about something that you can measure. Make sure you tell me what you measured and the attribute (length, height, width, capacity, weight). Draw a picture to go with your sentences.

Weekly News & Homework: January 4th-6th

Happy New Year and welcome back to school! I hope you had a wonderful Christmas and fun two weeks off with family and friends!

This is a short week, but we will still have new sight words, letter teams, and Friday tests! 

PLEASE MAKE SURE TO READ THE ENTIRE POST AS THERE IS A LOT OF NEW INFORMATION FOR THE NEW YEAR!!

There is no school this Tuesday, January 3rd due to a Teacher Inservice day. There is also no school on Monday, January 16th due to Martin Luther King Jr. Day.

Beginning after the holiday break, we will now have each student write his/her first and LAST NAME on all papers, homework, etc.  If your child does not know how to write his/her last name, please practice this at home. We will be practicing at school as well. 

You should have received your child's NEW take-home BAG on the last day before our break! This will replace your child's take-home FOLDER and will need to come back to school EVERYDAY! This bag will be for all take-home classwork, book bags, notes to parents, and homework. Don't forget to send your child to school with it starting this Wednesday!

Also beginning after the holiday break each child will have a “wallet” inside of his or her take home bag. The “wallet” is a ziploc baggie. Each day your child will have the opportunity to earn money throughout our day. Students will have the opportunity to receive pennies, nickels, dimes, and quarters in the classroom as rewards for behavior and hard work throughout the day. Instead of Treasure Box on Fridays, now they will visit the CLASS STORE! Each student will count money, trade money at the bank (example: five pennies for one nickel) and have the opportunity to spend their money on the items that are now “on sale” at the class store. Of course, bigger treasures will cost more money, which I hope will reinforce self-control and teach students about saving. Each child will be responsible for keeping track of their own bank and for counting the money in it. (This will be great math homework practice). Please encourage your child to take care of and keep track of his/her wallet, as lost money WILL NOT BE REPLACED!  Also, if students forget wallets at home, they will not receive money for that day. The wallet is designed to teach responsibility and accountability as well as reinforce math skills. This is a great life skill your child will benefit from in the future! Thank you for your continued support. 

Success Academy begins January 4th (still on Wednesdays and Thursdays) and second trimester electives will begin the week of January 16th. 

Upcoming Events:  
Tuesday, January 3: NO SCHOOL
Monday, January 16: NO SCHOOL
Friday, January 27: 100th DAY OF SCHOOL CELEBRATION (more info coming soon)

If you are at the store and happen to think of us, we'd love.... 

***Any sort of small {or big} prizes for our class store!!!***
Gluesticks  
Black Expo Markers 

Valentines Day stickers and trinkets

What Are We Learning This Week?:

Sight Words: WORK, ALL, AWAY, JUST, US.

Letter Team:  WOR (the OR sounds like Mr. ER, like in work and word) and TION (sounds like SHUN like in vacation, invention, connection). 

Reading: This week, we will read many books about winter and snowmen. We will not be taking book bags home due to the short week. 

Writing:  We will continue working on writing three sentences on the same topic and begin thinking of good topic sentences to begin our writing and conclusion sentences to end our writing.

Math: We will begin discussing Number Bonds, along with addition and subtraction and next week, we will begin taking Fluency Math tests. We will continue to learn our Doubles Song. We will also begin our math unit on measurement. We are learning different ways things can be measured, including length, height, width, weight, and capacity. You can help by discussing measurement at home.

Leadership: As always, we will continue to ROAR. Students displaying excellent leadership traits will be rewarded with money to spent at our class store. 

Homework: January 4-6

Flashcards: Make flashcards for our new sight words (WORK, ALL, AWAY, JUST, US), and letter teams (WOR and TION). Study flashcards every day.

Phonemic Awareness: Please work with your child on the following Phonemic Awareness skills - rhyming, blending, segmenting, syllables, and beginning/middle/ending sounds. Please check your child's report card from first trimester and see the Foundational Skills areas where they may still need support.

Reading: Play Smarty Ants for 10-15 minutes each night. Read on RAZ-Kids. Read books from your at-home book box! Read to your child every day and have your child read to you every day. Find sight words and letter teams in books, in the car as you are driving - just READ, READ, READ! 

Writing: Practice writing every day! Our expectation at this point of the year is for students to write three sentences every day! Please make sure your three sentences are on the same topic with details, focusing on neatness, punctuation, and capitalization. 

Math: Play Dreambox for 10-15 minutes each night. Continue to practice counting, identify numbers out of order (make number flashcards!), practice number writing, practice drawing shapes, identifying shapes, or even creating shapes out of play-dough and sticks.  

QR Codes: Download and print the QR Code practice pages on ParentSquare. Work on these pages together. 

Turn-In Homework: Please write THREE SENTENCES about a winter activity that you enjoy. Draw a picture to go with your sentences. Here is a link to our Sharing Paper.