April 14-17

Reading- We are focusing on letter Zz this week. As always, we are continuing to review all of the letters during reading center time. We are especially working on letter sounds now too. This would be a good thing to practice at home. Another skill that we are working on is re-telling stoires/ comprehending stories. Read a story with your child and have them tell you their favorite part, or tell you what happend at the beginning the middle of the end for a challenge. Another way to work on this is by having students complete a sentence for you about the story. For example, " The boy was at the park and he was playing ______". Reading with your child is always a good way to demonstrate good pre-reading skills to them.

Math- We are still working on identifying numbers 1-10. This is difficult for some still. We do a challenge each day at calendar where I point to a number and the students will say the number. I say I am trying to "trick" them so it has really turned into a game. The number we are especially focusing on this week is number 7. See if you can count seven items or find the number 7 anywhere in your house. We are also reviewing 3D shapes this week. Cyllinder (like a soup can), Cone (like an ice cream cone), sphere (like a basketball) and Cube (Like an ice cube). Do a 3D shape scavenger hunt in your home, see what your child can find that looks like a cube, etc...


Things to look for in the future- We will begin working on last names- start practicing your last name with your child. All of the students can recognize their last name when it is presented with the others' names. We will practice writing and saying our full names. Also, we will have a birthday celebration day in May. Since there are many summer birthdays in the class, we will take a day to celebrate everyone's birthday and I will allow students to bring "birthday treats" to school. I know the students get a thrill out of passing out their birthday treats so this will provide everyone with that opporunity. If your student did this on his or her half birthday or has had a birthday during the school year, please do not worry about bringing treats again. We will talk about the fact that students brought treats for the class because their birthday is during the summer when we are not in school. More information on this is coming (Date, treat specifics, etc...)

Reminders!

The AM class celebrated their 10 stars this morning with a pajama day and we watched the movie, Frozen. Now we are working to earn 10 stars again. This time the reward will be an extra recess. (Hopefully the weather cooperates and we can do this on a beautiful day!) The star system is working really well, we needed something new as the year is coming to an end and everyone is getting a little more antsy in the classroom, teacher included :)

 

Upcoming Events-

 

Tuesday- PM Class celebrates pajama day/Frozen movie

Thursday- FAE Fun day- bouncy houses in the gym and Mr. Freezies- Please remember to send $3 with your students anytime before Thursday to participate. This is sponsered by the 5th graders and they have worked very hard planning and organizing this fun event for the students. The money goes to Sanford Children's Castle.

 

No school Friday or Monday- Happy Easter!

Movie/Pajama Day!

Both the AM and the PM classess are working towards a movie/pajama day. In the class we have "Wow points". These are points that the class will recieve when we do something great as a whole. For example, we are all working very hard and quietly on an assignment, we get complimented by another teacher (PE teacher says we all had great behavior today), or I see students working well together and helping each other out. Basically, we earn a wow point everything the entire class is showing good classroom citizenship. Each time the class recieves 10 wow points we get a prize. Prizes have included a treat from the teacher, extra choice time, sidewalk chalking outside, and an extra recess. Since the Frozen movie came out, many students have expressed to me how much they LOVE the movie. I have decided that as an extra special treat, this time I will allow a pajama day and we will watch Frozen once the class earns 10 wow points. I really like this system because it holds students accountable for their actions. It takes the whole class to earn a wow point and that it something they become quite proud of when it is earned. Look for further information as to when we will be celebrating our 10 wow points, and encourage your child to make great choices at school so we can earn them even faster! (This does not replace our color behavior chart- that is individual, this is more whole group). Happy Friday!

March 31-April 4

I apologize that I have not been faithful in posting to my website lately. I will do my best to keep up with it for the remainder of the year. With the nice (mostly nice) spring weather lately it has been hard to stay inside and work on the computer :)

This week:

Reading- In reading this week we are focusing on the letter Jj. Of course we are still doing reading centers daily and working on reviewing all letters and sounds as well. We are also continuing to work on rhyming words and determining the initial sound of a word. For example, the initial sound in "cat" is /c/.

Math- This week in math we are working on many skills as review. We are working in small groups with different manipulatives to create our own patterns. We are learning that patterns are not always just an ABABABAB format but can be more complex such as AABBAABB or ABCABC etc.. The students are doing a great job challenging themselves. We are also reviewing number recognition 1-10 and ordinals 1st-10th.  Keep practicing letter identification and 1 to 1 counting at home if your child is still struggling to master these skills. These skills will become very important in Kindergarten when the students begin to use numbers for adding/subtracting/story problems.

I had one student ask me (As we changed the calendar from March to April) "So, if it is April now, does that mean it will be sunny?" I answered, "I sure hope so!". I love how a child's mind works. We can only hope that April means it will be sunny from here on out. Just a reminder- If there is snow on the playgroud students are required to have snowpants and boots on to play there. If there is no snow there is no need to send snowpants and boots to school. It is South Dakota and we know how fast weather can chang so thank you for being on top of it and sending the necessary clothing.

Have a great week!

Reminders-
April 2- Wear BLUE to support world Autism day!

March 3-7

Reading- This week we are working on Letter Uu. This is a tough one because it is hard to rememeber the sound that Uu makes. In our reading centers this week we are listening to stories, reading stories (Making up stories that go with the pictures), fishing (Matching the letters on fish to the letters on clothespins), coloring, writing, tracing the letter Uu and meeting with the teacher to work on letters, sounds, sight words and other reading skills.

Math- This week in math we are working on ordinal numbers. 1st-5th. This skill either comes very easily for students or it is completely foreign. We will keep practicing this skill all week.

Science- In science this week we are talking about weather. We are drawing different types of weather, watching videos about weather, as well as talking about weather each day during calendar time. The students are always excited to chart the weather as a "lion or a lamb". We are keeping track in the month of March to see which animal "wins".

Sledding day on Thursday for both AM and PM classes!
Thursday is Jersey day!
Thursday- 8:30 assembly about character counts (Fairness)

Sledding Day!

We will be sledding at FAE this Thursday! Parents are welcome to bring sleds but sleds are not allowed on the bus. There are sleds at school for students to use as well. Both AM and PM classes will get to enjoy this fun day!

Read Across America Week-

The students have been working really hard this week with reading! We were challenged to read 100 minutes this week. Each time we read 2 minutes we get to choose one state on our US map to color in. We will have the entire map colored by the end of the day. As a reward, we got to take a break from reading and have a "Movie theater" featuring a short Dr.Suess story. Yesterday, the afternoon class got to listen to a real author and illustrator speak about the process of writing a book. Students in the morning class used puppets to make their own stories. The students really enjoyed the speical activities this week. Here are some pictures of us during Read Across America week!