week of February 3, 2020

Mrs. Borden and Mrs. Jones Newsletter (week of February 3, 2020)

Writing:  We finally have started our Building Writers book!  We have talked about staying on topic, facts that we have learned, questions, and exclamations.  We are also trying to review each letter when we write to polish up some of our formations.  We did send another copy of the lowercase letters, capital letters, and fine motor activities to review at home.

Math:  We have started Unit 4 and we are joining together.  Our essential question is: “How can objects be joined together”?  We will be using objects and drawings to model the action of joining together to represent addition.  Our Spring Math skill is Missing Numbers 0-20.  In a sequence of 3 numbers, students have to write the number that is missing.

Reading: We are working on all types of stories.  We have covered nursery rhymes, fairy tales, myths, and fables.  We are identifying characters, setting, and problem/solution in our stories.  We are also working on short vowel sounds in words along with blending sounds together to read and write words.

Science/Social Studies: We were able to spend some time discussing germs and handwashing to keep the germs away.  We also were making predictions on if the Groundhog will see his shadow or if he won’t this year. 

Reminders:

Please pack a small snack for your child each day.  We do have a water fountain in the rooms a drink isn’t necessary, but we do take a daily snack break for about 10 minutes each afternoon.

All book logs for January are due on Monday. 

Important Dates:

Monday, February 3- NSE PTO Meeting at 6:30 pm, Day 2

week of January 27,2020

Mrs. Borden and Mrs. Jones’ Newsletter (week of January 27, 2020)

Handwriting/Writing:  We are set to start our Building Writers next week and the orange Letters and Numbers For Me will be coming home.  We will be working on forming sentences, writing for informational purposes, and retelling facts.  We will also be working on fixing some of our formations while we are writing. 

Reading:  We will be continuing to review every letter and every sound each day along with listening for parts of words as well as blending them together.  We will be listening for the plot of the story when we read and making sure we know the important parts when we retell a story.  We will be discussing our favorite stories and why someone else should read your favorite story.

Math:  We will be finishing up and reviewing our Comparing Numbers 0-20 unit and getting ready for our assessment next week.  We have been reviewing more/fewer and equal groups, the number line, and number formation to 20.  Our Spring Math skill is identifying a number 0-20 and drawing the correct number of lines.

Science/Social Studies:  We spent a little bit of time learning about the Arctic habitats and polar bears this week.  We also talked about Martin Luther King Jr. in honor of the holiday this past Monday.  We will be preparing for our 100^th day fun that is happening on Thursday!

Reminders:

Report cards are being sent home.  Please sign and return the envelope, you may keep the report cards.  Please also sign and return the assessment folder (the red Spartan folder) after you review the assessments and return those in the folder.  The Math and Reading DIBELS reports will be coming home as well and you may keep those reports.  Please contact us with any questions or concerns J

Important Dates:

Monday, January 27- Day 5

Thursday, January 30- 100^th Day of School (please see note)

week of January 20, 2020

Mrs. Borden and Mrs. Jones’ Newsletter (week of January 20, 2020) 

Handwriting/Writing:  We just finished out Handwriting Without Tears mid-year screener and we are so impressed with the growth from the beginning of the year.  Things we have been working on like: line seating, memory of letter formation, sizing, and orientation all came into play when we wrote some capital letters, lowercase letters, numbers to 9 and a short sentence.  We can’t wait to see the results of the end of the year screener after we do a little re-teaching on some of the formations and continue to write each day!  We are so proud of you! 

Reading:  We are continuing to talk about stories and look at some folk tales and fairy tales.  We are also talking about characters in the stories and what makes them interesting to us.  We have also been revisiting characteristics of fiction stories and how to determine if a story is fiction.  We are also so impressed after taking our reading DIBELS that everyone has made progress in their early literacy skills.  The subtests include: letter naming fluency, phoneme segmentation, correct letter sounds, decoding, and word reading.  We will send a copy of your child’s report along with report cards.  Keep up the great work! 

Math:  We have been counting objects to 20 and determining what set has more or less.  We are getting more proficient with writing the teens correctly and remembering to put the one first.  When we are identifying numbers we have a little chant to help us: sixteen is a 1 and a 6, or thirty-four is a 3 and a 4.  We also met another Spring Math goal!  Our class met the goal for: counting objects to 20 and circling the correct number. Woo-hoo! 

Science/Social Studies:  We had 2 Weekly Readers that tied into our Jan Brett author study.  The first one was about The Mitten and the second one was about The Three Snow Bears.  We will also be learning about Martin Luther King Jr. in honor of the upcoming holiday. 

Important Dates: 

Monday, January 20- No School, Teacher In Service 

Tuesday, January 21- Day 1 

Friday, January 24- Report cards sent home, please sign and return the envelope as soon as possible 

week of January 13, 2020

Mrs. Borden and Mrs. Jones’ Newsletter (week of January 13, 2020)
Handwriting/Writing:  We are almost through our Handwriting Without Tears book for Letter and Number formations.  When we send this (orange) book home, it may stay at home for review and you can see the huge improvement in writing since the beginning of the year.  Our focus since we came back from break has been on different types of sentences (question, statement, exclamatory) and how a paragraph has several sentences about a single topic.  We will then continually review our letters (capital and lowercase) as well as number formations while we move into our Building Writer books.
Reading:  We have been working on our unit essential question of: Why do we like stories? We have been focusing on: discussing themes and author’s purpose, comparing/contrasting stories, making inferences and predictions, describing plot, and visualizing details as we hear different types of stories.  We also review characters, setting, plot, and problem/solution when we read any type of story to keep those skills fresh.  We have been working really hard in our small groups on many early literacy skills such as: first sounds in words, all sounds in a given word, writing first/last sounds in words, blending sounds together, reading words, and writing words. 
Math:  We have been working really hard on comparing numbers to 10.  We have been using our math vocabulary such as: more, fewer, and equal.  Our latest lessons have been making one more and one less of the object we are counting (like fish) and writing the new number.  We are also working on counting to 100 each day, next number in a sequence, and writing our numbers correctly (especially the teens).  We have completed our Spring Math Winter benchmarks and the skill that we are working on now is counting dots and circling the correct number (0-20).  Our strategy for that skill is to make a line through the dot as we count them in order.
Science/Social Studies:  We have had a mini-author study focused on Jan Brett.  We read The Mitten and completed a writing activity with what would fit in our mitten.  We also read The Hat and The Three Snow Bears.  We have discussed animals in winter along with characteristics of winter.  We have quite a few stories about ice and snow to read as well that will fit in with properties of water.





Reminders:
Ice cream: The ice cream day in the cafeteria has been moved to Wednesdays, just so you are aware.  If you have any questions, feel free to contact us.
It can be a little chilly in our room at times, so if you would like to send in a dress code approved sweater/long sleeve to leave in their cubbies that would be appreciated.  It must be solid colored without a hood per the dress code.
Important Dates:
Monday, January 13-  Day 4
Thursday, January 16- Start of the 3rd Marking Period
Friday, January 17- Spartan Dress Down Day ($1 donation)

Congratulations!  We are so very proud of our Math DIBELS scores!!!  The growth everyone has shown since the beginning of the year is amazing!!! We will be sending the reports with the report cards for you to review.  Reading DIBELS will be next week, keep up the great work! 