Thursday, January 9, 2014

We had a great week at school as we’ve settled back into our daily routines!
*Just a couple of things…
-The January SeeSaw Book Club flyer was sent in your child’s OTIS this week.  If you’d like to place an order online, please click onto the Scholastic link on the right side of the blog page.  Please place your order by Friday, January 14.
-Please send in an empty cereal box.  Just a regular size box will be fine!

Please remember to dress your child warmly when they come to school. We do go outside each day and it is important that they are dressed appropriately.

Here’s what we’re working on lately!

READING:   The children have been very excited to go shopping for their dot books (leveled texts) and taking their go bags at home!   It has been fun for me to see their enthusiasm  as they’ve told me about reading to you at night!

Parents often ask how they can help their child at home to support their reading.  One of the MOST important  things to help a budding reader is to  read  aloud to your child each night.  Spend a few minutes talking about the story.  Asking them questions about books that YOU read aloud will support their comprehension and retelling skills.  Helping to instill the joy of reading is a tremendous gift that will stay with your child for a lifetime!   

Each week, we work on specific reading strategies that are then posted on our Daily 5 Café Menu.  These strategies correspond and support  early reading behaviors.  Here is a list of the reading strategies that we have posted so far. 
-Study the cover and think about the story.
-Do a picture a walk.  (Look at all the pictures before you read).
-Point to the words as you read.
-Get your mouth ready (Say the beginning sound of the word.)
-Look for patterns. (I see the cat.  I see the dog.  I see the bird.)
-Check the picture.
-Remember target words.
-Move through the word. (Segment the words in an unknown word.)

COMPREHENSION:    Gaining meaning from the reading is key to building reading levels.  During our guided reading groups, we not only work on decoding strategies, we are working on building an understanding of how to “retell” a story.  To help you at home, please go to the top of the blog and you will find a “page” which includes the story element questions that we ask at school after they have read their leveled text.  As your child reads their dot books at home, use these questions to help support and build your child’s ability to comprehend and retell the stories they are reading. 

WRITING:  We continue to work on personal narratives.   Our writing process includes  thinking of a story, planning, sketching and writing a simple corresponding sentence.  We will be working on writing more than more sentence to support the story, including more detail in the writing and stretching a story across several pages.   Writing conventions include space between words, proper capitalization and segmenting and recording letters for most dominant sounds in words.

MATH:
  • ·        Rote counting 1-40
  • ·        Recognizing and writing numbers 11-20
  • ·        Decomposing “teen” numbers (10 and 3 make 13)
  • ·        Counting forward to 20.
  • ·        Recognizing, describing and comparing 2D and 3D shapes (names, sides, angles, vertices)
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SCIENCE:   We begin our science unit on weather this week.  (more info to come)


Have a great weekend and enjoy the balmy weather!


-Important Dates:
January 13 – Kindergarten Registration Begins:  If you or anyone you know has a child that will be entering Kindergarten for the 2014-2015 school year, encourage them to go ahead and register.
January 17 – Early Release at 12:30
January 17 – End of 2nd Quarter
January 20 – Martin Luther King Holiday
January 21 – Teacher Workday
February 5 and 6 – Visit from Science Made Fun to JYJ Kindergarten – “Weather Wizards”
February 6 – Start of JYJ Healthy Choice Marathon
February  14 – Early Release


February 17 – Teacher Workday

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