Friday, December 11, 2015

Week of December 14-18, 2015

Hello families,
It's hard to believe we are starting our final school week of 2015. Your kids are amazing and have come so far in the past 4 months. I am so lucky to be their teacher.

As always, we have a busy week coming up:

Important Dates

Thursday, December 17: Kids will be sharing their informational posters about an animal with the class. If your child has not yet brought in a picture of their animal, please help them do so no later than Tuesday 12/15.

Friday, December 18: Free dress day/Room 4 winter celebration, 12-1 pm. We will be decorating cookies, singing songs, and making a couple of crafts. If you'd like to help out that day please let me know. If you'd like to help by sending in cookies or decorating items, there is a sign-up sheet in room 4.

Friday, January 15: Kindergarten field trip to see the Sacramento Theater Company's performance of James and the Giant Peach. If you haven't done so already, please send in $6 for your child's ticket. I need to send in the money early next week. Thank you!

Language Arts
This week we continue to work on blending sounds and letters to make words.
We will finish up learning about the features of informational text, and the kids will finish their informational posters about an animal they chose.
Letter/sound focus: /p/, /h/ and short a
New sight words: at

Math
Instead of beginning a new chapter this week we will review and take some time to focus on practicing addition facts. The kids are loving adding and are very proud of themselves to be working on such "grown up" math.

Thanks for reading, everyone! And thank you, parents and grandparents, for all of your help in and out of the classroom so far this year. I am so grateful for all of you.
Please let me know if you have any questions or concerns.


Friday, December 4, 2015

Week of December 7-11, 2015

Hello families!
Thank you to everyone for meeting with me this week and last week during parent/teacher conferences. I enjoyed talking about your children and learning more about your families!

We have a lot going on in Room 4 and at Phoebe Hearst during the next couple of weeks.

Important Dates/Field Trip
Wednesday, December 9: Picture make-up day and class group photo day. Everyone has free dress.

Thursday, December 10: PH craft fair, 6-8 pm. Our class made adorable hot cocoa mugs to sell at the fair. Be sure to stop by and pick one up!

Friday, December 18: School is out for winter break! We will have free dress.

Monday, January 4: First day back to school

Friday, January 15: Field trip to see the Sacramento Theater Company's production of James and the Giant Peach. The cost for this trip is $6 per child (PTO is also paying $6 per child). Please send this to room 4 no later than December 11, as we have to pay in advance. If you would like to chaperone this trip, adult tickets are $17 each, and these need to be purchased in advance as well, so please let me know asap if you'd like to attend, and then you can send in money for your ticket with your child's payment. We were told tickets are limited for this, so to be fair I will take chaperones on a first-come basis.

Language Arts
We have started reading informational texts this week, and the kids are loving reading books about topics that interest them. This week each child chose an animal to research. They will read books about their chosen animal and with the help of 5th grade buddies search for information online. They will present their research on an informational poster. Next week's homework will include searching online for a photo of their animal for their poster. Thank you for your help with this!

As always, we are continuing to work on letter sounds and blending them to read and write words. This time of year is a lot of fun because for many kids everything seems to "click", and they start reading and writing more and more independently.

Math
We started our first chapter on addition this week, which you probably saw in Thursday's homework.

Thank you for reading, everyone! Please let me know if you have questions or concerns.