Learning & Growing This Week

A look at our learning...

Fundations: we continue to work on tapping out three-letter words when reading and writing. We are also learning about the “bossy” (or silent) e that appears at the end of some words. Students are learning that the bossy e tells the first vowel in the word to say its name. Words such as cape, made, and like have a bossy e. The students thought this was a pretty cool concept to learn—and found calling it the “bossy e” especially funny! 😊

Shared Reading & Spelling: this week, we read two nonfiction Big Books—Taking Care of Chase and The New Forest Path. Both books sparked great conversations as students were able to make personal connections to the texts. Having discussions about books and making connections is an important reading skill that helps deepen comprehension.

Next week's spelling words:

dad

had

Writing Workshop: Since returning from winter break, we have transitioned to new writing paper with more lines to encourage students to add more details to their writing. Our lessons have focused on how to stretch our ideas and include more information in our stories. As part of this work, we are learning about a writing resource called the Story Hand.

Here is a quick explanation of the Story Hand:

1. Heart – Choose a topic that is close to your heart (it’s easier to add details when you care about the topic).

2. Characters (girl and pig) – Tell who is in your story.

3. Setting (barn) – Tell where your story takes place.
   Example: “I went to Target with my mom.”
   This sentence includes both who is in the story and where it took place.

4. 3 Details (1, 2, 3) – Move beyond one sentence by adding details.
   Example: “I went to Target with my mom. I got a new Lego set, my mom bought food, and we got hot chocolate.”

Adding more detail is a skill that takes time, and we will continue working on this throughout the year. 

Math: This week, we continued working on writing numbers and placing numbers in numerical order, but not always starting at 1. This helps build flexibility in math and strengthens students’ number sense, or their understanding of how numbers work and relate to one another. We’ve also been practicing identifying numbers that come before and after a given number.

In addition, students are working on simple addition within 10. One important strategy we are learning is how to hold a number in their head and count on. For example, students play a game using one numeral die and one dot die. They hold the numeral in their head and then count up the dots to find the total. These activities help students move beyond counting everything from the beginning and develop stronger, more efficient math strategies.

Please refer to the family math worksheets in their Friday Folder to help extend their learning at home.  

Lunch with the principal:  yay Madisyn!  She was chosen to have Lunch with the principal on Monday!  She enjoyed a special lunch with Mrs. Isenogle and these kindergarten friends.  

Social Studies:  we learned about Martin Luther King Jr., why he is important, and his special holiday on Monday. We had many meaningful lessons about kindness, equality, friendship, and love—and how we, no matter how small, can make a difference in our world. Your child has a poem and craft coming home in their folder today.  

A reminder that school is not in session on Monday in observances of Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. 

A few reminders from The Timberwolf Times

More fun from our week...

Listening to Eric Litwin, the author of the Pete the Cat books, tell us about how he became an author and his books.  This is called a Book Break and it's similar to a Zoom because it's live and students can ask him (or other featured, famous authors) questions!

One of my former kindergarteners, now in 3rd grade, used her Dojo points to come read to our class!  We enjoyed listening to her read an Elephant and Piggie book.

And a couple more cute photos