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.