Hello Families!March is here! There's lots going on so here's the news...FRIDAY FIELD TRIP DAY IS MARCH 13th: Not the 6th. We will be walking a block away to The Little Shop of Crafts to paint pottery!! The whole kindergarten is going at 10:00 and we should be heading back to school by 11:00. We will also go ahead and do our Family Sing on that Friday as well - first thing in the morning. Our trip will just require 2-3 parents since it's so close and it will be a tight squeeze as 85 kids and extra grownups will be in the shop. I'll put a sign up outside of the room.STUDENT LED CONFERENCES: Are this Thursday. Please remember - these conferences MUST BE ATTENDED WITH YOUR CHILD as they are actually leading them! Make sure you picked a time when your child can be with you. Here is some important info:Thursday is a HALF DAY for your child. They will be dismissed at 11:30 in the auditorium.Each conference is 10 minutes and there is no buffer time in between so if you are late the conference will just be shorter - we have to keep on track for everybody's sake. This conference is a time for your child to share their self assessments with you, their goals and their thoughts. They may also be able to answer questions you might have! So grown up!MAYBE IMPOSSIBLE REQUEST: We need hand sanitizer in the classroom! I have looked everywhere but everybody is out. If you happen to come upon some and can donate to the classroom I would be very grateful. We use it a lot since we can't constantly be leaving the classroom to wash our hands in the bathroom. Thank you!!FAMILY PACKETS: I will be giving out very important family packets on Monday morning. I would like to hand them to you if you're doing drop off and then if there are instances where I can't hand it to a grown up I will make sure to put it in your child's backpack but please be on the lookout for it. In the packet there are 3 pages. Our Family Study is dependent upon these 3 things and they are fully explained in the packet but here's the gist - 1) Bringing in photographs and very small artifacts to create an artwork 2) Sitting with your child and answering 4 interview questions 3) Bringing in a copy of your family's favorite recipe. The packet is due back to school by MARCH 9th. FAMILY STUDY POTLUCK CELEBRATION: We will be having a potluck on the morning of Friday, April 3rd. Just a heads up! HOOTENANNY for MSC KIDS ROCK FESTIVAL: The entire kindergarten is invited to come join in a Hootenanny (for those of you who aren't up on the folk music lingo it's a big sing-a-long ). We will be singing all of our favorites and if you (adults only) play an instrument and would like to join myself and Lindsey on the piano and Gerri on the guitar please, absolutely do it!! I believe the hoot is at 1:00 in the auditorium that day but I will get back to you on the time.WHAT WE ARE UP TO:We are still working on Word Part Power in phonics - building words out of endings and snap words. This is building our writing vocabulary and our confidence - realizing that if we can figure out how to write one word, we can then write many words!We are writing How To books! We are learning how to give instructions about how to do something step by step, reread our work to make sure it makes sense, share our work with a partner to see if they can follow our writing and this week we are working on drawing labeled diagrams.We are finishing up building our bigger reading muscles! Just like in our writing we are working on asking ourselves the question "Does this make sense?" when we are reading. This week we are going to be doing partner reading and independent reading and I am working on informally assessing reading levels. I'm hoping to change menus this week.In math we are working on understanding "Part/Part/Whole" - breaking apart numbers and discovering different combinations of numbers. We have been learning how to use number bonds and how to record our thinking. We are also getting ready for student led conferences! We are busy filling out a self-assessment, will be coming up with and writing some goals and thinking about new friends we'd like to get together with outside of school. Stacie won't be coming until next week but we are focused on our new Family Study. We are working on creating webs about what we individually think of when we think of family. And we will be starting a very special project about Family Memories this week too!Have a wonderful week!Love,Lynn