Friday Note

Friday Note - 8/25/2017

 This will be the last week for a paper copy of the Friday Note unless I have written confirmation that you need one.

Events of the Week:  It’s hard to believe that we have two and a half weeks of school under our belt- and what a busy week it has been.

Math: In math, we began Topic 1 (same/different).  Our school is new to Eureka Math this year, so if you have older children, you may notice several changes from prior years.  There are practice sheets that you should see coming home in your child’s folders.  This is a timed portion of the lesson that they complete (as much as they are able in the allotted time) and we then review together.  You will notice that I do not correct these or mark on them.  When we review the answers, your child should change his/her responses to the correct one.  During the time that they are completing their daily practice sheet, I am walking around and observing who has a strong grasp of the material and who is struggling.  I then meet with students individually or in small groups based on their needs.  Please take the time to review your child’s work with them each night to ensure that they understand the lesson.

Language Workshop: We continued our theme of All About Me.  Our Shared Reading for the week was Me Too.  We also introduced the sight word is.  Your child should now be familiar with two sight words: I and is.  Practice finding these in books and other writing.  We continued with the Name Game.  We’re learning more about our classmates every day.  What a fun way to make new friends!

Reading Workshop:  This week we started a unit over reading routines.  During these lessons we will be learning who we are as readers, how to take care of books, what rules we follow during Independent Reading (IR) time, and how to share books with friends.  Our goal by the end of the year is to look at books and read independently for up to twenty minutes every day.    

Writing Workshop:  Each day we wrote a daily message.  As a class we looked for sight words, capital letters, counted words in a sentence, learned how to return sweep when writing a new sentence, and found periods (be sure to ask your child “what does a period tell us to do?”).  We also practiced tracing different pre-writing lines  that we will use when we begin introducing letters next week.

Word Study: We had fun as we continued to practice writing our names this week.  We practiced cutting up our names and building them by putting the letters in the correct order.  We also built our names with magnetic letters and sentence strips.  Be sure to have your child practice writing their name at home.  Remember: only the first letter in your child’s name should be capitalized.

Important Dates:

• Sept. 4 - No School-Labor Day
• Sept. 8th- Grandparent’s Day 9:00-10:00am (see below for information)
• Sept. 11 - No school
• Sept. 11 - Math Parent Night (more info to come)
• Sept. 12 - No school - Teacher Professional Development Day

Grandparents Day   

A letter is being sent home asking you to RSVP by August 30th.  

There will be a light grandparent breakfast served from 9-9:30am.   During this time, you will also have the opportunity to pose for photos.  From 9:30-10:00am, grandparents will take a tour of their grandchild(ren)’s classroom.  Weather permitting, visitors may park in the open field west of the school as parking around the building may become limited.  Visitors should enter using the K-4 office entrance or the 5-8 office entrance.  

** I apologise I will be out of town on the 8th. Our class will still participate. They will have a substitute.  I just won't be there to meet the Grandparents.

Important Information and Reminders:

1.       When the weather gets too hot, too cold, or too rainy, we will have inside recess.  The new school policy is that toys are no longer permitted at school.  If a toy comes to school, then teachers have been authorized to take the toy and it will not be given back until the end of the day or the parents come and claim it.
2. .    Please make sure to write your child’s name inside of his/her lunch boxes, jackets and coats.  It is amazing how quickly our lost and found fence gets filled up!

SIGHTWORDS

Has your child said anything about sight words??  In kindergarten, we learn sight words.  These are common words that tend to “pop up” all over the place.  By mastering words, such as our sight words, children become more fluent readers.  Also, it is so much fun to see the boys and girls get excited when they find a sight word in a book and can read it!  These are the sight words we have learned so far.  Your child should be able to read each of these words.  Please practice them at home with your child.

I    is   

Next Week:

• Our theme will be Families.  Please complete the family page that was sent home today and return it on Monday.  We will share these with the class.    
• In math, we will begin a new topic on sorting and classifying.
• Our sight word will be “my”.
• We will begin introducing letters, their correct handwriting formation and the sounds they make.  

Have a Great Weekend!!

Mrs. Wenger