week of January 28, 2019

Mrs. Borden and Mrs. Jones’ Newsletter (week of January 28, 2019)

Handwriting/Writing- Due to the weather last week and all of the time missed, we pushed back the completion of the Handwriting Book. Therefore, completed books will be coming home this week!!! Take a moment to look through the book to see how far our letter formation has come! We will be starting our “Building Writers” portion of the Handwriting without Tears curriculum and will be exploring Narrative Writing first.  We are still reviewing some of our lowercase letters for morning work and throughout our small group lessons.

Reading- We have a new story this week and it is: My Lucky Day and it is an animal fantasy story.  Our essential question is: What is a lucky adventure?  Our amazing words are: piglet, fox, lucky, filthy, cook, scrubber.  We will be discussing cause and effect with the story.  It is one of our favorites!  We can’t wait to share it with the class.  We are also working very hard on blending words and reading sentences and reading stories on our own.  We like to discuss the stories and talk about how the illustrations help us while reading the words.

Math- Since we have been practicing every day, we are so ready for the 100^th day of school!  There will be more information to follow, but we have been counting by 1s to 100 and 10s to 100 as well as counting how many days until the big day (practicing a little subtraction along the way).  We will be completing activities with time and measurement for the 100^th day of school as well.  When the Handwriting books come home, there are the number formations in there as well that can always be reviewed.

Science/Social Studies- Our Weekly Reader this week was about Germs and how to stay healthy.  It is a good time to review handwashing as well as keeping our hands away from our faces to try and keep ourselves in tip top shape. 

***Thank you so much for all of the contributions to our Boosterthon Fun Run.  The class was beyond excited to be able to run their laps as well as take in the dance party atmosphere of the Gym.  We hit a few of our classroom goals and we celebrated with: a SPARTY ticket for everyone, extra recess, and a movie.  Thanks so much for your support!

Important Dates:

Monday, January 28- Day 1

Tuesday, January 29- Report Cards sent home (this is later than the date scheduled due to internet outages) Please review the information and sign and return the envelope as soon as possible.

week of January 21, 2018

Mrs. Borden and Mrs. Jones’ Newsletter (week of January 21, 2019)

Handwriting/Writing- Completed books will be coming home this week!!! Take a moment to look through the book to see how far our letter formation has come! We will be starting our “Building Writers” portion of the Handwriting without Tears curriculum and will be exploring Narrative Writing first.  We are thrilled to be able to dive so much into writing and look forward to fine tuning handwriting as we move along.

Reading- We are starting our fourth unit and the topic question is “Where will our adventures take us?”  We have a new story this week and it is, Rooster’s Off to See the World.  It is an animal fantasy story by one of our favorite authors, Eric Carle.  Our amazing words are: world, lonely, trip, horizon, journey, homesick.  We will also be sequencing the story as well as talking about the subject of the sentence.

Math- We have been working on more and fewer.  We have been working with objects as well as numbers on a number line with one more and one fewer and two more and two fewer.  We often practice in our small group with either pictures or objects before moving on to the number line and then writing to complete our work.  We also work with various Math activities in our centers and daily in our Math Meeting time. 

Science/Social Studies- We will be learning about Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. through books, a Weekly Reader, and Brain Pop Jr. video clip.  We will be talking about treating each other with kindness and this ties in nicely with our overall theme of being a good citizen and the teamwork component of our SPARTY way.

*Big Shout Out to all of our hardworking students and their supportive families!  We are so excited with the progress that everyone has shown since the beginning of the school year.  We have updated reports and testing samples to send home with report cards next week.  As always, if you have any questions or concerns, please contact us.  Thanks for all that you do!

*Thank you for contributing to Boosterthon and supporting our school!  The students are so excited each day to learn about the new character traits and see what exciting part of the adventure unfolds. 

Important Dates:

Monday, January 21- School is in session

Thursday, January 24- Boosterthon Fun Run

Friday, January 25- Report Cards Sent Home

week of January 14, 2018

Mrs. Borden and Mrs. Jones’ Newsletter (Week of January 14, 2019)

Handwriting/Writing:  We will continue to work on things that make a good sentence.  These include:  starting the sentence with a capital letter, having a 2 finger space in between words, sounding out our words, making sure that the sentence makes sense, and ending with punctuation.  We have also gone over what makes a question and what a question mark looks like as well as an exclamation point and reading with excitement when we see it.

Reading: Our new story is: The Lion and the Mouse and it is a classic fable. We will be working on the main idea of the story.  Our amazing words are: jungle, beast, nibbling, snarled, trembling, entangled.  Our essential question for the story is: What causes us to change the way we feel?  We are so impressed with everyone working so hard on the letter identification of capitals and lowercase letters and making the corresponding sounds to the letters!  Keep up the great work!

Math: We have started the topic of: Comparing Numbers to 20.  We have been working on numbers 0-10 so far and counting objects and then making a set that has one more and counting objects and making a set that has one fewer.  We have also been writing the number for each set of objects.  We are so very impressed with the HUGE improvement in the benchmark for DIBELS Math.  Practicing number sense and number building skills has made such a difference and we are beyond thrilled with all of the hard work!!!! J

Reminders: Please continue to read each night and log the books in the January book log along with practicing the sight words.  Thanks for all of your cooperation and hard work, if there is anything else that we can help you with, please let us know. 

