More Fun...

We will working with the story One Little Mouse in Reading Street this week.  With the story, One Little Mouse, we will be continuing to identify the characters, setting, and plot.  However, we will also focus on the sequence of events in the story.  When reading with your child at home, it is a great idea to ask them about the characters, setting, and plot!

One area Mrs. Franz and I continue to find troublesome for some children are the sight words.  These words are progressively becoming harder and this week we have a new set.  Our sight words this week are: one, two, three, four, and five.  These need to be practiced daily!  Please make sure to take 5-10 minutes each night to practice sight words, especially on the "off days."  This will allow learning to continue and will allow your child more practice with words.

In math, we are continuing our work with the teen numbers and building numbers.  Children should be able to read and write numbers to 20 and be able to compare these numbers.  The children should be able to understand 13 is 10 + 3, 10 and 3 more, and 1 ten and 3 ones.  This is one of the reasons we have been spending a lot of time on teen numbers.  Research has shown children need a solid foundation of number sense and place value.  Therefore, we have spent a lot of time practicing place value and understanding why 13 is 13 (and the other teen numbers).  We will also be assessing teen numbers in the next few days.

Over the past few weeks, we have been discussing healthy living and healthy eating habits.  Hopefully, the children have shared with some of the healthy activities we have explored and healthy food choices we have discussed.  We will be jumping rope during recess.

Thank you, again, for continuing to make this such a successful year!

Writing Fun...

The children are doing a great job with their writing.  We have been working on capital letters at the beginning of a sentence and end punctuation.  We have also talked about spacing and using "spaceman" to remind us to put a space between our words.  We will be working on stories with a beginning, middle, and end in the next couple of weeks.  I love this time as the children become even better writers!

Survivor...Go Team Beard...

One of our classmates' dad is on this season of Survivor: Fans vs. Favorites (Matt from Cincinnati or the one with the beard)!  We found out he was on the show back in January and last week was the premiere (I thoroughly enjoyed watching the show, and look forward to watching it each week).  Our classmate taught us a few of his dad's favorite things!  We learned he loves his beard and he likes rock and roll.  Therefore, we thought as a class to cheer him on we would take a picture with our pretend beards and moustaches.  Go Team Beard!  We are thrilled!

The Fun is Continuing...

I hope the children enjoyed their time off of school.  I know the A class only comes on Wednesday this week and the B class only came once last week; therefore, we are continuing our learning from last week.  This allows the children to have all the same lessons as each other.  We will work with the story "My Lucky Day" in Reading Street.  We will also be concentrating on final sounds in words.  Children should be able to isolate the last sound in a word and tell you the corresponding letter.  One area Mrs. Franz and I have found to be troublesome for some of our children are the sight words.  These words are progressively becoming harder and next week we have new ones.  Please make sure to take 5 - 10 minutes to practice sight words, especially on the "off days."  This will allow the learning to continuing and to allow your child more practice on these words.  We will send home a full list of all sight words up to date this week for your reference.

In math, we are working with teen numbers and building numbers.  Children should be able to read and write numbers to 20 and be able to compare these numbers.  This helps us as we will begin addition and subtraction in the coming weeks.  We want this skill to be "automatic;" therefore, your child should be able to see the number and state it in less than 3 seconds (this is the same for letters and sounds).

We will be jumping rope for "Jump Rope for Heart" during recess.  In addition, I encourage everyone to go out and "move" a little.  This is to promote the healthy month of February.  Thanks again for making this such a great year and I am looking forward to the continuation of the year!

Kindergarten Registration...

For those of you that are advance planners like I am, I wanted to give you enough time to begin to plan for kindergarten registration for the 2013-2014 academic school year.  If you know of anyone who will have a kindergartener please let them know about enrollment!  Registration is very important as we plan for classes next year and the amount of staff needed! See the following information that was just released by the district office.

MARK YOUR CALENDARS:
Kindergarten Registration will be held during the month of March, 2012.

