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Saturday, January 3, 2015

Weekly News: January 6-9

News: 

Happy New Year and welcome back to school! I hope you had a wonderful Christmas and fun two weeks off with family and friends!

PLEASE MAKE SURE TO READ THIS ENTIRE SECTION AS THERE IS A LOT OF NEW INFORMATION FOR THE NEW YEAR!!

There is no school this Monday, January 5th due to a Teacher Inservice day. There is also no school on Monday, January 19th due to Martin Luther King Jr. Day.

Starting this Friday, we will no longer be taking a spelling test. We WILL still be writing a dictation sentence every Friday using some or all of the sight words of the week. We will be using this dictation sentence to assess student's spelling, capitalization, spacing, and punctuation. You will not know which words we will be using in our sentence, so it is very important that you still study all of our words (and letter teams!) for the week. 


We will also begin taking Math Fluency Timed Tests. Our Common Core Standard is that by the end of kindergarten, students will fluently (meaning without fingers or manipulatives) be able to add and subtract within five. We will take these tests every Wednesday at math time. Students will be timed for two minutes in the beginning and once mastered, they will be timed for one minute! Please remember that we would like all students to master this standard by the end of the year. My hope is that each week, we will accomplish a little bit more on these tests. Please reinforce and practice these skills at home. Thank you for your support! 


Be on the look out for our January Book Order coming home this week, - order now and receive great books before Valentine's Day! 

Beginning after the holiday break, we will now have each student write his/her first and LAST NAME on all papers, homework, etc.  If your child does not know how to write his/her last name, please practice this at home (it can become part of homework writing!). We will be practicing at school as well. Each student will now have last names written on their NEW Take Home Folders and name tags for support in the classroom. 

Yes, we have NEW Take Home Folders! These will be the LAST Take Home Folder for the year, so we will be discussing responsibility and handle and care of these folders in the classroom. There might even be prizes awarded throughout the rest of the year on "Who has the nicest and cleanest Take Home Folder"! Please remember to bring these folders EVERY DAY!! 

Also beginning after the holiday break each child will have a “bank” attached to his/her new folder. The “bank” is a ziploc baggie taped to the folder. Each day your child will have the opportunity to earn money at the end of the day - the money will replace the stickers! Students will receive a penny for staying on yellow and green for the day. Students will also have the opportunity to receive nickels and dimes in the classroom as rewards for behavior throughout the day. Instead of Treasure Box on Fridays, now they will visit the CLASS STORE! Each student will count money, trade money (example: five pennies for one nickel) and have the opportunity to spend their money on the items that are now “on sale” at the class store. Of course, bigger treasures will cost more money, which I hope will reinforce self-control and teach students about saving. Each child will be responsible for keeping track of their own bank and for counting the money in it. (This too will be great math homework practice). Please encourage your child to take care of and keep track of his/her bank, as lost money WILL NOT BE REPLACED!  Also, if students forget folders at home, they will not receive money for that day. The bank is designed to teach responsibility and accountability as well as reinforce math skills. This is a great life skill your child will benefit from in the future!! Thank you for your continued support.

In your child’s book bag, you will now find a fluency passage. Your child is practicing reading fluently in our reading groups. Fluency refers to a student’s speed, smoothness, and ease of reading out loud. Fluent readers read more quickly and smoothly, allowing them to focus on comprehension. Fluent readers gain more meaning from the text they read. Because fluency leads to comprehension, fluent readers enjoy reading more than students who devote all their energy to “sounding out” words. Some fluency passages have word family practice that should be practiced daily. Some fluency passages also have comprehension questions at the end of the story. Please have your child practice reading the fluency passage each night. Fluency passages should remain in our book bags so that we can practice reading them every day at school and every night at home. Thank you!  

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!!! Note: if you could please open the boxes at the side (not in the middle around the edges) that would really help us out! Thank you!

Electives will continue this week! 

Upcoming Events:  
Monday, January 5: NO SCHOOL
Monday, January 19: NO SCHOOL
Friday, January 30: 100th DAY OF SCHOOL!!!
Monday, February 9: NO SCHOOL 
Friday, February 13: Valentine's Day Centers 
Monday, February 16: NO SCHOOL 


If you are at the store and happen to think of us, we'd love.... 
Gluesticks 
Headphones 
Baby Wipes
Any sort of small {or big} prizes for our class store


What Are We Learning This Week?:

Sight Words: WORK, ALL, AWAY, JUST, US.

Letter Team: 
 WOR (the OR sounds like Mr. ER, like in work and word) and TION (sounds like SHUN like in vacation, invention, connection). 

Reading:
 
This week, we will read many books about winter and snowmen. We will read our new fluency passages in our reading groups. We will continue to pick out "Good Fit Books" for our Read to Self time. 

Writing:  We will continue working on writing three sentences on the same topic and begin thinking of good topic sentences to begin our writing.

Math: 
This week, we will make a list of all the addition strategies we can use to solve addition problems. We will practice solving addition problems and story problems using these various strategies. We will also begin taking our math timed tests and continue singing our Doubles Song. 

Leadership: This month, our leadership trait is HONOR. 

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