Weekly News

IMPORTANT DATES

·      Friday, February 15th: School Vacation begins at 2:20. School resumes at 8 am on Monday February, 25th.

·      Tuesday, February 26^th: 100^th Day of School

*If you will be away for additional dates before or after vacation, please let us know so we can plan accordingly.

SNOW AND RECESS

With the large amount of snow, come some additional recess rules. Our approach continues to be that students should wear all of the outdoor clothes that parents send them to school with (unless the weather drastically changes during the day). Students sometimes prefer to leave their boots or hats inside, but we check the cubbies and make sure children are wearing everything they brought. If you have a different arrangement with your child about what they may choose to wear, please let us know.

There are a few additional playground rules for snowy weather:

1.    No throwing Snow

2. You can only play on the snow if you have boots and snow pants. If you don’t have them, you may not play on the snow.

3. You may not play in the back of the playground by the little basketball hoop.

We have spent a lot of time talking about why these rules are in place and how they help keep us healthy and safe at school.

HUNDREDTH DAY

We will celebrate 100 days of learning on Tuesday, February 26th.  We will do a number of centers to work with the amount of 100 and to reflect on the things we have learned these past 100 days. Part of our homework this weekend will be to count and bring in 100 objects. These items can be small and will be returned after our day on Friday. In the past, children have brought in 100 paperclips, 100 cheerios, 100 Legos, etc.  The goal of the homework part of this assignment is to count to 100, or better yet, to find an efficient way to count 100 objects (making groups of 10, counting by 2’s, etc.)

COMMUNITY

We continue to focus on Friendship and building our classroom community. We shared our first round of Secret Valentine’s today. The children were really excited to read the compliments that their peers wrote to them. We will continue Secret Valentine’s throughout February.

We also made Valentine cards for our reading buddies. We thought of at least 2 kind compliments to write. We will share these cards on Friday.

We are also continuing our unit on China and Chinese New Year. We have identified China on a map. We have begun to learn about some Chinese New Year traditions, including: cleaning your house and wearing new clothes, having a special meal, giving red envelopes with money to wish good luck for the new year, dragon parades. We will continue to read non-fiction and fiction books to learn about this holiday and culture.

WORD WALL WORDS: use, here, make, ride, like

WE continued working with Sneaky E words and long vowel sounds this week. The e at the end of each word makes the vowel say its name or make a long vowel sound. We’ve also observed how a silent e can change a word from a short vowel word to a long vowel word (man to mane, us to use, etc.)

MATH

We are continuing to work with tens and ones. We learned a new math game this week, Race to 100, to practice adding tens and ones. We are using base ten blocks as tools to help us count. We have discussed that 10 ones cubes = 1 ten stick, and 10 ten sticks = 1 hundred flat. Following vacation, we will begin to work with another tool for counting and adding, and subtracting large numbers: the hundred’s chart.

SNACK

Please check in with your child about lunch and snack. Maybe it’s a growth spurt, or the weather, but many children are still feeling hungry after they have eaten their entire snack and/ or lunch. We are thrilled that the children are taking time to eat all of their food, rather than talking so much they forget to eat.

ASK YOUR CHILD…

These questions can be conversation starters to discuss the week in school.

·      What did you buy at the Valentine Store to decorate your Valentine Bag?

·      What did you write in your Valentine Card for your Reading Buddy?

·      What did someone write in one of your Secret Valentines?

·      Can you count to 100 by 10’s?