February 20-23

Hello K families! I wanted to give you a head's up that I will not be at school next week Monday-Thursday. I have the opportunity to receive training in New York; I look forward to bringing my new knowledge back to use in the classroom!  Mrs. Flanagan will be our guest teacher all week. The students have had Mrs. Flanagan as a guest teacher once before and in 4K-so she will be a familiar face:) Mrs. Flanagan and I have worked together to go over the plans and routines so that the students will keep learning in a comfortable and familiar way!  I can be reached by email while I am out, but please feel free to call the office if there are things that need to be communicated quickly (ie. drop off/pick up changes)

Upcoming events:

February 22: Career Day-choose an outfit that shows what you would like to be when you grow up!
 February 23: Half Day

February 24: No School

February 27: Family Night: Music, Masterpieces and Munchies

• We will be collecting items for birthday boxes in the lobby during family night! Some ideas for items are: cake mixes, frosting, candles, hats, balloons, decorations, napkins, plates, etc. 

March 7: Field trip to the Paper Discovery Center-the permission slip should be returned by March 3rd. 

Reading:  Sometimes, these nonfiction books have words that these young readers have never seen before! This week, they will learn to how to figure out new expert words (vocabulary words) by looking at the picture and reading the page while thinking "What could this word mean?" Once they figure out what the word means, they can teach that word to other students in our class; just like a teacher would! Readers will wrap up the week by "bringing books to life" by acting them out. I have a feeling there will be lots of animals in the room on Thursday! 

Writing:   Students are taking some of the text features that they see in their nonfiction reading books and are trying to apply it to their writing. For example, after learning about new expert words in reading, they are encouraged to add an expert word to their All About book. This strong reading-writing connections really solidifies ideas for Kindergartners! Students will also learn that information writing can include many facts as well as the opinion of the author. 

Math:  Students will play math games, participate in whole class discussions and explore the following big ideas: 

• Mathematicians can tell adding and subtracting story problems using pictures
• Discovering partners of 10
• Teen numbers are a group of 10 and extras; students will look for patterns when building teen numbers

Word Study:  Our sight words are jump, funny, go, find, & not.

Science: We shift our focus to paper this week. We will explore different kinds of paper. Scientists will test the effects of water on different paper products. We will conduct experiments to answer these questions:

• What paper is easiest to write on?
• What paper is hardest to write on? 
• What paper absorbs the most water?
• What are the different kinds of paper used for?