Weekly Update 4/17

  Upcoming Q4: 

May 9th: Field Trip to Phoenix Children's Museum

May 20, 21, 22  - Early release at 12:30

May 21st: Kindergarten promotion 

         **Doors open @ 10:30, ceremony starts @11:00 am, all classes together**

Spalding:

Continue to review all 70 phonograms and are always changing the order. Review the ones they know, especially the ones your child needs to practice. Encourage them to find the phonograms in the books they read and to use their phonograms to write a sentence. Writing squiggle stories is a great way to practice sounding out. We talk about writing 1 sentence at a time. Remember: Start with a capital, use spaces, sound things out, finish with punctuation, and read it back to double-check. Creating a checklist is also helpful for them to begin checking their work. 

Literature:

This week, we read Little Bear's Visit and really enjoyed getting to know the characters and their adventures. We followed Little Bear as he spent time with his grandparents, listening to their stories and sharing special moments together. As we read, we talked about the setting, the characters, and the lessons Little Bear learned during his visit. We practiced reading aloud, making predictions, and thinking about how the story made us feel. Everyone loved the warm and cozy feeling of the story, and it helped us think about the importance of family and spending time with the people we love.

Math:

We just finished our unit on coins and money, and it was both fun and educational! Throughout the lessons, we learned how to identify different coins like pennies, nickels, dimes, and quarters, and we practiced adding them together to find out how much money we had. We also explored making change and solve real-world problems using coins and bills. At the end of the week we began our unit of addition and subtraction math stories but should keep practicing our math facts. 

History:

We continued our tour through Asia by learning about the countries of India and South Korea. The children loved learning about the art of Rangoli that is made with sand, and only lasts until it is swept away. We also learned that 1 billion people live in the country of India, and that it is home to 1,000 different languages. The children watched a fan dance from Korea and enjoyed making their ow fans. We've had so much fun visiting these countries and look forward to where we will travel next!

Science:

We spent time discussing weather words such as hot, cold, warm, cool and how they feel and differ. We used our science words of "I notice", "I wonder" and "It makes me think of" to discuss pictures and predict what the weather might be. We also discussed why the weather is different in the morning verses the afternoon and evening. This week we recorded temperatures using our classroom thermometer!