December 9, 2016 Dear Parents,   This week, we continued our in-depth study of letter/sound association by sorting initial and medial /Aa/. We reviewed /Bb/, /Mm/, /Tt/, and /Gg/ and participated in several multi-sensory activities, including tracing the letters in sand trays and on bumpy mats. We learned how to manipulate the letters to blend and finger-spell CVC words, such as mat, bat, tag, tab, bag, and bam. We highlighted the sight words in, all, day, say, me, and you in our shared reading texts and added them to our Word Wall and word rings. We completed reading the star book The Three Billy Goats Gruff. We practiced reading the story, with story props, in a way that would engage and hold the interest of the listener. We grew our thinking by discussing new vocabulary, as well as identifying characters, character traits, setting, problem, and solution. In Writing Workshop, we continued to plan and draft three-page personal narratives. We learned to replay the chosen event or memory in our minds like a movie, recalling all the rich details in the characters, setting, and action and including those details in our stories. We learned how to use the alphabet chart on the back of our Writing Folders to help us add labels and words to our sketches. Some children even began writing sentences to match their sketches! In Reading Workshop, we learned how to use Post-it Notes as a reading tool to help us keep track of, and hold on to, our thinking to better understand the story and to share thoughts with reading partners. The children are enjoying using the Post-its to code and note favorite parts, feelings they have as they read, identify where a character is having and problem, as well as where the problem gets solved. I am so proud of their reading work! In Math, we learned that larger numbers are made up of lesser numbers. We practiced manipulating cubes of two different colors to compose and decompose the story of 5. We had fun playing Snap It with a partner to determine the missing part of a number. We also explored the concept of one more by building the quantity heard as marbles were dropped in a can and showing the same number and one more with ten-frame cards and numeral cards. We explored moving from ordinality to cardinality by envisioning and discussing what one more/one less looks like on a ten frame, building numbers to ten, arranging the cube towers in a staircase pattern with corresponding ten-frame and numeral cards, and explaining why a tower belongs or doesn’t belong in a given position. We even took a “field trip” to the “local” stairwell with our district math consultant to further explore counting and cardinality.

Report Cards: Friday, Dec.16   During our classroom Maker Monday explorations, the children pursued their natural talents and interests by choosing to build motor and buzzer circuits with Squishy Circuits, design Duck Tape wallets and change purses, design with cardboard, engineer with Goldie Blox, or tinker with and take apart toys to see how they work. We also had fun exploring coding with the iPad apps Bot Logic and Kodable and reinforcing literacy and math skills with the app Teach Me Kindergarten. Have a wonderful weekend! Linda Yelvington Looking Ahead: Report Cards: Friday, Dec.16 Welcome Winter Celebration Centers: Wed., Dec. 21 @ 1:30 p.m. Warm and Cozy Day: Friday, Dec. 23- Wear pajamas to school ( no slippers), bring favorite stuffed animal & favorite holiday or winter-themed book Minimum Day: Friday, Dec. 23 (1:05 p.m. dismissal for all) Winter Break- Schools Closed: Monday, Dec. 26 – Friday, Dec. 30 Special Notes: Please remind your child to point crisply under the words as he/she reads the shared reading texts and practice sight words daily. Wanted!- We are in need of old toys for our Maker Monday Explorations. If you have any toys which are no longer being used, please send them in for the children to examine, tinker with, and take apart. Taking things apart helps us understand how they work!