Field trip permission forms were sent home last week. Signed forms and fees are due on the date shown on the form. (I left my form at school, so I don't have the dates in front of me right now.)
Art Awareness:
Are you a volunteer for Art Awareness this year. If so, please send me an email so I can put you on the calendar for March or April.
This program introduces pieces of art to each classroom with information, prints and supplies provided by the PTA. Presentations are made by volunteers four times a year in grades 1-5, and 3 times per year in the Kindergarten classrooms. These presentations include a history of the artist and their work, a discussion of the techniques and tools used by the artist, and unique features of the print being presented.
Citizenship:
Focus: Kindness
During the past two weeks, we have been discussing how to treat others with kindness. Students have been learning about respecting the feelings of others and thinking of others first. We have also been reviewing the Stop-Walk-Talk component of our Bully Prevention Program. If you would like to revisit this with your child at home, please refer to the Bully Prevention Link at the top, left side of this blog.
Reading:
Banner Days - Theme 1: Imagine That!
Your child is reading The Emperor’s Egg, by Martin Jenkins. This nonfiction story is set on the continent of Antarctica and tells about how the male Emperor penguin takes care of his egg. The father penguin must protect the egg for two months until it hatches. During that time, the father cannot leave the egg, not even to eat. After the egg hatches, the father keeps the chick warm and fed until the mother penguin returns to take over.
Please encourage your child to read The Emperor’s Egg over the weekend. Vocabulary Power precedes the story.
Focus Skill: Fact and Fiction
Vocabulary Power:
flippers-small fins used like hands or feet
hatch-to break out of an egg
miserable-very unhappy
slippery-not sticky, causing sliding
waddled-moved in a funny way, like a duck; horizon-where
the sky seems to meet the earth
School-Home Connection:
The Next Step – This story discusses the responsibilities of the mother and father penguins. Discuss with your child what a responsibility is. Find some small jobs around the house that your child could be responsible for completing. Keep a chart of when each job has been done so that your child can see his or her progress.
Math:
This week we began Unit 8: Fractions. This unit emphasizes fractions of regions and collections of objects, as well as relationships between fractions. While the focus of the unit is on fraction notation and equivalencies, multiplication and division concepts are touched upon.
Focus Skills:
- Review basic fraction concepts,
- Use fractions to name parts of a whole and of a collection
- Find pairs of equivalent fractions
- Solve number stories involving fractions
Fraction links are posted in the right hand column of this blog. >
Spelling:
Spelling Tic-Tac-Toe homework was sent home on Friday. Due to the short week ahead we will not have the spelling assessment until Thursday, March 3rd. Wow! Did I just say that?? Is it MARCH already...where is the year going? ;)
