February Newsletter

Room 4 News
February 2010
Miss Wagenaar

Reminders/Notices:
•I’d like to start by apologizing for the scarcity of February newsletters – with our week long break, the month has flown by. I will do my best to update you here!
•Next week we will be celebrating Dr. Seuss’s birthday (March 2nd). I am looking for parents who might be interested and available to read the students a Dr. Seuss story on Monday or Tuesday. Please email me if you are interested and provide me with a window of availability so that I can try to produce a schedule by Monday. The actual reading should only take about 15 minutes, and I welcome any/all parents who are available. This is an easy way to get involved and your child will love having you read to the class – I guarantee it! (You can bring your favorite book or I will have plenty to choose from)
•Please remember that each day the Ziploc book bag comes home, it should be returned the following day, with books inside.


This Month:
Our Citizenship Award winner this month was Alexis Houle.
Lifelong Learning: This month we focused on Effort, Eric Geiger was recognized on Blue Day for trying his best throughout the month.
Reader’s Workshop: We took a step back this week and really solidified our routines during Reader’s Workshop, while continuing to explore our look books, book boxes, and leveled reading books. Having a conversation at home with your child about what is expected of them during this time would really help. The students are expected to sit in their Quiet Reading Spots and read through the books in their box. They are not supposed to chat with others during this time.
Writer’s Workshop: We have been very active. We learned about writing letters, writing letters to our families that you should’ve received in the mail. Thanks for sending in the addressed and stamped envelopes! Have your child write a letter to someone else and mail it!
100th Day of School: We celebrated the 100th day of school with a gallery walk, 100 glasses/headband, writing 100 things we would eat, drawing 100 tally marks, and jumping 100 times!
Chinese New Year: Students learned about traditional Lunar New Year celebrations. Miss Young taught the children how to paint Chinese characters. Miss Casellini helped children create a festive dragon. With me, the children learned about the Zodiac calendar, and created a kite.
Presidents’ Day: We talked again about holidays, that they are special days when we celebrate important people or things.
Math: We spent some time on measurement using non-standard units which culminated with activities in which students compared length of objects and ordered from smallest to largest. On Valentines, we sorted, recorded, and graphed using Candy Hearts. Have your child teach you the “Who Has More?” game with a deck of cards (pull out all of the face cards first!).
Music: We’ve been meeting with our entire Kindergarten grade level to learn and practice songs for our Kinder Spring Sing (March 30th)
Science: We completed our study of penguins, which the students loved! We also discussed the different seasons of trees and shapes of leaves. Have your child tell you some information that they learned about penguins.

When we return from the break:
*We are beginning a unit of study on writing patterned texts, we began with a lesson on creating a list and will now use that to create patterned books.
*We will continue to learn teen numbers by learning some new math games!
*I will continue to assess and meet with reading groups and provide books at each student’s individual level
*I will do my best to upload photos and videos within the weekend to Picasa. 