News From the Jungle
November 10, 2017
Our first night of conferences was a big success. I cannot wait for the next two nights of conferences next week. It was nice seeing you all and getting to know each other better. I look forward to working with all of you to help your child be successful throughout the year.
Please see note about the field trip permission slip and money guidelines at the bottom of the newsletter under Housekeeping.
PLEASE PUT YOUR CHILD ON READING EGGS AND MATH SEEDS EACH NIGHT!!!!
If you misplaced your child’s login and need the information again, please email me at dimitrm@dearbornschools.org
We had a fun week learning about our Star Student! We created a class book, which gave us the opportunity to practice our writing skills. We all look forward to learning more about each student as it becomes their week to be the STAR!!!
Upcoming Events
11/13 School Scholastic Book Fair in Media Center at 11:30 (feel free to join us)
11/13 Book Pouches come home (Please return each day)
11/13 Scholastic Book Order Due
11/13 -11/17 Scholastic book fair at school (Family night 15th and 16th)
11/15 Late Start – arrival at 9:35
11/15 Parent Teacher Conferences
11/15 -11/16 Family Night at the Haigh Scholastic Book Fair
11/16 Parent Teacher Conferences
11/16 List Two Sight words test
11/17 No School for Kindergarten
11/21 Up, Up, and Away Assembly
11/22 – 11/26 NO SCHOOL – THANKSGIVING BREAK
11/30 PBIS Celebration – Turkey Bowling
Agenda for the Week
Reading and Writing: Please continue to work with your child on our sight words. List two will be the next list that is assessed on November 16. Please review these words as well as the words on list one with your child.
We worked on recognizing and writing the letter I and the letter R. We learned the sound of each letter and practiced identifying objects that begin with each letter sound. Please continue to help your child correctly hold a pencil and form each letter.
We continue to work on our writing and are practicing stretching out words. I tell the children to pretend they are holding an imaginary rubber band. Next they pull the rubber band while they slowly say the word. This allows the children to listen and hear more sounds. Next, they write down the sounds they hear in the word. This is called inventive spelling.
Here is a fun video about parts of a sentence:
This week for writing we worked on narrative writing and learned that narrative writing tells a story. We also began learning about opinion writing and learned that an opinion is something we think or feel. The children wrote about which fruit they would take on a picnic – watermelon or grapes.
The children are really getting good at identifying nouns, verbs, and adjectives in a sentence.
Math: We practiced recognizing, writing and representing numbers 19 and 20. We began learning about simple addition and practiced tally marks. I also assessed the children on counting and recognizing numbers. Please practice counting to 100 by 1’s, 5’s, and 10’s with your child. Also, help them to recognize these numbers by sight.
We continue working on subitizing. This is the ability to recognize a number or quantity at first sight. It might be fingers, tally marks, dots in a ten frame, or different objects to represent a number.
Here are a few videos we use in class:
Science: We began our unit about weather. The children are learning about different types of weather this month. We will focus on sun, rain, and clouds. We talked about windy weather this week. The children were able to participate in a hands-on activity with our fourth grade buddies where they created boats and then used straws to blow “create wind power” to move the boats through the water. The children raced their boats against each other. It was a very fun activity. We created brackets and raced against each other. The student winner then got to race the boat that Mrs. Izbicki and I made together. The teachers beat out the student boat! It was a great experience for everyone! Here are a few pictures:
Social Studies: We began talking about needs and wants this week. We had a discussion about the difference between these two words. Next week we will continue to learn about different items that we need and items that we want by doing a cut and glue activity, as well as through classroom discussions.
Housekeeping Items:
Field Trip Money
It was difficult collecting the money for the Field trip this time around. A few reminders moving forward:
- Field Trip money is due ON the due date.
- Money needs to be in an envelope or baggie LABELED with your child’s name. Sometimes the children hold their folders upside down and items fall out. If they are not labeled, we do not know to whom the items belong.
- Permission slip and money need to be turned in together and on time. I had money turned in with no permission slip or vice versa. It is difficult and time consuming to track down all of these items.
- EXACT CASH is always requested. We will not accept any checks and we will not provide change.
- Please make sure to read the field trip information and attached note regarding any special instructions, chaperone details, etc.
Thank in advance for reading and following the field trip guidelines!
Change of Clothes
PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE send in a change of clothes for your child. We will keep it in their locker and then if they have a bathroom accident or fall in mud or get wet from the playground, they will have clothes they can change into and we can take care of all that right here at school without having to disturb you at home or at work. Put an extra change of clothes (pants, underwear, shirt, socks, and maybe even an extra pair of shoes) in a bag, labeled with their name on it.
Snack Time
**** Due to a peanut allergy in our room, please do not send in any snacks that contain nuts.*****
Folders
Please make sure to empty the green folders each night! It is very difficult and time consuming to locate homework or important notes when the folder is full of papers from the day before. Remember to initial the communication log and feel free to add any notes to me!
