Book Fair Fun...

We will be going to the book fair on Wednesday from 10:30 - 11:00 and Thursday from 10:30 - 11:00.  You are more than welcome to come join us in our shopping experience.  In addition, the book fair I believe will be open during conferences on January 31st and February 7 from 4:00 to 7:30!  Happy Reading!

This Week of Fun...

We are well on our way into the 3rd quarter!  

Important Parent/Guardian Information

1. Please remember... It is important to understand to receive your child's report card you must have paid $25 of the $50 school fees.  If you are unsure if you have paid or if you have a balance please contact me or Mrs. Ilg in the office at 943-6900.  
2. Please remember conferences are Tuesday, January 31st and Tuesday, February 7th.  Conference confirmation forms were sent home on Thursday and Friday.  Please return your confirmation sheets with your child on Monday/Tuesday.  It is very helpful for us to know if you are able to attend.  If you are unable to attend, please let us know so we can fill in the time slot with another parent.  Unfortunately, we were unable to meet all requested conferences.  If you received a yellow piece of paper regarding a phone conference, please let us know the best phone number and time to reach you (before school/after school).  We greatly appreciate your willingness to cooperate with us and our tight schedules.  We want to accommodate all of our families in some way, as these parent-teacher conversations are important for us to have.

This week we will be continuing with our Reading Street program and reading The Lion and the Mouse.  We will be focusing on the main idea (or theme) of a story this week.  We will also continue to work on blending words.  The children are doing this extremely well and we are impressed with how well they are learning their sounds and words.  Our sight words will remain the same this week (they, of, you).  Please take some time to review all of the sight words nightly for about 5 minutes.  

This week in math we are continuing our work on comparing and ordering numbers to 20.  The children are doing this skill extremely well.  One game we learned last week is taking a set of cards numbered to 20 and the children have to order them.  Next, one person "steals a card" and the other person has to figure out which card is missing.  The children have enjoyed this game and it is fun to watch them figure out the missing number.  Finally, we will be continuing to concentrate on writing numbers to 20.  It is important for the children to be able to do this without a model.  Many children do have difficulty with the teen numbers as children want to write 14 as 41 or 17 as 71.

Our centers for the next two weeks will have a mitten theme!  Below are our 4 centers for the next 2 weeks...

• Art Center: Students will use fine motor skills to cut, hole punch, and lace a mitten.  Students will then decorate their mitten with oil pastels.
• Computer Center/Math Center: Students will be able to explore math related websites (using 21st century skills) and continue to work on ordering numbers.
• Writing Center: Students will write sentences about their mittens using a capital letter, 2 finger spacing, and punctuation.
• Library Center: Students will continue identifying the title, characters, and their favorite part of a story. However, students will also have the opportunity to do a fun word family activity.

Thank you for all of your support and continuing to work with your children at home...We are looking forward to another great week of learning :)

Bully Free...

This past week we recognized children in our school who were being bully free.  Each quarter we recognize children who have been working really hard on being friends with everyone in the room and around the school.  These children have been cheering on others, helping others, being respectful, taking pride in their work, and have been displaying great character traits.  It was a fun day handing out these awards and having the other children in the room telling them why they were being such a great friend!  I always look forward to recognizing children who are doing what they are suppose to be doing!

Mr. Stahl's and Miss Todd's A Class Bully Free Winners.

Miss Todd's and Mr. Stahl's B Class Bully Free Winners.

Learning...

I Spy Words

Number Ordering

Mixed-Up Sentence

Computer Fun

Reading

Building Numbers 1-20

Reading Words

Number Sense

Time For Some Fun...

Students at the Computer Center

We are beginning the 3rd quarter this week (oh how time flies when we are having fun).  We have completed all of our assessments for the 2nd quarter and report cards will be coming home in the next week.  It is important to understand to receive your child's report card you must have paid $25 of the $50 school fees.  If you are unsure if you have paid or if you have a balance please contact me or Mrs. Ilg in the office at 943-6900.  In addition, your child will receive one of two scores on their report card.  The two scores are yes (Y) or no (N).  This basically means if your child can do the assigned skill he/she will receive a yes, if he/she is unable to complete the skill independently then your child will receive a no.  Please do not be discouraged if they receive a no because progress may have been made.  We will discuss this more at conferences.

