WELCOME BACK!

Welcome back! I hope you all had a wonderful Spring Break and are enjoying the beautiful weather that finally decided to find us! I am looking forward to seeing all of the kids on Tuesday. (I will not be at school tomorrow. I have an off campus “School Improvement Plan” meeting.) Below you will see pictures from our “Seussical” field trip and our Spring Scavenger hunt. There are also a few from when Graham shared a Czech tradition with us before Spring Break. Enjoy!

Everyone really enjoyed "Seussical"!

Bunnies, ready to hunt!

Hunting for "SPRING"!

Everyone was really interested in learning about a Czech tradtion.

Daily Five

This week we’ll focus on using fluency and comprehension strategies while reading. Please see these new CAFÉ strategies below.

1. Move Through the Word – read tricky words by moving your finger through the entire word to help you sound it out

2. Say the word slowly, s-t-r-e-t-c-h it out – when you come to a tricky word, move through the word and stretch out the sounds to help you read the word

3. Blend the sounds together – after you stretch the sounds in a word, go back and blend the sounds together

4. Use a Smooth Voice – use a combination of decoding skills to read the words quickly and accurately

5. Retell the Story – discussing the characters, setting, and sequence of events in a story (first, next, then, last…)

Letterland/Word Work

We will continue learning about digraphs sh, ch, th, wh (ex. ship, wash, chick, which, thing…), as well as words with double consonants –ff and –ll.  We will also continue to review long and short vowels in words.

 Writer’s Workshop

This week we'll focus on using the vocabulary "first, next, then, and last" when writing a story. This will lead into procedural writing, which is writing that teaches the reader how to do something. We continue to work on writing complete sentences related to our topic using capitalization, spacing, and ending punctuation. We are also working on taking our stories from our head, to our hand, to our paper. Remember to encourage your child to write the sounds they hear, even when it results in a misspelled word! The important thing is for your child to recognize themselves as a writer and use what they know to tell their story! We are also learning that “When I think I’m done, I’ve just begun!” This focuses on writers adding more details to their picture and their words before starting a new piece.

Sight Words

 I, see, like, my, the, can, am, we, will, go, to, play, he, she, and, made, is, went, said, love, with, what, here, are, they, you

Math

We will compare numbers using vocabulary “more than” and “less than”. We will focus on “one more than” and “one less than” this week.

 IB Attitudes

empathy, appreciation, curiosity, commitment, cooperation

Upcoming Dates and Reminders:

Third Quarter Conferences- I will post a link soon for those of you who would like to schedule a conference!

Kindergarten will be going on a field trip to Marbles on Friday, April 12th.  We will explore the museum and see an IMAX movie. Please return the permission form and payment as soon as possible.  The online payment option is also available to the right. We would love to have chaperones during our “exploring” time. Unfortunately, the IMAX theater is not large enough to accommodate parents as well as our 134 kindergarteners, but we’d love to have you before the movie! Please let me know if you are interested in chaperoning and I will email you with the details!

Thursday, April 18 – Night of Nonsense (more information coming soon!)

Friday, April 19 – Early Release