Registration will be by appointment only, and will be held at the West Clermont administrative office located in theUnion Township Civic Center at 4350 Aicholtz Road. The kindergarten enrollment schedule for West Clermont Schools is as follows:

•February 25-March 1 – Amelia Elementary and Holly Hill Elementary

•March 4-8 – Merwin Elementary and Brantner Elementary

•March 11-15 – Clough Pike Elementary and Willowville Elementary

•March 18-22 – Withamsville-Tobasco Elementary and Summerside Elementary

•March 25-29 – Make up week, all schools

Hours:
Monday 8 a.m.-3:45 p.m.
Tuesday 8 a.m.- 3:45 p.m.
Wednesday 8 a.m.-3:45 p.m.
Thursday 8 a.m.-6:15 p.m.
Friday 8 a.m.-3:45 p.m.

All appointments for enrolling a student can be made as early as the week of February 20-24, 2012. Appointments can be made by calling 943-5000.

Your child must be five (5) years old on or before Sept. 30, 2012. You should bring:
•your child’s original birth certificate

•proof of residency (lease, deed, land contract, settlement statement, affidavit of residence)

•immunization records

•custody papers (if applicable)

•IEP/MFE (if applicable)

•parents picture identification (drivers license, state identification card, passport)

•physical examination (must be returned to your school prior to student starting kindergarten)

If you have any questions, please contact West Clermont Central Enrollment at 943-5000.

Just Some Fun...

We have used the site www.abcya.com to practice sounds, sight words, math, etc.

This Week...

This week is a short week and it is Valentine's week.  The 'A' class will come on Monday and Wednesday and the 'B' class will only come on Tuesday.  We do not have school on Thursday, Friday, and the following Monday.  This week we will begin the next week in Reading Street; however, it will take us two weeks to complete because of the long winter break.  Students will bring home their "Family Ties" reading homework on Monday and Tuesday this week.  Please take some time to do the activities over the next week.  In math, we will be working with teen numbers.  After assessing the children for the first time, I have noticed many children are having difficulty with writing teen numbers.  Currently, many children are writing 12 as 21 and 13 as 31, and so on.  We will be working on teen numbers for the next couple weeks.  Please take time to look at the math homework which was sent home last week for practice on this.  In addition, you will notice that children should be learning 13 means 10 and 3 more.  This helps with place value, especially when they move into first grade. 

We will also be having our Valentine's Day Celebration on Tuesday and Wednesday.  We have notified parents who volunteered to send in materials already.  If you have not been notified, we will not be needing anything at this point.  I do appreciate your willingness to help out and may be called on in the future.  Please remember to have your child send in 25 Valentine's signed by your child on Tuesday or Wednesday. 

If you have any questions feel free to ask.  Thank you for all of your support!

February Fun...

Next week we will be having our Valentine's Day celebration. We will need to have all the children bring in valentine's to pass out. All you need to do is to have your child sign each of the valentine's cards. You do not need to have your child write another child's name on them. We will be decorating bags at school; therefore, you do not need to send in a box or anything. We will also be having a snack. The "B" class will have their celebration on February 12 and the "A" class will have their celebration on February 13.

This week we will be moving into Reading Street Unit 4. We have a new question "What can we learn from our adventures?" I think the children will really enjoy this particular unit. We are introducing new sight words "are, do." Some children are still having difficulty with our previous sight words "they, you, of." Please continue to practice these sight words at home as we continue to practice them at school. The expectation is children should be able to say the sight word within 3 seconds of seeing the word. We are working with comprehension by identifying the characters, setting, and main idea. In addition, we work on retelling and sequencing the story. These are all great questions you can ask your child as you read various stories at home with them. We are continuing to work on our writing every morning. Children are suppose to be able to write a complete sentence with spacing, upper/lowercase letters, and punctuation. Most children are doing well. The most common error we have noticed is spacing. The children will start off well, but as the sentence continues their spacing diminishes. We are also requiring the children to write their first and last names on papers.

In math, children will be assessed on modeling numbers up to 20. This entails children to build a random number up to 20 on a double tens frame. The children have practiced numbers up to 10, but we will now work with the “teen” numbers. We are going to continue to work on addition and subtraction. One of the kindergarten skills is to be able to add and subtract fluently; therefore, we want to keep practicing this skill.