I will have a sign up sheet at arrival and dismissal in order for family members to choose a day to read to the class. Reading will take place at 9am each day and you may bring in a book of your choosing. There are a few days that are blocked out because of assemblies, meetings, or late starts. Many of you signed up for a day at dismissal today. I will have the calendar with me tomorrow morning and tomorrow afternoon. There are nine days still open for you or a family member to come read to the class!
Thank you for taking the time to read to the class for “March is Reading Month!”
We are kicking off “March is Reading Month” on Wednesday and the entire school will be making tents for their lockers. We need a picture of each child reading a book to put in each tent that we make!
Many of you have emailed me a picture of your child reading. Thank so much!
If you have not taken a picture of your child reading, could you please do so and email me the picture by Wednesday, March 1st?
Thank you for helping me complete this project with the children by emailing a picture of your child to me at dimitrm@dearbornschools.org
On Tuesday, February 28 we will be having a PBIS celebration to recognize your child’s positive behavior. This month’s celebration theme will be “Beach Fun!” We will turn the gymnasium into a fun indoor beach and enjoy activities that could take place at the beach! Your child may wear sunglasses, and or a fun beach hat to school. Please label everything with your name.
We will use these pictures to make a special craft for “March is Reading Month” to hang on our lockers. This is a school-wide project! All of the lockers will be decorated with a picture of the children reading a book and each child will make a tent here at school that the picture will be glued on to. Thank you for helping us complete this project by emailing a picture of your child by Monday, February 27th.
Beginning March 1st, I will be welcoming parents into the classroom to read a book of your choosing to the class. This will take place each day at 9am. If you would like to sign up for a morning to come read to the class, I will have a calendar with available days for you to sign up for when we return from break. I will bring the clipboard with the calendar with me to dismissal on Monday, February 27th and every day after until all interested families have signed up. Thank you for coming in to read to the children!
Our Valentine’s Day party was a great success! Thank you to all of the parents that helped to make our party fun for the children! Here are a few pictures from the party:
The children made heart paper plate hats, Valentine wreaths, necklaces, decorated heart cookies, competed in a candy heart relay race, and played Valentine games on the computer.
No Red Folders or Reading Pouches sent home today due to mid-winter break.
Please put your child on readingeggs.com at home and have them do a couple of lessons each night. This can count on the reading log in the homework for some of the nightly reading!
Please try to have your children on Reading Eggs as much as possible during break! This will really help them to keep up their skills while not at school! The kids love going on this program and it really helps their reading and writing abilities to improve!
Upcoming Events
2/20 – 2/24 Mid-Winter Break
2/28 PBIS PARTY – Beach Fun
Agenda for the Week
Reading/Writing: We finished our informational reading and writing about animals that hibernate. All of the children completed a “blueprint” or graphic organizer, however not all of the children published their writing about each animal. Here is a picture of our R.A.N strategy and our published writing that is hanging in the hallway:
Spelling words for next week will be in the homework packet coming home on Monday.
Please continue to have your child practice writing at home. Here is what I am looking for in class:
Uppercase to start the sentence
End punctuation (. ! ?)
Finger spaces between words
Does the sentence make sense? Are the words in the correct order?
Does the picture match the words?
Did you stretch your sentence? (Is there a noun, adjective, and verb?)
Math: We took our +7 math quiz. Yesterday, I sent home the +8 flashcards to practice over mid-winter break. We will take the +8 quiz on Friday, March 3rd.
This week we began learning about comparing numbers using the greater than, less than, and equal to symbols. The children were able to complete a fun project where they rolled dice and had to decide which number the greater than alligator head wanted to eat or if the numbers were the same (equal to). The projects are hanging in the hallway!
Here is a short video about greater than, less than, and equal to that the children enjoyed watching in class:
Please continue to practice counting by 1’s, 5’s, and 10’s to 100 with your child at home. Also practice counting to 30 by 2’s (2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 14, 16, 18, 20…..). Other activities you can practice at home are using tally marks to count objects, identifying 2D/3D shapes around the house of community, and really making sure your child has good one-to-one correspondence when counting (this means that they touch each object as they are counting and count all objects correctly).
Housekeeping Items:
Children need a snack each day! Please do not send candy as a snack. The children need a healthy snack each day such as fruit, crackers, cheese, yogurt, granola bars, etc. As a reminder, no juice is allowed in class for snack.
