Griffin

Animal Unit

This week we'll be continuing our study of farm animals.  We are classifying animals, identifying the male, female and baies of each species, and exploring how each animal helps us.

We are reading fiction and non-fiction stories about farm animals.  We are continuing to develop our retelling skills.  We are also identifying component sounds in words.  This is when we name the letters that make each sound in a word. 

The students are identifying all the number combinations to make a given number.  (0 and 5 are 5, 1 and 5 are 5, 2 and 3 are 5...)  We will begin creating, modeling, and acting out word problems.

Congratulations to Joshua.  He has joined the Sight Word Club!

Happy St. Patrick's Day

                                                                                                                                                                                        It was great seeing so many of you at the Fun Run.  I think about half of the class participated!!  I tried to get pictures of everyone, but some of you were just too fast.                                                                                       

Monday marks the beginning of our last grading period.  Where has the time gone?  Report Cards will be coming home on Thursday. 

We'll be doing some St. Paddy's celebrating this week.  The students will be looking for buried treasure and comparing their lode by weight and size.  They'll be painting rainbows, reading about leprechauns and other mischief.

We will begin our animal study by looking at animals that hatch from eggs. 

Addition and subtraction are the focus of our math activities.

We will continue to work on retelling stories that our read to us as a class and independently.  We are listening for retellings that are sequential, with a beginning, middle and end, and lots of detail. 

During our Morning News time we'll be practicing the ch, sh, th, and wh blends. 

Congratulations to Allie, Kyle, Alexis, Natalie and Tristan.  They have all joined our 40 sight word club!! 

Center Parents, thank you for being so flexible with the changes I've made to the center organization.  This new plan allows the students to practice skills that they've already been taught, work at their own level, practice working in a group and independently, make choices, and develop good work habits.

Here are some more pictures of Guest Readers and Career Day......

                                                                             

Go, Go, Go

Transportation is the theme for this week.  We will identify different modes of transportation, when we use them and what we use them for.

We will  read fiction and non-fiction books about transportation.  We will practice the skills of retelling, identifying rhyming words, chunking (finding smaller words inside a larger word) and decoding.

This week we'll be reviewing previous sight words.  If you need a list, please let me know.

During writing workshop, the students will develop their story writing skills by adding descriptive words and including a setting in their stories.

We are reviewing double digit numbers in math this week.  This is  tricky skill and and any extra practice at home would be beneficial.

Please come and check out the baskets up for auction.  This is in conjuction with our Fun Run this Saturday.  For more info check out Download its_not_too_late_to.htm

More info

Sight Word

Six more students have mastered the 40 kindergarten sight word list.  They have worked very hard.  Congratulations to Trey, Chris, Sebastian, Denver, Makenna and Alex!

We have several other students who are close to achieving this important skill.  Keep working!

Foundation Basket

The class baskets will be on display next week in the media center.  If you would like to contribute to our basket with a donation of art materials or money, please send it with your child.  We'll make sure it gets to Makenna's mom and Allie's mom.  They deserve a big thanks for all of their hard work.

Careers

Special Thanks:

I feel doubly blessed this year to have such an amazing group of students and a wonderful group of parents.  Your volunteer work in our classroom and school is greatly appreciated.  I know it means so much to the children to see you here.  I wanted to thank all of you for the thoughtful flowers, notes, and presents I received for Teacher Appreciation.  The gift card has been put to good use with the purchase of more manipulatives, games and books for our classroom.  Thank you so much, I really do feel appreciated and hope you know that you are appreciated, too.

This week we will be learning about careers.  We will focus on community helpers and how they assist us.  We will read and discuss their responsibilities and the tools they use to complete their work. 

We will be reading fiction and non-fiction books during our study.  We are continuing to practice retelling stories.  Our goal is to retell the beginning, middle and end of a story in sequence.

Career Day is Tuesday!  We are excited to learn more about the people that serve our community.

Our sight words for this week are:  help & make

                                 

Graphing is our focus in math.  We will be creating concrete and picture graphs. 

                                       Dates to Remember

• 3/4     Early Release and Career Day   (Sack lunches will be served.)
• 4/6     Library Day  (Please return library books so that your child can check out a new book.)
• 4/15   Fun Run

                                          Student Absences

Please make sure that you send a note stating a reason for your child's absence.  This must be signed and dated and cannot be sent via email.  We have had many illnesses run through our grasshoppers.  I appreciate that you are keeping your children home when they are sick.  Hopefully the end of flu season is in sight.

Thank you to Olivia's mom for being our guest reader. Olivia just happened to be our Grand Grasshopper this week, too. 

Kyle is our new Grand Grasshopper.