Weekly News: January 14-18

Electives and Success Academy begin again this week. 

Students have been doing such a wonderful job on writing last names! If your child is still struggling with this, please practice at home! You can make it a part of your writing homework.

Our "banks" have been a big hit in the classroom! Students are excited to "earn money" for making good use of classroom time and for good behavior and hard work throughout the day. On Friday, we will have our first visit to the classroom store. Students have the opportunity to trade out their money for larger coins (5 pennies for a nickel, etc) and choose to spend money on a prize or save it for a larger prize later. Please continue to count money received everyday and reinforce the responsibility of taking care of banks. Also, if you are able, we'd love more prizes for our "class store"!!! Thank you for your continued support!

A LOOK AHEAD: Our next kindergarten field trip is scheduled for Wednesday, January 30th. We will be going to the Children's Museum of the Desert. It is sure to be an exciting “hands on” experience.  We will be leaving school at 8:15 SHARP and returning by dismissal. Permission slips for our field trip will be coming home as the field trip gets closer. If you are interested in being a chaperone please email me (jcbess@inlandleaders.com) and let me know BY FRIDAY JANUARY 25TH, as we need to give our final head count to the museum. Chaperones are welcome to follow us or ride the bus and will need to pay a chaperone fee at the door ($10.00) Please remember that school policy states NO SIBLINGS. Thanks! We are looking forward to a wonderful field trip! 


Last week, we began taking Math Fact Fluency Tests on Addition and Subtraction. This week, we will begin taking tests on our Number Bonds (ways to make 3, ways to make 4, etc.). These tests may come home a couple of times a week as your child progresses through each level. Please take some time to review these tests, and reinforce and practice these skills at home. Thank you for your support!

We are in need of LOTS of empty Capri Sun juice 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!

Upcoming Events:  
Monday, January 21: NO SCHOOL
Friday, January 25: 100th DAY OF SCHOOL CELEBRATION (more info coming soon)
Wednesday, January 30: Field Trip to the Children's Museum (more info coming soon)
Monday, February 11: NO SCHOOL 
Thursday, February 14: Valentine's Day Centers (more info coming soon)
Monday, February 18: NO SCHOOL


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., the Civil Rights Movement, and equality for all people. Students will be taking home a little paper book about Martin Luther King Jr. this week in their book bags. Please practice reading this at home, as well as library books and fluency passages. 

Writing:  We are learning how to write a five sentence paragraph. I have been modeling a structure for paragraph writing called, "Step Up to Writing" for the students. Kindergarten Step Up to Writing is writing a paragraph with a topic sentence, three sentences about that topic, and a conclusion sentence. This week, we will write five sentence step up to writing stories about Martin Luther King Jr. 

Math: We will continue our unit on measurement. This week we will focus on comparing how objects are similar or different. For example: If the glue stick is 5 cubes in length and the pencil is 10 cubes in length, which object is longer? The tricky part of comparing is when we ask, "HOW MUCH LONGER?" We will learn that comparing problems are really just subtraction problems (10-5=5 so the pencil is 5 cubes longer). This is very difficult critical thinking for our kindergarten students. You can help at home by asking similar comparing/subtraction questions. 

Leadership: As always, we will continue to ROAR.