January 27, 2017

Hi Fish Families!

Field Trip permission forms were sent home today for our next trip to the Music Hall. We are asking for the slips and payment to be returned a little earlier than usual to make things easier on our amazing office staff. We can bring 5 parents with us. I'd like to open it up to parents who haven't been on a field trip with us yet, first. Please let me know if you are interested in attending. The cost for parents is $6, as well. 

Readers' Workshop: We are tackling more challenging books in the fish class! Our books have more words and more lines. The children learned how to stack their books from easiest to hardest and read them in that order. This method helps them warm up and work up to the trickier books. We are building persistence! The children are also using patterns to read almost every page. Our patterns are getting more complex and the children are figuring them out and using them to read. 

Writers' Workshop: As writers, we are working on telling who is in our story. We tell where the story takes place and tell what is happening. I am loving the skiing, skating and shopping stories the children are writing! 

Math Workshop:  We continue to play games reviewing skills taught so far this year. 

Visual Arts: The children drew winter animals to go along with The Mitten. We also made melting snowmen and have been enjoying playing with the new playdough that was sent in. Thank you!


Up-Coming Events:

Word of the Week- do
Handwriting- u and i
Phonics-w and h
Progress Reports Go Home- Friday, 2/3 
Valentines due- Friday, 2/3
Early Release- Wednesday, 2/15

Donation Requests:

• Tissues
• Ziploc bags
• Foam soap

Fondly, 

Kristen

January 20, 2017

Hi!

Just a quick post for you this week.

Up-Coming Events:

Handwriting- d and g
Word of Week- like
Phonics-i
2/15/17 Early Release
2/27-3/3 Vacation Week

Some Books We Read:  The Mitten, Hello Snow, A Silly Snowy Day, Penguins to the Rescue, One Winter's Night

Have a great weekend!
Kristen

January 13, 2017

Greetings Fish Families!

We have had a busy week of assessments, learning and creativity. We have also spent some time reviewing classroom rules and expectations. Generally speaking, the children have struggled with behaving in an expected way. I am confident that the 3 day weekend will give them the break they need to come back Tuesday ready to learn.

Visual Arts: We made Model Magic snow people and painted snow kids. The children made peace signs in celebration of Monday's holiday.

Some Books We Read: My Brother Martin, Martin's Big Words, The Biggest Snowball Ever!, The Fiddler of the Northern Lights, The Snowy Day

Up-Coming Events:

Word of the Week- can
Handwriting- t and a
Phonics-j
Progress Reports Go Home- Friday, 2/3
Early Release- Wednesday, 2/15

Donation Requests:

• Double batch of playdough- please email me if you are interested in making some for us!
• Colored toothpicks
• Tissues
• Foam soap

Have a great long weekend and go Patriots!

Kristen

1/6/17

Hello Fish Families.

Here's a glimpse into our week in the Fish classroom:

Visual Arts: The children have been busy making winter kids to decorate our bulletin board. 

Readers' Workshop:  We will be wrapping up Unit 2 "Super Powers" next week. Our readers are working on reading and thinking about what it says as they read. It is important that they understand what they are reading and go back to fix it if they don't. They learned about their book talk power this week. I modeled introducing a book and the children practiced it in partnerships. They also know that they can retell books after reading them. We will continue to practice and build upon these skills during our next unit, "Bigger Books, Bigger Reading Muscles."

Writers' Workshop: We are working on narratives again. The children are moving away from list books back to writing true stories about their lives. This week we focused on the importance of other people being able to read our writing. If we can't read what we wrote, how can someone else? The first thing the children decided was important was spacing between words. Ask you child about the new tool they added to their writing folders to help with remembering spaces. 

Literacy: We spent some center time this week matching objects by beginning sound and reading small (CVC) words. We also are assessing spelling to re-work our word groups for the next part of our school year together. 

Math Workshop: We are almost done Unit 4 in math. We will be working on end-of-unit assessments next week. Those will be coming home by Friday, 1/13. We will also be doing mid-year math assessments. Many of these results are reported to you on progress reports (which go home around the end of January/beginning of February.)

Books We Have Read: Gingerbread Friends , Ten on the Sled, The Mitten Tree, Bear Snores On

Up-Coming Events:

• Handwriting- v and w
• Word of the Week- to
• Phonics-ch 
• No School- Monday, 1/16/17

Have a great weekend.

Kristen