Weekly News: January 17-20

I hope you all had a wonderful and relaxing four-day weekend with your families! 

Our Early Morning Reading Time has started! We had a great time with parents and students last week and we hope to see more of you! Early Morning Reading Time" is on Tuesdays and Wednesdays at 7:30 AM. It is meant to provide additional time on text for your child along with supporting parents on the use of reading strategies used in the classroom. Research shows that additional time on text improves fluency, comprehension, and even writing! We would like this Early Morning Reading Time to focus on the partnership between teacher, parent, and child. In order for this program to be successful, parent involvement is necessary. Our goal is to build a community of readers with a ratio of one adult for every two children. Please take advantage of this wonderful opportunity by participating in this program with your child. Please also note that this extra reading time is a privilege and disruptive behavior will distract other students from the learning process. We are excited about this program as we have done it in the past and seen much reading growth occur. We look forward to taking your kids beyond the limits! 

We are in need of LOTS AND LOTS of empty Capri Sun boxes!!!! If you have any please send them to school with your child! Thank you very much!!! 

Don't forget to go on RAZ Kids and our SONGS tab - the links are working now! 


What Are We Learning This Week??: 

Sight Words: WOULD, COULD, SHOULD, WALK, TALK.

Letter Team: ANG (like in HANG, SANG) and ANK (like in TANK, BANK). 
Reading: This week we are studying and reading about Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King Jr., and the Civil Rights Movement. We will also continue to practice making connections as we read. We are practicing text to text, text to self, and text to world connections. We will also remember use our schema before, during, and after we read. This week, we will read books about equality for all people, and our poems “Freedom, Freedom, Let it Ring!” and "Would Have, Could Have, Should Have".
Writing: We are working on writing three to four good sentences on ONE TOPIC, adding details and our Five W's (who, what, where, when, why). 

Math: This week, we will learn our 'position' words like right, left, above, below, in between, etc. Please reinforce this at home. We are also working on counting by 2's. We have been working on addition in the classroom. We are trying to use all of our addition strategies instead of just using our fingers. Some of our strategies include drawing a picture, using a number line, using a manipulative, counting our fingers, memorizing our math facts. Our favorite is putting the big number in our brain and popcorn counting up. We also discussed that the fastest way to pass our math timed tests is by MEMORIZING OUR MATH FACTS. You can help at home by making addition flashcards for your child. For example, if your child has just passed the +2 test on Friday, make flashcards for +3 and work on those at home. 

Leadership: Our theme of the month is: DETERMINATION. We have learned that determination is setting goals and sticking to them, even when it gets hard. If you have not turned in these goals, please do so ASAP! Better late than never! I have sent home our "goal sheets" with your child's goals. My hope is that each child will look at those sheets everyday as a reminder to use determination!!!