Parent-Teacher conference forms were sent home on Thursday and Friday of last week.  It is imperative to send those forms back to school on Monday or Tuesday.  We only have two evenings for conferences this time; therefore, it will be a first come first serve.  In addition, we may ask for some phone conferences if all time slots become filled.  We appreciate your willingness to cooperate with us during our tight schedule.  We want to accommodate all of our families in some way as it is important for us to have these conversations.

This week we will be continuing on in our reading street and discussing the differences between today and long ago.  This always allows for some great conversations to occur about what we had awhile ago to what we have today.  You may want to take some time and talk about how school was different for you.  We will continue to work on blending words.  The children are doing this extremely well and I am impressed with how well they are learning their sounds and words.  We have three new sight words this week (they, of, you).  I have noticed the word "like" and "me" have been somewhat difficult for the children.  Please take some time to review the sight words nightly for about 5 minutes.  We are working extremely hard on our writing too.  The children need to be able to write a sentence with spacing, upper/lowercase letters, and punctuation by the end of kindergarten.

This week in math we are working on comparing and ordering numbers to 20.  The children are doing this skill extremely well.  One game we are learning is taking a set of cards numbered to 20 and the children have to order them.  Next, one person "steals a card" and the other person has to figure out which card is missing.  The children are loving this game and it is fun to watch them figure out the missing number.  In addition, the children can learn "war," which will help them with comparing numbers.  You can play where the winner is the one with the largest number or you can change the rule to the person who has the smallest number.  Finally, we will be concentrating on writing numbers to 20.  It is important for the children to be able to do this without a model.  Many children do have difficulty with the teen numbers as children want to write 14 as 41 or 17 as 71.

Thank you for all of your support...I am looking forward to a great week of learning :)

Another Great Week...

Last week we had our DIBELS assessment and I was impressed with how well the children did and showed what they know!  You will be receiving their scores later this week as we finish up a few children who were absent.  In addition, we will review these scores with you at conferences.  If you receive your scores and you have a concern please do not hesitate to give us a call and we will talk with you about it.  Please remember if your child did not make the benchmark this may mean we will want to do some intervention with your child to help them in a particular area.  Furthermore, if your child made the benchmark closely, we may want to continue an intervention because we want your child to be strong in all areas.

We will continue into reading street this week.  We will be focusing on the letter Ff and the sight words look and see.  Another word, which is not a sight word, but is important is and.  We will be introducing this word to the children as well.  We will be continuing our work with story plots (beginning, middle, and end) and the characters in a story.  The children will also be working on their writing.  We are looking for children to have "control" over their writing.  This means the words and letters are on a line, legible, and spacing.  Every morning your child will have a chance to practice this skill.  You can see how your child is progressing when you check their folder nightly.

In math, we are going to continue to work with teen numbers.  We will be also pairing it with ordering numbers.  Children will begin to order numbers up to 20.  The children will be also learning the game "steal the card."  This is where one child takes a card and the other child has to figure out which card they took.  The children have to then order the numbers to figure out which one is missing.  This typically becomes a favorite game of the classroom.  You can do this at home too.

One of the most exciting parts of this week will be the introduction of computers at our centers.  Children will be able to explore the computer.  We will be using the website www.starfall.com to help us learn the components of the computer.  This particular website is great and diverse as children can explore letters, words, reading, numbers, adding, etc.  I know the children will be very excited when we begin this center!

Have a great week!

Student Teacher...Miss Isaacs...

This winter we have a student teacher joining our classroom, Miss Isaacs.  I am very excited to have Miss Isaacs a part of our learning community.  I am already quite impressed with her confidence and her ability to work with the children.  I know the children will love having her as a part of our room.  Miss Isaacs will be with us until the end of April.  She will be teaching throughout the semester; however, I will be overseeing her lessons and giving her guidance.

Isaacs Parent Letter

January Learning Underway...

