week of February 24, 2020

Mrs. Borden and Mrs. Jones’ Newsletter (week of February 24, 2020)

Handwriting/Writing:  We are currently sequencing small stories using first, next, last.  We looked at shopping in a grocery store, picking pumpkins, buying a sofa, and fixing a leak.  We have been working hard on counting the words in the sentence, leaving a 2-finger space in between the words, and ending it with correct punctuation.

Reading:  We have been reading folktales, fairy tales, and other fiction stories and thinking about the qualities that make up each of these types of stories.  We have been working on the middle sounds of words using short u (like cut) versus long u (like cute).  We also look like characters and what makes them interesting along with settings and how they can change throughout the story.

Math:  We are finishing up our Addition unit and we have been writing addition sentences.  We have been acting out stories, using objects, writing the sentence, and even making up some of our own!  We have been working on making sure our numbers are written correctly in the addition sentence.  We are still working on our Spring Math skill of Missing Number 0-20.

Science/Social Studies:  We have started looking at Dental Health.  We have been reading several stories that talk about tooth care, loose teeth, and the dentist.  We will continue this until next week and then move into Dr. Seuss and will celebrate his birthday!

Important Dates:

Monday, February 24- Day 6

Friday, February 28- Read Across America Program

week of February 17, 2020

Mrs. Borden and Mrs. Jones’ Newsletter (week of February 17, 2020)

Handwriting/Writing:  We will be working on sequencing a story using the words: first, next, last.  We will use pictures to support our writing.  We will also continue to review capital and lowercase letter formations (we went through Aa, Bb, Cc, Dd thus far). 

Reading:  We have started Unit 4, What can we learn from the past?  We will also be talking about what was life like in the past and how has it changed now.  We will be reading through some nonfiction texts to learn about these topics.  We were able to see an actual typewriter working in a video clip.  We also have been looking at how cars have changed from the past until now.

Math:  We have been working on Addition and counting groups all together.  We have talked about the plus sign and the equal sign.  We are also continuing to work on Missing Numbers to 20 in Spring Math.

Science/Social Studies:  We have been talking about kindness and following the SPARTY way and friendship in honor of Valentine’s Day.  We also started learning about George Washington and Abraham Lincoln in honor of Presidents’ Day.  We will be working on Dental Health next.

Important Dates:

Friday, February 14- No School For Students

Monday, February 17- School Closed

Tuesday, February 18- Day 2

Friday, February 21- Spartan Dress Down Day ($1 donation)

week of February 10, 2020

Mrs. Borden and Mrs. Jones’ Newsletter (week of February 10, 2020)

Handwriting/Writing:  We were able to introduce Narrative writing this week and we have learned about bats briefly as well as nuts being food for animals and growing on trees.  We have been focusing on putting a period at the end of the sentence as well as making sure we have good spacing in between our words.  We have also reviewed capital letter A and lowercase letter a in Morning Work practice.

Reading:  We have learned about a Myth (a kind of traditional story that has a plot that tells about something in nature) and got to read a few different kinds of Myths over the week.  We also reviewed long i versus short i (pine vs pin) and listening to the middle sounds in words.  Please don’t forget to read at home for the monthly book log and to review sight words.

Math:  We are moving through our Addition (joining together) unit.  We have been counting one group of objects and another group of objects and then how many objects are all together and writing that number.  We have also been working on our latest Spring Math skill, Missing Number 1-20.

Science/Social Studies:  We finished up our groundhog unit and reviewed hibernation because hopefully the groundhog is right and we will have an early Spring and those animals will start waking up!  We are also talking about what you can do in snow and start working our way towards exploring Valentine’s Day.

Reminders:

The Valentine’s Day party is on Thursday.  Valentines for the class can be sent in any time they are ready.  A list of classmates’ names has already been sent home.  Any questions, please let us know J

Important Dates:

Monday, February 10- Day 7

Thursday, February 13- Valentine’s Day Parties, 2pm 

Friday, February 14- No School For Students

Monday, February 17- School Closed

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! 