Today the children will bring home their mid-winter break homework packet. This is extra practice during break. I am sending it home today, just in case any of the children are not in attendance tomorrow. This packet is due the Monday we come back from break on February 27th.
Also, I am sending home the +8 flashcards. The +8 test will be the Friday after we return from mid-winter break on March 3rd. This will give the children a little extra time to practice this fact family.
The 100th day of school is a big deal in Kindergarten! We will do many activities that involve the number 100 and of course celebrate being 100 days smarter! Please help us celebrate by completing a 100th day project. This project can be ANYTHING that is a collection of 100 items. Over the years, I have seen this done many different ways – posters with 100 items glued to it, collections of items separated into baggies, etc. Important – please make sure to practice counting the objects with your child! The items on these projects should be grouped by 5’s or by 10’s. Your child will share and count their project with the class! These projects are due on FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 17th.
The children may also choose to dress up like an “old person.” Sometimes the children come with gray hair, glasses, suspenders, pearls, etc! I love seeing the children’s interpretations of what it looks like and feels like to be old!
Please put your child on readingeggs.com at home and have them do a couple of lessons each night. This can count on the reading log in the homework for some of the nightly reading!
Upcoming Events
2/14 Valentine’s Day Party
2/15 Late Start – 9:45am
2/15 Scholastic Book Order Due
2/17 Exotic Zoo Assembly
2/17 Haigh School Store open during lunch hours
2/17 100th day of school!(Collection of 100 items project and dress like your 100)
2/20 – 2/24 Mid-Winter Break
2/28 PBIS PARTY – Beach Fun
Agenda for the Week
Reading/Writing: We continue to work on informational reading and writing through researching hibernation. We are learning about bears, bats, ladybugs, and groundhogs. We have completed our research and writing about groundhogs and bats. Next week we will move on to bears and bats. The children are learning how to write a topic sentence, how to include three facts about the topic, and how to conclude their paper using a summary sentence.
Spelling words for next week will be in the homework packet coming home on Monday.
Please continue to have your child practice writing at home. Here is what I am looking for in class:
Uppercase to start the sentence
End punctuation (. ! ?)
Finger spaces between words
Does the sentence make sense? Are the words in the correct order?
Does the picture match the words?
Did you stretch your sentence? (Is there a noun, adjective, and verb?)
Math: We took our +6 math quiz. Today, I sent home the +7 flashcards. We will take the +7 quiz on Friday, February 17th.
Please continue to practice counting by 1’s, 5’s, and 10’s to 100 with your child at home. Also practice counting to 30 by 2’s (2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 14, 16, 18, 20…..). Other activities you can practice at home are using tally marks to count objects, identifying 2D/3D shapes around the house of community, and really making sure your child has good one-to-one correspondence when counting (this means that they touch each object as they are counting and count all objects correctly).
Social Studies: We began talking about geography and continue discussing the world around us, our community, maps, and globes. We read a book about a little boy who got a map and he was able to have adventures all over the world through using his imagination.
Science: We began learning about the basic needs of living things. This unit will take a few months to complete. We know that living things need food, shelter, air, water, and space. While we are learning about the needs of living things, we have been researching hibernation and migration. We have been learning about the needs of animals which hibernate. We have talked about how animals store food or eat lots of food before winter hibernation. Some animals do not get up to eat at all during hibernation. The children are very curious about hibernation and have been enjoying reading books and researching this topic.
Housekeeping Items:
Children need a snack each day! Please do not send candy as a snack. The children need a healthy snack each day such as fruit, crackers, cheese, yogurt, granola bars, etc. As a reminder, no juice is allowed in class for snack.
Please make sure reading books are placed back in the green book pouches each night and returned to school every morning.
Please make sure to record the reading that you do with your child each night on the reading log in the homework.
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.
Report cards will be coming home today in your child’s green folder. Please take out the report card and keep it. Please sign the envelope and send the envelope back to school in your child’s green folder.
All of the children are working hard and making progress! Please keep in mind that the content is becoming more difficult as the year progresses and the expectations are higher each card marking.
The scale for report cards is as follows:
1 – Exceeding expectations
2 – Meeting Expectations
3 – Progressing
4 – Concern
Please know that if your child is progressing in a skill, but may need a little more practice, they will receive a 3 on their report card. This is not a bad mark, it just means that your child may need a little more practice with that particular skill. To me, progressing means that they are making gains, but still need to make some more growth.
Please also see this post from Mr. Short about NWEA scores on the report cards:
