Happy April!

Important Kindergarten dates to remember:

*April 20th-Kindergarten music program @ 6:30 p.m. 

(more details in Friday Folder)

*April 27th-Class trip to Rock Bridge High School Planetarium at 9:00 a.m. (students and teachers only)

*April 29th-BEU circus (more details in Friday Folder)

*May 1st-possible Kindergarten field trip (more details later)

*May 4th-Ms. Nemechek's last day

*May 25th-last day of school/early release & short Kindergarten program and picnic lunch with families beginning at 10:00 a.m. (more details in Friday Folder)

A look at our learning...

Fundations: our focus continues to be on digraphs (sh, th, ch, ck, wh).  The kiddos know what sounds these digraphs make in isolation, but many are still having a hard time noticing them in words when reading and making the appropriate sounds or when sounding out words when writing.  For example:  they know that the digraph sh goes sh like ship when seeing it alone, but when they see a word in a book with that digraph (maybe the word is sheep) they still want to make the s sound like snake and h sound like hat rather than blending them together.  Then they can't figure out the word "sheep" because they aren't blending their sounds correctly.  When reading or spelling at home, please work on them becoming more aware of these digraphs.  

Shared Reading: we read the big books Bonkers likes to bark and Do you Play? to help us learn our new word wall words, do and to. 

Next week's spelling words:

*am
*are

Math: we are continuing to work on addition, but now in the form of story problems.  We are learning how to show our thinking with pictures, numbers and words.  Knowing the answer to a math fact is great, but being able to explain and show their thinking is even more important.  In their Friday Folder you will see some of the story problems they have worked on this week. 

Writing: since February we have learned about informational/non-fiction writing.  They have learned all about penguins, caterpillars/monarch butterflies and then whatever topic they chose for their video projects we sent home before spring break.  This week we reviewed all they have learned about informational writing and took their writing assessment on Thursday.  Next week we will begin our third and final writing unit, opinion writing.  

Service Learning Project: this week we we planted milkweed seeds.  We will water and give them sunlight in our classrooms over the next few weeks.  Eventually the kiddos will get to bring them home to plant in their yards.  Milkweed plants are essential for Monarch Butterflies and we hope we can be successful at growing them!  

We are continuing to collect pennies (or any monetary donation) for the Missouri Department of Conservation so keep sending them in!  Thanks to everyone who has donated to our Service Learning Project so far!  

If you would like to further help our project, please check out the link below. 

http://www.signupgenius.com/go/8050f4ca5aa2ca02-help