Weekly Updates!

This week has flown by with the unexpected snow days! I have heard several people say that they did not receive the text or phone until later yesterday morning. Something you should know is that the robo call company services most districts in southeast Michigan. It takes them some time to get all the calls out. Our administration team said that our district alone makes over 50,000 calls! The best thing to do is set your alarms early and check the news or district facebook page. They know and post within minutes of school being canceled. Most of the time we will know no later then 5:45 am so that you can make arrangements.

Since we were short two days we still have some work to finish. We completed the amphibian and frog life cycle projects today so the students will need to finish the amphibian writing pages and addition packet. These can be done over the next week— no rush to finish.

To complete the writing pages they should choose 3 things that they think are important for amphibians and write/draw that on the next uncompleted page. After they do that they should complete a final writing draft about what they learned about amphibians. We typically do this whole group so feel free to help them form the sentences. They should be working on capital letters, spacing, ending with a period, and sounding out the words. Birds is our next animal class we will be studying and it’s one of my favorites! 🙂

The addition pages should be done independently. Each student should be able to do them on their own with hopefully no dots, fingers, or manipulatives. On Monday we start subtraction for the whole month of March!

Reading logs and directions for March is Reading Month activities will be coming home on Monday. Please remember to turn in February logs so I can send home the free pizza coupons for them reading every night! We have lots of things planned for March including a scholastic book fair, a used book swap, and prizes to be given away at the end of the month. Just like other months our goal in Kindergarten is 20 minutes of reading each night.

If you ordered a classroom faces t-shirt those are coming home in backpacks today.

Spelling test #6 will be next Friday, March 6th. Words are: bun, fun, gun, run,sun, can, see, not

Calendar Reminders:

Half Day- Friday, March 13th

Late Start- Wednesday, March 18th

Door Decorating!

The school is doing a door decoarting contest for March is Reading Month! I am looking for volunteers and a couple supplies.

We have chosen- The Ugly Duckling which is from Denmark.

My thoughts were to have the students do a popsicle stick duckling so everyone is represented on the door. I would need popsicle sticks, yellow scrapbook paper with different patterns, and yellow feathers. If you can send in any of this please email me.

I need:

2 parents Friday morning 9-10 am to help the kids with the project

2 parents Friday from 245-315 to help put it all on the door.

(First to email gets the spots to help.)

Message from the Principal

Parent Volunteers In School

At Howe School, we value our families and appreciate involvement in our school community.  Throughout the school year, there are numerous opportunities to volunteer for school events, field trips, and classroom-based activities.  In order to ensure the safety of our school community, all volunteer opportunities should be arranged through the teacher, principal, or through the PTA.  The district has established policies for volunteers which includes signing in at the office and completing the ichat process.

In recent weeks, there have been concerns expressed by several families and staff members regarding parent visitors in the cafeteria during lunch, recess, and during after school clubs.  Please note that all visitations require an invitation or prearrangement with the teacher or principal. Drop-in visits cause unnecessary disruption and can interfere with student socialization. Please contact the office or your child’s teacher if you have questions or would like to volunteer. 

We appreciate your support and cooperation as we work together to provide a safe and efficient learning environment.

Respectfully,

Tammy  Fournier

Weekly Updates

It’s crazy to think that we are already at winter break!

This week has been a hodge podge of Kindness lessons from the NED assembly, learning about reptiles, and valentines day projects! One of the best things was taking valentines and reading to our special education classrooms in the school. Each student did a great job showing love and kindness to these friends. It was amazing to watch and I was so proud of them!

Many students struggled with the math packet about addition and number bonds this week. Because of the holiday and busy-ness of the week I was unable to go through and correct them today. Please go over these with your child next week to make sure the numbers are correct and they understand.

Please remember to stop into the office when you come in to the school. It is very important that we know who is in the building.

If you are not subscribed to the school blog and superintendents blog you should be 🙂 Lots of good and important things are sent out through those blogs.

Reminder- NO SCHOOL until Monday, February 24th

Have a great break!

Kindness Treasures

Hello Families!

We had a great time learning about kindness at the NED assembly today! The kindness items will be on sale after school each day this week from 3:30-3:50 in the Howe school cafeteria. If you would like to purchase please get your child from dismissal and come in. All of the items support artisans in Kenya and also provide money towards a well that will supply areas with clean drinking water. We encourage you to support this cause because we received this assembly free of charge because of the sale. Thank you for all of your support!

Howe School Staff

***I have included the order form in yellow folders today. You can send in the order form and money if you want your child to purchase during the school day — perk of me being the person in charge of the sale! 🙂

Updates

Remember to send in valentines to pass out and a box to collect them in by Friday!

In todays folder is the winter break homework. It is easy 🙂

Classroom faces t-shirts were ordered beginning of February and were approved over the weekend. The scheduled received by date is beginning of March!

I am posting our animal unit writing in the hallway. If you do not get the packet home that is because its in the hallway. Everyone’s writing will be displayed over the next 6 weeks.

Weekly Updates

Last week and this week have flown by! We finished all testing last week and those results will be coming home this week after they are printed in color. If you want to meet about the results after please just let me know! 🙂 We spent the week working on retelling the mitten story. Hopefully the mittens made it home to show parents– if not we retold the story to our fifth grade buddies. They did a great job!

This week we have begun our 6 week Montessori animal unit. We will spend each week working on a different animal class. This week we began with arctic animals. We spent time filling out a bubble map with prior knowledge and will add more information after we read books and watch short video clips. The students will practice brainstorming, picking out important facts, then writing a final story each week. After the whole unit is complete we will have a fun art project to tie it all together and they will write their first book.

For math we are still continuing to work on different ways for addition. Last week we built number sentences from pictures. This week we will be working on building number sentences from ten frames. We will continue with the different ways of addition until March– then we will switch to subtraction.

This morning we talked about Punxsutawney Phil and groundhogs day! Most of the students did not know what or who that was. We watched the video of Phil letting us know spring would be coming early which made all of us happy! The kids made a Phil puppet to bring home today so they could let you know what groundhogs day is about.

Reminder tomorrow is the 100th day of school and your child should send in the items they counted out for our snack.

Do not forget for Valentines day each kid needs– a box to collect valentines in and 22 valentines to pass out to friends. You can send in that stuff anytime next week. 🙂 If you did not get the valentines letter explaining the directions please email me.

Calendar reminders:

Wednesday, Feb 5th– LATE START (935 am)

Friday, Feb 7th– No school for K only!