We are moving right through Unit 3 of Reading Street!  Our Amazing Words for this week are: celebration, sprinted, barn, blacksmith, arch, and soldier.  This week, we will be reading, “George Washington Visits”.   This story correlates very well with our question of the week: How is life today different from life hundreds of years ago?  The children will also be introduced to the concept of cause and effect as well this week.  However, we will continue to review the setting, plot, and characters of our stories! 

This week, we will be introducing the letters Dd and Kk and their associated sounds.  Both Dd and Kk are short, quick sounds; therefore, please do not allow your children to add the “uh” sound.  This can create difficulties for them when they segment words.  We will also be introducing two new sight words: “see” and “look”!  

We are planning to continue our work with our other sight words this week and using them to create awesome sentences!  Students will revisit the basic elements of writing sentences this week during both our whole group learning time and our center time.  Students should be able to show you how they start a sentence with a capital letter, use two finger spacing between words, and end their sentence with a punctuation mark.  Please continue to encourage your child to be writing at home on their days off.  We have really enjoyed having the children share their journal entries!

Centers will remain the same this week!

-Library Center: Students will be identifying the title, the characters in the story, and their favorite part of the story.

-Writing Center: Students will be answering a question by creating a sentence and illustrating their work.

-Math Center: Students will be exploring, comparing/contrasting, sorting, and discussing the shape’s properties. (2-D and 3-D)

-Art Center: Students will be creating a snowman and labeling all of the associated parts.

In math, we will be revisiting the concept of tens frames.  Having students think about numbers using frames of 10 can be very helpful and is a great way to establish number sense and mental math skills.  It also provides both a concrete and visual understanding of the base-ten number system.  Last week, we explored the numbers 11 and 12.  This week, we will be exploring 13 and 14.  Please continue to work with your child on these concepts at home, as well as counting.  Students need to be able to count to 50 by the end of the 2^nd quarter and 100 by the end of the year!!

Also, please remember that students will have their DIBELS assessments this week.  They will be assessed on letter naming, nonsense words, phoneme segmentation, and beginning sounds.  Their scores should come home in 1-2 weeks.

We hope that you have had a fantastic weekend.

Center Learning...

 Reading Center...Working on identifying the characters in the story!

  Writing Center...Working on reading, building, and writing sentences!

  Math Center...Working on identifying and exploring the properties of 2-D and 3-D shapes!  Children were also assessed on their ability to sort shapes by various attributes!

  Art Center...Working on labeling a snowman!  Children created a snowman, but had to label three parts!

 Math Workshop...Children were working with the numbers 10, 11, 12!  Children were figuring out it is 10 and some more!

New Year...New Fun...New Learning...

This coming week we are continuing to work with Unit 3 of Reading Street and we will be reading "Little Quack."  We will be working on the letter Rr and the associated sound.  The letter Rr is a short sound; therefore, please do not have your children add the "uh" sound.  In addition, we will continue to work with our sight words: she, me, with.  

We are planning to continue our work with our other sight words and using them to write sentences!   Students have been introduced to the basic elements of writing sentences.  They should be able to show you how they start a sentence with a capital letter, use two finger spaces between words, and end their sentence with a punctuation mark.  Please continue to encourage your child to be writing at home on their days off.  We love to see what your child does on their days off and they can bring their writing into class to share.  

Centers will be changing this week!  We will have five centers this week: library center, math center, art center, writing center, and teacher center.  In the library center, students will be able to browse winter books and complete their book report.  In the math center, children will continue to explore 2-D and 3-D shapes.  They will be comparing and contrasting the shapes, sorting shapes by 2 attributes, and discussing the shape's properties with their peers.   The art center will provide students with the opportunity to create a snowman and label all of the parts.  Finally, in the writing center, we will be working on our sentence writing and sharing our writing with the class!

In math, we will be reviewing 2-D and 3-D shapes.  The children are required to identify five 2-D shapes and four 3-D shapes for the report card.  The children will work with all 2-D and 3-D shapes and explore them in the way they move, look, and other properties.   We will also reviewing the similarities and differences between 2-D and 3-D shapes.

Also, this week, we will also be spending some time reviewing our classroom and school procedures!  We are looking forward to seeing the children on Tuesday/Wednesday and hearing all about their winter breaks!

Happy New Year!