Weekly Update 8/16

 Thank you to all the families who joined us last night for Curriculum Night! It was great to see your faces and share how we want to partner with you this year for your scholar's learning. For those who couldn't join us, we sent the PowerPoint in an email for you to read over. Please reach out if you have questions. 

Upcoming Dates:

8/20: Picture Day 

8/22: 3-5 Curriculum Night 6-7:30 pm

8/30: Treat Friday (popsicles for $1), August Birthday Book Club

8/26-8/28: Vision and Hearing screenings with our nurses. 

9/2: No School - Labor Day

9/20: Early Dismissal at 12:30

9/27: Spirit Wear, Treat Friday (popsicles for $1), September Birthday Book Club

9/26: Literacy Night - Come have a fun night at school and celebrate reading

10/4: Early Dismissal at 12:30

10/7-10/11: No School - Fall Break

This week 

Spalding

The scholars continued learning about clock letters this week. We focus on always starting at 2 on the clock and drawing the "circle" part of the letter first. We have a 'how to" page coming home with homework on Monday. This week we learned the phonograms f, g, s, and qu. It may seem tedious to the students to write a specific way but it will pay off later! Homework starts next week with practicing writing our letters. Please have them say the sounds as they write each letter to help them practice. 

Please purchase phonogram cards 1 per family if you do not have them yet. They will be a part of daily homework. 

Literature

This week the scholars enjoyed three new stories. The first story was Chester's Way which helped us to learn and talk more about friendship and how we are all different. We also read The Little Red Hen. We talked about perseverance and how she wanted her friends to understand she needed their help. We finished the week by reading the story Are You My Mother? where a little bird went around trying to find his mother. Finally, someone at the end of the story helps him get back to his nest. Our weekly poem was Baa, Baa Black Sheep. It was fun to talk about what wool is and why they were giving it away.  In Grammar, our full-day students are practicing talking about remembering and retelling the stories we have read. Please ask questions to practice remembering as you read together at home. 

Math

We officially started using our math workbook and the students were so excited. We have also used this opportunity to try and speak to them about keeping an organized desk since we now have so many items in there! This week we focused on the numbers 0-5. We used many kinds of manipulatives to show different ways to count the numbers. We also spent time identifying the numbers and matching pictures to the correct numbers.

History

This week in history we continued our focus on maps. The children learned about the importance of directions and taking things one step at a time. We also discussed how left and right can change depending on where a person is standing, but North, South, East, and West are always the same no matter which way we face. The children made a map key using different symbols for all aspects of a landscape including Mountains, Rivers, Forests, and Lakes.

Science

We continued learning about our 5 senses. We reviewed what sight means. We also discussed what it is like to go to the eye doctor and looked at an eye chart they might use. The students enjoyed talking about what was easy and hard to see. We saw an example of a blurry and clear picture and spoke about how glasses help some people's eyes. We finished talking about sight by learning about the inventor Benjamin Franklin who invented many things, including bifocals.