February Newsletter – Issue 5

News! News! News!

I sent home a Progress Report two weeks ago. Please look over it and work on letters, sounds and sight words that your child has not mastered yet.

A BIG thanks to the parents who are coming in this week to talk to us about their professions and the skills needed to do their jobs! I’m excited to learn more about your jobs as well!

Valentine’s Day is soon approaching. I will be sending out a class list of names on Tuesday. We will have our Valentine’s Day party on Friday, February 12. This will be very low key but very fun! It will mainly be a day where we will put the cards received from our friends in our valentine bags, we’ll have a simple treat and then the kids will get to open their valentines. That’s the best part of it for the children! They love to read the cards. Please remind your child if they choose to bring valentines they need to have one for everyone so no one is left out. Your child may choose to do this one of two ways: write names on each of the cards (as well as their name) OR leave the envelopes blank, only write their own name and just go around the table and put one in each bag. If your child writes everyone’s name and you know that writing can be laboring for your child you might want to have your child do a few each night (7 to 10) and break it up.

Website: Here is a reminder of how to get to my website: Go to www.westada.org, then find the word Schools on the top of the page (there is a dropdown menu) and find our school and click on it. Next click on Teachers/Staff on our page and find my name. I have the volunteer calendar for the month, a specials schedule, the computer/library schedule for the month and my newsletter added -- it’s under the AM and PM sections (click on the plus sign). Many of these things will be added this week (if it’s not already added).

Computer/Library Schdeule for the month of February:

AM2 – Library8 – Computer12 – Library19 – Library25 - Computer

PM4– Library10 – Computer

17 – Computer23 – Library29 - Computer

Please check the volunteer calendar that I e-mailed to you over the weekend and make sure I have you on there correctly.

Book Orders – I do all Book Orders online. If you need a paper copy of this let me know. I won’t be sending this home unless you need it because it’s all on my website.

Next Book Order is due Friday, February 26 th .

What Will We Learn In February?Reading Instruction: We will continue to work on the skills your child needs in order to help them progress in reading (letters, sounds, short vowels, sight words). We are working on pointing to letters or words and actively listening when others are reading as well. We will also continue to sing, read and write our sight words as well as continue to work on phonological awareness (blending and segmenting words, finding the beginning, medial and ending sounds, syllables, rhyming, and changing a sound in one word to make it a different word). During seatwork this month we’ll be focusing on the middle sounds of words and sorting pictures by short vowel sound.

Writing Instruction: Last month we worked hard on handwriting! Please continue to reinforce this skill at home and I will continue to at school as well. We have been working on narrative writing and making a beginning, middle and end to a story. We will continue this into February. This starts with a prewrite (they can draw pictures, words or sentences that will remind them what their stories are about) then they will write out their story in sentences on formal handwriting/picture paper. Then I will type it up and they will illustrate once more and share it with the class. As they finish they will be able to start a new story. I’m letting the children work at their own pace as we work on story writing (could be a true story or a fictional one). I will not type up every story, however, this is something new we just started and I will type up everyone’s first story. I will then have them write a few more and pick one that they would like to have typed. I am starting to have the children become more independent when it comes to sounding out words. In the past, I would often help them sound out, and now when I help them I have the children sound it out and write everything they hear on their own. This will help them become more independent in their writing. When children are not sure if they spelled a word correctly I have them circle it and move on. I can help them with a few of the words later. This allows them to freely sound out words and continue with their story.

I’ve also done a brief introduction to informational writing. I read an nonfiction book about penguins and as a class we discussed the facts as I wrote them on large paper. Then we wrote a topic sentence together and they wrote one or two facts that they liked or remembered. They could use the large paper to help them or write it all by sounding it out. We are going to practice reading these

papers again and learn how to use the ipad to record each other reading it. This paper was a long process over mutiple days. If your child was absent during this time and didn’t have a chance to go through this process I’ll have them read one of the stories they wrote to the ipad instead. I want the children to understand the process of fluently reading what they write as well as having the experience of using the ipad to record someone reading.

Math Instruction: We will continue working on Unit 2 skills during math instruction. We will be focusing on addition and subtraction using contextual story problems. We’ve been learning to add and subtract using a number line and we’ve been learning about place value. Regarding place value, we’ve been building 10 on a ten frame and counting on to a teen number. In February we’ll continue to build on skills that allow them to understand a group of 10 and some more to help solidify the teen numbers (these can be tricky). We’ll also continue to use the number line and build on those skills as well. We’ll continue to count and be working on counting to 100 and recognizing and writing to 20. Next week we’ll be celebrating our 100th day of school!

Our themes for the month are: 100th day of school, Valentine’s Day, American Symbols (this is a 3rd trimester skill and we’ll be doing this towards the end of the month)

Upcoming EventsJanuaryHomework is due – please return it and your child will receive a Pizza Hut coupon. A February homework packet will come home on Monday (February 1).

Dance Assembly by Idaho Fine Arts Academy Dancers at 10:40 – February 1

PTO meeting in library at 4:15 – Tuesday, February 2

Steelheads ticket orders due by 9am – Tuesday, February 9

3rd grade muisc program dress rehearsal (for student body) at 9:35 – Wednesday, February 10

No School on Monday, February 15 th due to President’s Day Jump Rope For Heart – envelopes due Wednesday, February 17 (information came home in an e-mail and on paper from our school last week)

Reading logs (that came home from our librarian) with number of pages recorded are due Friday, February 26 by noon – Reading Bag pages can count!

Book Order – Friday, February 26nd.

How Can I Help My Child?

Continue to have your child do the nightly homework including the reading bags that come home daily. Just a reminder that if your child is bringing home the same book for a couple nights in a row and you know your child can fluently read it, it’s probably because there was not a parent volunteer that day. However, if you ever have questions about this program please ask. I’d be happy to talk to you about it!

When your child is reading books that are coming home in the reading bag have your child glide his/her finger under the sentence and not just point to each word. This helps your child become more fluent and less choppy when reading a sentence.

Continue to have your child stretch out hard words to practice hearing sounds. Your child may not know all the vowel combinations and digraphs yet but the important part is that your child is hearing as many sounds as he/she can at this point.

Also, have your child work on learning to read and write sight words – those are words I do want spelled correctly.

In math have your child count out objects and put them in groups of 10’s and 1’s (for example if you have 17 pennies, have your child make 10 by lining them up in two rows of 5 – similar to a 10 frame – and see how many more are left – have them tell you how many groups of ten and how many left over ones and how many altogether).

Have your child count to 100 and beyond this month.

Thank you for all of your support!

Mrs. Westcott