1. Kindergarten Weekly News January 8, 2016 Language Arts We started our next unit all about Earth Science and Outdoor Exploration. We have been learning all about the 4 seasons and the weather. Our Focus Question this week was: What weather can I observe each day? Also, this week’s reading strategy has been all about Making Connections This week we also started Week 2 of Unit 4. This weeks Focus Question was: What can I observe as the seasons change? We discussed how weather changes throughout the four seasons. We also learned about different resources we use and the importance of making sure we keep our Earth clean. Our fluency piece for this week was a poem called “The Seasons Change”. We practiced reading with expression, reading with a steady pace, and pausing at punctuation marks. Throughout the week we continued to learn the importance of making connections while we read and how to distinguish between fact and opinion. We also practiced phoneme segmenting and blending. Students were asked to listen to separate sounds (/k/ /a/ /t/). Then they were asked how many sounds they heard (three), and after that they blended the sounds to make the word (cat). We did this with multiple three letter words, like bat, lot, fan, box, and pet. You can play this segmenting and blending game with your kiddo as review! SIGHT WORDS We have learned: on not has Try to have your child practice these words using flash cards and writing sentences using these words too. Continued practice of these skills helps us to become better readers! Also…try using your sight word flash cards to different songs too. Like…Row, row, row your boat OR Twinkle Twinkle This is a fun way for you and your kiddo to practice these words together. Letters to Practice at home Letters and sounds we have learned so far….Ss Mm Nn Hh Tt Pp Dd Aa Oo Math This week we have been working on Subtraction! We are learning how to take things apart and use a minus (take away) sign. Please have your kiddo work on and act out math subtraction sentences at home together with you too. You can also draw some picture clues to retell a math subtraction sentence too. Our projected math test date is Thursday, January 14 th. We will keep you posted End of Marking Period for Assessments Over the next two weeks, your kiddo will be getting some end of the marking period assessments to see where they are at overall. We will be checking for letter recognition, sounds of the letters, sight words (up to 26 words right now), numbers to 10 and addition and subtraction, printing his/her first name, writing and illustrating a sentence (using correct formation and sight words, spaces, punctuation). We Are Going to miss You! As the marking period is coming to a close this month…we are sad that Miss Jasmine our ETAP student for the AM class) will be leaving us.  We will greatly miss her and wish her the best of luck! Reminders Tuesday, Jan. 12 th ~ NED assembly (see the green form for more information) Wednesday, Jan. 13 th ~ Math homework is due Thursday, Jan. 14 th ~ Tentative math test on Subtraction Monday, Jan. 18 th ~ SCHOOL IS CLOSED The Week of Jan. 19 th -22 nd ~STAR testing for all students in Kdgn Friday, Jan. 22 nd ~ Lead 21 ~ Benchmark 2 Test! Friday,Jan. 29 th ~*Early Dismissal: AM schedule: 8:50-10:50 PM schedule: 11:45-1:45