It's the end of May....already?

I don't know about you, but I feel like these past few months have flown by!

Homework This Week
Due to the holiday weekend, there is no homework this week:-)

Kindergarten Celebration
Save the date...Thursday June 27th @ 1:00 2:00pm. More details to come soon. Please note, this will be a celebration and not a graduation (no caps and gowns).

End The Year Data
As the end of the year approaches, myself and Ms. Gardner will be collecting data on the kiddos that include running records (reading levels), sight word mastery, and math skill mastery.
Yesterday, I had the opportunity to begin running records with the kiddos and I cannot tell you how amazing it is to hear the kiddos reading and using their strategies....using sight words, sounding out words, using the pictures, chunking words, skipping unknown words and coming back to them later. Music to my ears......

Specials This Week and Next
Thursday: Music
Friday: Curriculum Focus

Next week-
Monday: Media/Technology
Tuesday: PE1
Wednesday:PE2
Thursday: Art
Friday: Music

Reading, Writing, And Arithmetic
In reading, we continue to work on using the above strategies to read on grade level books. In addition, we continue to work on retelling these stories character, setting, problem/solution (for fiction texts) and main idea/details, facts you have learned (for non-fiction texts). This is especially important because your child's comprehension becomes a determining factor of your child as the move up in their reading levels.  Reading at home and talking about what you read is a perfect opportunity to practice this skill.
We have finished up our 'small moments' in writing, and are moving onto investigating how an author makes their writing more interesting (author's craft).
In math, we are finishing up our unit on representing/solving and creating equations for addition/subtraction stories and will move onto measurement later next week.

On a Personal Note
I want to take a moment and thank you for letting me be apart of your child's life this year. My Dad used to say to me that children are like flowers. You give them water, sunshine, a little fertilizer and then you have to stand back and watch them bloom. And although they are not 'my kids', getting to be a 'drop of that water' in their lives and watching them bloom over these past few months has been an honor. I will miss their smiles, hugs, and excitement for learning. However, I know they are prepared and ready for first grade. And I have no doubt they will continue to grow and reveal the beauty that makes them one of a kind.

What a way to make a teacher feel appreciated!

Thank you so much for all the goodies this week. Between the cards, flowers, and goodies, I can you tell you that you all definitely know how to make a teacher feel appreciated:-)

Literacy
Writing: In writing, we continued to write about small moments. The kids wrote about a time they got hurt focusing on how they felt, what they said, and their actions. Even more, we worked on adding sentences that showed how our feeling changed from the beginning of our story, to the end.

Weekly Sight Words: what, that
These words join our other sight words from the quarter "in", "some", "your", "where". Make sure to ask your child to show you the gestures for these sight words.

Reading: We reviewed the word families -ip, -ot, and -ug that we have worked on in the past. Word families are important in that the more word families they know, the more words they can decode. Words from these word families will be going home in your child's homework this week to practice.
As always, the kids continue to make growth individually during guided reading. This week, we adding the strategy of "chunking" to determine unknown words. For example, the word "jumping", the kids would chunk the work they know 'jump' to help them figure out the word.

Math:
We continue to work on representing/solving "plus/take away stories". It is important that the kids be able to share not just the solution, but how they know how to solve it. For example, "How did you know that was a plus story? How do you know that 4 and 5 are the partners in the equation?" Research has shown that "math talk" is just as important to cementing student understanding of math concepts as being able to find the solution. 

Special Schedule for 5/13-5/17
Monday: Music
Tuesday: Curriculum Focus
Wednesday: Technology
Thursday: PE 1
Friday: PE 2

Please take a look at the important dates for May/June, as there are a lot of fun things coming up:-)

Helpful tidbits for the week...

Language Arts
Phonics- we have introduced the "-ug" word family (rug, bug, tug, lug, hug, mug, etc..) . We continue to tap and drag out words to help us figure out unknown words.
Sight words- your, where, some, in (ask them to show you the gestures for the sight words)
Writing- We are making our way back to writing 'small moments'. That is, sharing moments and/or events in our lives.  When we focused on this in the beginning fo the year, our focus was on being able to draw a picture that had details and maybe some labeling of the picture, or a perhaps even a sentence. Now, our focus is on being able to use/show talking, feelings, and actions in our pictures and our sentences. We started our first small moment stories today and they are soooo excited!

Math
We continue to work on representing and solving math stories using our strategies (ask your child what they are!), as well as writing an equation for each math story.

Early Release
Friday, May 10th @ 1:15

Specials for this week 4/29-5/3
Monday: Technology
Tuesday: PE
Wednesday: PE
Thursday: Art
Friday:  Music

Specials Schedule for next week 5/6-5/10
Monday: Curriculumn focus
Tuesday: Technology
Wednesday: PE
Thursday: PE
Friday:  Art