March 27-31

Please see your email as a reminder of your conference time. I look forward to meeting with you!

Upcoming events:
April 3: Sports Day
April 7: Knowledge-a-thon in the the AM
April 7: PAC field  trip in the PM
April 11: Egg Crack Off and Class Color Day
April 12-17: NO SCHOOL
April 21: Wear Green and Blue for Earth Day
April 28: Funky Friday (dress as silly as you want)

Reading:  So far, the avid readers have been focusing on fiction texts. This week, we shift to working in nonficiton texts! Students will learn to use precise words while teaching about what they learned from a text and to share their findings with their partners. Readers often begin sharing about a text by using one of the following prompts:

• I notice...
• I think...
• I wonder..
• What do you think? 
• Why do you think that? 

Practice using these prompts while reading at home too! 

Writing:  Opinion writers are on a roll writing letters to fix problems they see! Don't be surprised if you see some letters coming home about problems that can be changed. Writers are looking at a sample opinion letter to check to make sure they are doing the same things in their writing. The students can learn a lot from studying an example, which we call a mentor text. Talk with your child about possible problems they could write about. What do you see that could be better at home? The bus? The grocery store? How can they fix it?

Math: The math talk in our Kindergarten classroom includes many buzzwords such as subitizing, teen numbers, and partners. Ask your child what they can teach you about these expert math words! Kindergartners will continue their work with partners of ten, adding/subtracting, and shapes. Here are some fun ways to practice and build fluency at home:

• Dice games
• Roll 2 dice, add or subtract, record
• Cards
• Flip two cards over, add or subtract
• Go Fish--instead of looking for pairs, find cards that go together to make 5 or 10

Word Study: We will work on words with -en, et, and -en endings. We will discuss endings on words, especially focusing on the -s ending.

Social Studies: Kindergartners will continue to work on the following centers:

• Books—Students will read All About Me books. Then they will write their own!
• Photographs—We will sort pictures on a timeline. Then students will create their own timelines. 
• Collage—Kindergartners will look through magazines and cut out things that represent them. They will glue these onto a poster. We will share these at closing circle.
• Starfall.com—Students will work with partners on Ipads to “write” about themselves.