Weekly News Feb. 22-26

This week is a short week with a 1/2 day for students on Thursday and no school on Friday.  Wednesday will be a "Wacky Wednesday" in our class, during which we will flop our morning and afternoon schedules and teachers (Mrs. Hurst will be in during the morning and Mrs. Mares in the afternoon).  If you have any schedule changes please let us know so we can make this week go smoothly.  

With March right around the corner, we are moving towards wrapping up our Wood and Paper science unit. If you have any wood and/or paper scraps that you are able to donate, please send them to school with your child.  The only stipulation for these donations is that they are a size the students will be able to carry independently.  Paper scraps might include boxes, cardboard, paper towel/toilet paper rolls, etc.

Upcoming Dates:
February 25th: 1/2 day 11:30 Dismissal
                       PSC Family Night at Funset Boulevard
February 26th: NO SCHOOL
February 29th: Music and Masterpieces Family Night--Doors open at 5:30
March 11th: Author's Breakfast--stay tuned for more details soon
March 14th: Culvers Night
March 17th: All School Field Trip to the Performing Arts Center
March 23-28th: No School--Spring Break!
March 31: Jump Rope for Heart

Reading:  We will wrap up our reading unit this week after spending a few days focusing in various purposes for rereading.  Last week we talked about how EVERYONE rereads for different reasons.  We will continue to transfer that to our own work this week by thinking more deeply about reasons kindergarteners reread: to figure out tricky words, to make your voice sound smooth, and to find parts to share with your reading partner.  

Writing:  This week we are concentrating on making our writing easier to read and using letter writing as a way to persuade others to join our cause to help make a change in the world.  We read, CLICK CLACK MOO COWS THAT TYPE by Doreen Cronin.  In this book, the cows persuaded Farmer Brown to give them what they wanted by writing letters to him until he met their demands.  We are using it as an inspiration to write our own letters to encourage others to join our cause.

Math: Students are continuing to work on finding partners of ten, showing teen numbers as a group of ten ones and extra ones, and 10+  a 1-digit number. This week we will also introduce the concept of greater than or less than as students use matching and counting as strategies for comparing the number of objects in groups.  Our centers for the week are:

• 10 frames and cards
• Showing partners of 10 dice game to find greater than/less than 
• More than, same as, less than using comparing mats 
• Unknown partners game

Science:  We will continue exploring paper this week.  We will investigate how paper reacts with water and look for similarities and differences between paper and wood.  We will also learn more about recycling paper, which will turn into making paper mache on Thursday. 

Word Work:  We will continue to practice the sight words: jump, funny, go, find, not.  One easy way to practice spelling sight words is to have your child write them small, medium, and large.  First they write the word as teeny as possible, then write it again normal, and then a third time jumbo!  This would also be great spelling practicing for any CVC (consonant-vowel-consonant) words using a variety of vowels.