Hello Families!
I hope you all had a wonderful week off! Can you believe this is the last week of February? Here is what's happening...
STUDENT LED CONFERENCES: Will be on Thursday, March 5th. What are student led conferences?
They are conferences that are essentially "run" by your child!
They are 10 minutes long.
Your child will be discussing what they feel proud of, what they have mastered and what they are working on.
Please be sure to sign up for a time when YOUR CHILD can attend WITH you.
This is a practice that happens K - 8th grade.
There is a sign up sheet outside of the classroom. Thank you!
BOOK BAGGIES: You are welcome to exchange books with your child any morning that is convenient for you. Books should be read for 3-4 days before exchanging. When we come back from break I will be informally assessing kids to see if their levels have changed and will reflect that on their Book Menu which is the purple, laminated sheet with color dots. In the meantime, if you have noticed that your child is whizzing through dot books without your support (without you starting the pattern of a book), you are welcome to take books from the next higher level - the levels climb following the rainbow of colors - A=red B=orange C=yellow D=green E=blue. Shhh - don't tell your kids! No pressure - reading is FUN!
WHAT WE ARE UP TO:
We are starting some new units of study once we get back on Monday. Our social studies learning will be FAMILY. Our focus is the similarities and differences of all kinds of families and understanding what a tradition is. By the end of this week we will be sending home a special packet for your child to work on with you (his/her family) and we will be asking for some specific things. I won't jump ahead but just know that will be introduced soon. Stacie of Harmonize Kidz will be coming to teach us her amazing song, Part of a Family, once week for the last 3 weeks of March.
Our writing workshop is learning How - To writing. These savvy kindergartners are full of knowledge they can share with their readers! This week we will be learning how to take a topic, name how to do this thing in steps, number the steps and draw specific pictures showing the steps.
Our reading workshop is centered around making sure our reading makes sense. Does a word look right? Sound right? Have we looked very closely at the picture? And finally does what we've read make sense in the whole story?
In phonics we are going to be using our most common alphabet chart to write more words. For example, when we see F and a picture of a fan, we can stretch out the word f-a-n and then come up with a ton of other words with the same ending. After we do that we will stage a "Word Part Alphabet Chart Takeover!" and will be putting new cards on letters.
In math we are going to be taking numbers and breaking them into parts. We will learn about a great tool called a number bond which will help us do this work. We are also continuing to get fluent with double digit numbers and even though we marked the 100th day of school the day before vacation, we will continue to count until the very last day of kindergarten which will help us learn about triple digit numbers!
So there's a lot going on! Plus, we are continuing to read Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and are always working on our social growth throughout the day, but especially during Worktime.
Have a great week!
Love,
Lynn