Valentine's Day!

Valentine’s Day

Dear Parents,

Our plan is to celebrate Valentine’s Day on Friday, February 12th. Due to unexpected weather/snow days, which may occur, we will keep you updated with any changes as soon as possible.

On the day of our celebration, we have special learning activities planned, including a Valentine’s card exchange. Below is a class list of the students in Room 5. We encourage students to write out their own valentines.  One suggestion is doing 2-3 valentines a day leading up to our celebration.  The experience will help with their writing skills as well as building a stronger connection to their friends. Please help to avoid hurt feelings by sending in a card for each member of our class. Cards can be homemade or store bought, however NO candy and/or food may be sent in. Families are welcome to send in non-food items for classmates. This is not required.

Valentines can be sent in starting in February, but are due on February 12th the latest. We will also be having a Party in a Bag snack. Look out for more details to come as we near the date of our celebration! Thank you for helping your child prepare for this special event. Please contact me if you have any questions or concerns.

Welcome Rainbow & Cloud!

We have gerbils! 

Mrs. Pavlicek has read our persuasive letters and she has allowed us to take care of 2 gerbils!

Meet Rainbow and Cloud!

Mrs. P talked to the class about gerbils and their care. 

We promised to keep their cage clean and even exercise it in their ball or wheel. 

Paper-Towel Rolls & Toilet-Paper Rolls

A gerbil's teeth are constantly growing, they never stop! In order to help them control their teeth from growing too long they chew on cardboard rolls, much like the ones you have in your house!

If you have any paper-towel rolls or toilet-paper rolls please have your child bring them in. The gerbils will love to have a new toy to play with and chew!

A Week of Winter

The chilly weather may have kept us indoors all week but that didn't stop Room 5 from enjoying the winter season!

Warming Our Hearts

It's hard to believe we've been in school for almost 100 days. To commemorate the occasion , Kindergarten has decided to challenge themselves to perform 100 acts of kindness by the 100th day of school. Do you think we can do it?! Stay tuned to find out!

Jan Brett

This week's read alouds were all written and illustrated by Jan Brett. The students loved her fun winter tales and finding Jan Brett's very own pet hedgehog in each of her books! 

Check out more titles by Jan Brett at the library.

   W

Time on Learning

Fundations:

We have finished ALL 26 letters of the alphabet. Our final two letters were Z and Qu. 

Ask your child why Q is a "chicken" letter?

 

Our second unit will focus on sounding/ "tapping" our words and reviewing Uppercase letters. 

You will also hear your child start to talk about Trick words, which are sight words.  Sight words and trick words are words which cannot be sounded out but rather memorized. We will incorporate these in our reading groups, morning meeting, center work, and later in our tic-tac-toe boards. 

Addition

Topic 7 in the Envisions math program introduced concepts of joining groups. Students learning basic concepts of adding groups together to find out the sum or number of objects there are "all together".  They practiced reading a number sentence with words and with symbols. They understand a plus sign means "and"  while the equal sign indicates the sum or "same as". 

-Students are to learn addition facts within 5. We revisit addition in our math program but to practice our early skills you will see addition math facts sent home on flash cards to practice with your child.  

-Ask your child to show you the hand signs for plus and equal! 

-We tried out some math centers including "Math Around The Room".  These are task cards hidden around the room for students to find, compute, and record.  I think it will certainly become a routine in our math time. 

Next week we introduce subtraction!! 

Guided Reading & Centers

Guided Reading groups started this week with introductions and setting a purpose. Students learned what to do, how to act, and expectations for when they are in a reading group. Students will read in a small leveled group to build upon  fluency, comprehension, decoding skills, and more! More information about Guided Reading to come! 

Centers are the activities students complete when they are not in a guided reading group. Some of these included:

-Read to Self

-Word Work

-Fundations Practice 

-Writing (Persuasive Letters)

-Write around the room

-Art: Hedgehog Paperplates and designing winter hats

-Poetry: The Mitten

-Literacy Games

Reminders

-Please remember to have your child wear winter coats, gloves/mittens, and hats everyday to school.  If there is snow on the ground and your child would like to play in the snow; children will need boots, snowpants, a winter coat, gloves/mittens, and a hat in order to do so.  Students who do not have ALL of these items will not be able to play in the snow, but will still go out for recess.

-Our next field trip is scheduled for January 29th at the Discovery Museum in Acton. Please let me know ASAP if you'd like to volunteer. All volunteers must be CORIed and attend a confidentiality meeting. 

- There will be no extra practice pages sent home next week due to the short week (no school Monday January 18th). You will see tic-tac-toe boards sent home the week of January 25, including practice addition facts! We appreciate all of your support at home to help your child succeed in the classroom.

Snapshots!