Weekly Update 9/20

 Important Dates:

9/23-9/27: Book Fair - Have fun ordering books- support our school and your child's reading at the same time

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

10/4: Early Dismissal at 12:30

10/7-11: Fall Break - No School

10/14-10/15: Mandatory Q1 conferences *look for a signup in email 

Check out what we learned this week:

Spalding:

We have learned phonograms 1-26 and practiced writing all upper and lowercase letters (HOORAY!). Please continue to review these formations as your scholar does homework or practices writing at home. We are building our understanding of sounding out words and working towards using our phonograms to read words.                                             

****Homework expectations will change after Fall break****   

Students must complete homework with a parent nightly. Please do not have them independently copy the phonograms. Below are some videos to look at in preparation for the change. 

https://safeshare.tv/x/fEb4UYOtd3s  (Flashcard review- move the cards from back to front so you see the back of the phonogram first and can help if needed. This will also ensure there is only one card facing your child at a time)

https://safeshare.tv/x/K6WAMMv3qeo  (Written phonograms - you say the phonogram sound only. They will repeat the sound and write the phonogram. This is an integral part of learning Spalding, so please do not just copy letters or use the letter names during this practice)

Literature:

We enjoyed reading two books this week. The first was Corduroy, where we read about an adventurous bear who learned what a home and a friend were. We talked about how he saw everything new as something exciting. but found his true happiness with a kind friend. We finished our week by reading the story The Runaway Bunny. We talked about how the mother bunny wants to keep him safe. We also talked about building complete sentences. "Home" by itself only tells us where, and "The bunny will go." only tells us who. If you put Who and Where together, you build a complete sentence. In poetry, we read the poem Jack and Jill. We learned what a well is, discussed what was happening in the poem, and came up with ideas about why it might have happened. In grammar, our full-day students continued to talk about nouns and introduced the concept of plural nouns by adding an 's' to show more than one. 

Math

This week, we continued learning about shapes by discussing flat or 2D shapes. We learned about circles, squares, triangles, rectangles, and hexagons. The students identified these shapes using the vocabulary 'sides' and 'corners.' They counted the number of sides and corners of each shape and recognized the difference between squares and rectangles. We used various items such as play dough, popsicle sticks, and string to try and build these shapes and practice tracing and drawing them on our own. Discuss 3D and 2D shapes and find them around your house to help them practice the correct names. 

History

This week, we began our study on the continent of Europe. The children learned about different flags, languages, and countries. We created a book about the country of England, along with many interesting facts. Many of them already knew that the English call it football instead of soccer. The children enjoyed learning different ways to say common phrases. Instead of saying "Goodbye," they say "Cheerio," and if you're tired, you would say "I'm knackered!". The children are very interested in the differences between cultures. They are excited to learn where each country is on the map. 

Science

We concluded our healthy body lessons by discussing germs and visiting the dentist. We did some fun experiments to see how germs can quickly spread using glitter. The students were surprised to see how easily "germs" were left behind and even learned why it is so important to scrub our hands with soap to get rid of germs.