Week of February 5-9

Hi Families,

Well, it's February! The groundhog DID see his shadow, so I guess we have 6 more weeks of winter. Our class also voted on which country we'd like to keep track of during the Winter Olympics. France won! So if your child has a special interest in how France is doing during the Olympics, that might be why. :) 

Enrollment for the 2018-2019 school year is underway and we have a few spots available in Kindergarten! We find that word of mouth is the best way to market our school.

If you have friends or family with upcoming Kindergarten-aged students, please share what you love about our school! We will be having an open house to see Kindergarten in action on Thursday, February 8th from 8:15-9:00 or 2:15-3:00. Feel free to invite any families that have expressed interest in our school.  

As always, families can also call Mrs. Frischmann at 766-6116 to set up individual tours. 

Reminders/Updates

• As a flu bug has been going around, please remind your child to be washing their hands and coughing into their arm. If you are willing to donate some disinfecting wipes to our classroom, we would greatly appreciate it as we go through a lot during this season!
• When you finish going over your child's Unit 3 Math test, please send them back in so we can put the test in their portfolios. 
• Also, return the Field Trip forms for Beauty and the Beast
• Report cards and MAP test scores went home this week. If you haven't seen them, check your child's backpack or let me know if you can't find them!
• Students will be having a reading celebration next Friday. Please bring in your item, if you signed up for one, on Friday!

Upcoming Events

February 9: Reading Celebration
February 14: Wear Pink/Red
February 16: Funky Friday Wear
February 22: NO SCHOOL
February 23: NO SCHOOL
February 27: Family Night: Music and Munchies
March 2: Dress Like Your Favorite Book Character

Curriculum Update

Math: This week we started our unit on fractions! We learned about unit fractions (just one equal sized-part of the whole, for example 1/4 or 1/6) and putting fractions on a number line so students understand that fractions ARE numbers! Next week, we'll continue locating fractions on a number line and compare fractions to help students understand the size of fractions. Feel free to continue these conversations at home! Students are learning what fractions are and what they are not. See if you can find fractions at home! Some examples might include:

• the third quarter (3/4) of the Super Bowl
• A fraction of their dresser drawers that are open
• How many slices of pizza dad ate as a fraction of the whole pizza
• A row of brownies as a fraction of the whole pan
• A fraction of the fruit snacks in the bag that are red

Writing: Our essayists have been busy improving their literary essays by adding introductions, conclusions, and topic sentences. We started our final essay of this unit: students get to choose an essay to write (character trait, character relationship, character change, or compare/contrast) and they'll be using all that they learned to make it their best essay yet! In fact, these essays will be going in our hallway so we want to show off all that we know. :) If students want to, they are more than welcome to continue publishing their pieces at home!

Word Study: We've been working on words with a v-e (vowel-consonant-silent e) syllable and exceptions to this rule (like GIVE or OLIVE). Next week, we'll finish up Unit 6 and take the test in the middle of the week. You can practice the trick words at home with your child (only, house, move, right place, together) or practice breaking words apart into syllables (thank-ful, vow-el, in-vite) to prepare for the test! 

Reading: This past week in Reading we finished the book Because of Winn Dixie and WOW did the students blow me away with their insights! The lessons they came up with were so profound I was SO impressed! We also started reading another book called, Make Way for Diamonde Daniel. We began comparing and contrasting the characters across these books. Students are even trying to do it within their own books. This coming week we will finish up this unit! We will continue to compare and contrast different story elements across books. We will look at how the main characters react to their problems and we will compare the lessons the main characters learn in books. We will also end the week with a post-assessment AND our celebration of all of the student's hard work! If you signed up to bring something in for the party, please send it with your child by this Friday.

Content: This week we read and annotated an article on a female drag racer. We were also able to Video Chat with a pit crew member on Friday! We took a virtual field trip to see what an Indy 500 car looks like! We asked questions like what how fast he can put on a tire and why he likes to do his job. Check out Seesaw for a video or click here to see some more pictures. Next week, we'll set up a falling weight system to move our model vehicles and investigate how carrying a load on their vehicle affects the time and speed. We'll be reading about lunar rovers to prepare us for our final design challenge: building our own lunar rovers!

Know that you can always contact me with any questions or concerns. Have a wonderful weekend!

Best,

Jenny