Hello Families!
This is the week before February break and a lot is going on! Friday is a huge day! Here is the news...
THE 100TH DAY OF SCHOOL: Is Friday, Feb. 14th!! We have been counting each day of school since September and have been learning a lot of math and learning how to explain our math thinking while keeping count. We will be celebrating all day on Friday, doing different activities centered around all things 100. A traditional activity classes do for the 100th day is to ask kids to bring in collections of 100 things. I am going to say, IF YOUR CHILD WANTS TO bring in a collection of 100 small things to explain and share with the class they can. It is NOT mandatory. So, if they choose to you can help them bring in their collection any day of the week or on Friday - whatever is easiest. Thanks!
FRIDAY IS ALSO: "Nobody Eats Alone Day." As part of the DOE's "Respect For All" initiative, all schools are focusing on teaching kids to have empathy and be aware of seeing when somebody needs a friend. This is really the everyday work of kindergarten and since we don't eat in the cafeteria, nobody ever sits alone at lunch BUT the lessons are extremely important. We will be joining the rest of the school in developing an installation of kindness trees with hearts and leaves. Hopefully this day could spark an ongoing policy of nobody eats alone ever!
GALLERY WALK FRIDAY MORNING AT DROP OFF: We are going to be finishing up our Lincoln Center Institute work this week and on Friday we will have an informal "Gallery Walk" inside the classroom at drop off, where you can see the work we've done all centered around Rachel Feinstein's sculptures.
NO SCHOOL: Next week from Feb. 15 - Feb. 23rd.
ENJOY OUR NEW BULLETIN BOARD OUTSIDE THE CLASSROOM: The Magic Mailbox has become just an ordinary box after a full week of magic! We wrote to fairy tale characters in Fairytale Land and they wrote back to us! Many, but not all, of the letters we wrote are up on the bulletin board for you to read. Our goal was to convince characters to change something about their stories to help them. You will see that some worked on convincing and others got caught up in their curiosity and asked questions, while still others just wanted to communicate. It's all writing and the kids were very motivated and worked very hard. Happy reading!
WHAT WE ARE UP TO:
In phonics we are learning about word parts to help us write and read many words. For example, if you can spell "hop", you can spell "top." We are going to be creating a word part chart and then learn how to do some very simplified crossword like puzzles.
In writing we are going to be finishing up our Persuasive Writing unit We are going to be writing speeches (opinion writing) to make change!!! We will use The Lorax by Dr. Seuss as a touchstone text and then we will be writing speeches to make our voices heard.
In reading we are going to be focusing on our sound power by learning about blends and digraphs plus learning to "Look, Blend, Look" - reminding readers to move their eyes to the letters at the end of the word when solving words. We will do some shared reading, book groups, partner reading and independent reading. We also have been seeing our Reading Buddies - Sejal's 2nd grade class - on Tuesday mornings. Our kids are read to and are reading to their buddies too.
In math we are going to continue working on learning about double digit numbers and will be focusing on counting 100 in different ways and recognizing numbers up to 100. We are also going to be learning new ECAM games focused on numeration and will be recording our math thinking in our journals.
Stacie will be coming this Tuesday to finish up her teaching around her fairy song Don't Judge a Book by its Cover. And Susan will coming to us on Wednesday and Thursday to finish up our work for LCI. We will also be finishing up our Fairy Tale work and when we come back from February break we will be starting a study on Family.
Have a wonderful week!
Love,
Lynn