A look at our learning...
Fundations: tapping, tapping and more tapping! Such an important Kindergarten skill. We also have several new literacy workstations that focus on tapping out CVC (consonant, vowel, consonant) words to reinforce our learning from Fundations. Ask your child about these workstations!
I encourage you to use the parent packets that come home every Friday if you don't already. Have your child tap out and write the words so you can see their tapping/spelling ability. When your child asks you "how do you spell...?" don't tell them! Remind them to "tap it out." Phonetic spelling is developmentally appropriate at this stage in their education career.
Shared Reading: this week the students especially loved a silly poem called Have you ever seen a sheep in a jeep? Ask them to sing it for you! This poem featured our new spelling word have and helped us work on identifying rhyme.
Next week's new spelling words
of
we
Writing Workshop: we have begun our opinion writing unit and it is always a fun one! We have discussed the difference between a fact and opinion. We read a cute story called Not Norman: A Goldfish Story and shared our opinions about what pet we think is the best and why. We also read the fun book Duck! Rabbit! and shared our opinions telling if we thought the main character was a duck or a rabbit. They brought home a cute project based on this earlier in the week. We ended the week by reading the book I wanna Iguana about a little boy writing letters back and forth to his mom stating his opinion on why he needs a pet iguana. They are working on writing YOU a letter about a pet they would like to have at home. Stay tuned!
Math: they did some incredible problem solving this week. I posed this question: "I was having a party. I put 4 chairs at the table for my party. The doorbell rang and there were 7 friends at the door. Do I have enough chairs for the party?" They had to answer yes or no and then show their answer through pictures, numbers and words. We really worked on showing the whole story, rather than just the answer. We want to see their thinking as well as the answer. Throughout the week I posed several problems just like this for them to solve and show their work. I encourage you to do these same kind of problems at home.
We also worked on teen numbers and math problems using the + and = symbols.
During trimester 3, it is also important that you work on any of the skills they have not yet mastered from trimester 2, as marked on the Trimester Skills Report I gave you at parent-teacher conferences this week.
Counselor: this week the students took the NNAT3 assessment during counselor time. This is an online assessment to determine if they qualify for the gifted program or the next round of testing for the gifted program. If your student qualifies, you will be notified by someone from the Gifted Education office later this Spring/Summer.
Outstanding Elementary Educator of the Year, Grades Pre-K-2 - Mrs. Sarah Croom
Outstanding Elementary Educator of the Year, Grades 3-5 - Ms. Aimee Cohen
Outstanding Educator in a Specialized Area - Dr. Katie Alls
Outstanding First Year Educator - Mr. Cameron Dunn
We would love to provide as many letters of support as possible for our BEU nominees! Our staff will submit letters in support of our nominees and we invite you to do the same. If you would like to write a letter for one of our four nominees please include the following things:
1. Name of nominee
2. State the reasons why you believe the nominee is worthy of this award. Your letter should outline specific examples of how the teacher has made a difference in your child's life and why you believe they deserve this honor.
Please submit your nomination letter to Beulah Ralph Elementary by Monday, March 3rd. Thank you for your support in recognizing the incredible efforts of our teachers!