Important Dates:

Monday, January 14- Day 4

Friday, January 18- Spartan Dress Down Day ($1 donation)

week of January 7, 2019

Mrs. Borden and Mrs. Jones’ Newsletter (Week of January 7, 2019)

Handwriting/Writing:  We will be making our way into our last unit, Writing Activities and we will be working on: syllables, sentences, labels, punctuation, questions and answers, words, paragraphs, vowels, rhymes, poems, and comparisons.  We will continue to review letter formations, correct pencil grip, starting our letters at the top, staying within the boundaries, and reminders to use lowercase letters when writing words.  When we finish with our Handwriting book, it will be sent home for review.

Reading: Our new story is: Then and Now and it is a nonfiction story. We will be working on the plot of the story.  Our amazing words are: gears, headphones, webcams, handwritten, phonographs, newspapers.  Our essential question for the story is: How are things we use today different from things we used long ago?  Each day, we practice our letters names, letter sounds, chopping out the sounds in a given word, and blending the sounds together to make words in our small groups and these are the skills that are needed to become readers!

Math: We have just introduced the topic of: Comparing Numbers to 20.  We are counting groups of objects and writing the correct number along with deciding which group has more and which group has fewer.  We will also continue with our Spring Math and working with partners on counting objects, finding or writing the correct number, seeing which group has more objects, and writing the missing number in a group of 3.

Reminders: Please continue to read each night and log the books in the January book log along with practicing the sight words.  Please continue to practice the practice packet that was sent over break to keep these skills fresh.  If we can get you any more information or resources, please let us know.

Important Dates:

Monday, January 7- Day 9

week of December 17, 2018

Mrs. Borden and Mrs. Jones’ Newsletter (Week of December 17)

This is our last newsletter for 2018.  The weekly newsletters will resume the first week of January 2019.  We wish you and your families much happiness for the Holiday season.  We appreciate all of the support and are so excited for a great start to the New Year!

Handwriting/Writing:  We are starting Unit 5- Lowercase (Diver Letters, Final Groups, and Writing Activities).  Our last unit is Writing Activities and we will be working on: syllables, sentences, labels, punctuation, questions and answers, words, paragraphs, vowels, rhymes, poems, and comparisons.  Everyone is trying so hard to keep their letters within the boundaries and use the correct formation.  We appreciate the effort!

Reading: Our new story is: Farfallina and Marcel and it is an animal fantasy story. We will be working on the plot of the story.  Our amazing words are: goose, gosling, caterpillar, butterfly, reflection, cocoon.  Our essential question for the story is: What happens when animals change?  We will also review verbs.  We will continue to work on: all letters (capital and lowercase) and their corresponding sounds, beginning sounds of words, all sounds in words, and blending sounds together to read words.

Math: We are almost done numbers 11-20 and will be moving into Comparing Numbers to 20.  We have moved on to the next topic in Spring Math and we are counting objects to 20 and finding the number that matches.  In our daily practice, we are counting beans and writing the correct number on our dry erase board while our buddy checks that the counting and numbers are correct.

Important dates to remember:

Monday, December 17- Day 2

Friday, December 21- Early Dismissal for NSE- 12 noon

January 2- School resumes

week of December 10, 2018

Mrs. Borden and Mrs. Jones’ Newsletter (Week of December 10)

Handwriting/Writing:  We are moving through Unit 4- More Vowels, Transition Group, and Words and Sentences and then will move into the last part (diver letters, final group, and writing activities) before moving into all writing activities.  We are so impressed with how our class is trying to chop out the sounds in words and write the letters when writing!  Keep up the good work everyone!

Reading: Our new story is: George Washington Visits and it is a historical fiction story. We will be working on cause and effect and rhyming.  Our amazing words are: celebration, sprinted, barn, blacksmith, arch, soldier.  Our essential question for the story is: How is life today different from things we used long ago?  We will also review verbs.

Math: We will be finishing up our numbers 0-20 and we have been doing a great job writing our numbers, counting objects, and drawing objects to match the number.  We will continue to count to 100, count our days of school, write numbers in the tens and ones place. 

Important dates to remember:

December 8- Winter Concert in the High School Auditorium (Kindergarten performs at 10 am) *Holiday attire/dress up clothing is permitted, please no jeans or sweat pants.*

Monday December 10- Day 7

December 11- Spartan Dress Down Day- donation of a non-perishable food item or monetary donation

December 11- Krispy Kreme Doughnut delivery and pickup in the elementary cafeteria 4-6 pm

Friday, December 14- Kindergarten Field Trip to the Lehigh Gorge Scenic Railway (pajamas are encouraged)

week of December 3, 2018

Mrs. Borden and Mrs. Jones’ Newsletter (Week of December 3)

Handwriting/Writing:  We will work on the “descending letters” like g that dip below the bottom line.  Some letters are tall like d, some letters are small like a, and some letters are descending like j.  We are starting to explore the concept of writing sentences on the back of our morning work.  We are working on making the sounds in the words in order to write the corresponding letters in the word.

Reading: Our new story is: Little Quack and it is an animal fantasy. We will be working on plot and sequence in this story.  Our amazing words are: duckling, paddle, pond, plunged, proud, brave.  Our essential question for the story is: What new things can you do as you get older?  We can also compare and contrast this story which has fiction characters to last week’s story of Little Panda which was nonfiction and full of wonderful information.

Math: We have been working on identifying numbers 11-20, writing the numbers 11-20, counting objects with 11-20 and filling in 10 frames with the correct number.  In Spring Math, we are still working on missing numbers 0-11.  Sometimes the number is missing in the first spot, the last spot, or the middle spot.  An example would be: 4 __ 6 and we would have to write 5.

Science/Social Studies:  We will be working on seasons and weather, especially identifying all of the characteristics of winter and what is may look like outside in comparison to another season.