First 5 Day Week

 We did it!  We survived our first 5 day week of in-seat school! Yay!  Next week, the students will be able to each lunch in the cafeteria (K-1 begins the phase in on Thursday and other grades will follow in the days after) and utilizing the entire playground, rather than having zones, beginning on Monday!  Such great news and a small glimpse of life slowly, hopefully returning to normal. 

A look at our learning...

Fundations: we continue to work on tapping out words when reading and writing.  We are also focusing on digraphs in words.  Digraphs are two letters that make one sound.  We focus on the following in Kindergarten: wh, th, ch, sh, ck.

Please check your child's take home folder for a poster of these digraphs and trick words for you to cut out and use as flash cards at home. 

Speaking of flash cards.  I am SUPER impressed with the kiddos and their spelling words and spelling tests the last few weeks!  Almost everyone has been getting 10/10 for weeks now!  However. I am noticing that while they can write the words with ease, they don't always seem to know them "quick and fast" when having to read them in books or in isolation.  I'm sure most of you practice spelling words at home with good ol' pencil and paper.  You say a word and have them write it down.  That's super, keep doing that!  They need it!  However, they also need practice reading them.  I highly, HIGHLY recommend making flash cards of our word wall words and practicing those nightly as well.  Each week, add new flash cards for the new words.  It's easy to make it a nightly routine.  You can make it an expectation before bedtime or in the car while driving somewhere or at the dinner table, wherever!  It could even be part of their 15 minutes of nightly reading homework!  Basically, if they can spell it, they should also be able to read it and that hasn't been the case.  

Next week's spelling words:

be

up

Writing Workshop: we got outside as much as we could this week and spent several days writing outside in the outdoor classroom!  This week we finished up narrative writing (stories about our lives) and will learn about opinion writing next week.  We will work on opinion writing for the next month or so. 

Math: we reviewed 2-D shapes and spent most of the week learning about addition.  We learned about the plus and equals sign, writing simple addition sentences, solving simple addition sentences, using the terms addition, adding, plus, add, equals, sum and explored math games on the Connect Ed app on our ipads that work on addition.  Ask your child to show you the Every Day math games they played in Connect Ed at home!  

Science: this week, CPS Kindergarteners did a week of health and safety lessons.  We learned about our 5 senses and went on a 5 senses nature walk, the 5 food groups, germs and rules/how to stay safe.  We will finish up next week with some dental health lessons and every student will come home with a dental health care package from Delta Dental.

Library: we were able to visit the library this week and they were able to pick out their own books!  We will visit every other Tuesday.  They can keep their books the entire 2 weeks or you can continue to put books on hold from your iPad and they can return and check out books that way as often as they please!  They were SO EXCITED to visit the library! Another sign of "normal!" 

School Fundraiser: today the grade level winners who sold the most Shakespeare's Pizza during our school fundraiser awhile back were able to cash in on their "pie in the face" award!  There was one winner from each grade level and the entire school watched while it was filmed on Zoom.  Mr. Heidlage, Mr. Woods, Mrs. Rogers and Mrs. Pennington were the lucky recipients of a pie in the face!

Thanks to all who sold pizzas for our school!

Fun from our week!