Greetings Fish Families! 

Your children were AMAZING this week. On Wednesday, Mrs. Quinn, Mrs. Kondrat & I were all home sick or with sick children and the fish class rose to the occasion. I got rave reviews from their guest teachers and our SMS colleagues. 

I hope you enjoyed listening to your reader celebrate the work s/he did in their "just right" books last week. Isn't it amazing to see the growth? These will be a regular part of the homework routines moving forward. We will be adding a comprehension portion this spring. 

Readers' Workshop: We wrapped up our focus on how to be a partner when reading, thinking, and talking about books. After vacation we will begin a unit on non-fiction reading. 

Writers' Workshop: We published our favorite list books this week. The children edited for ending punctuation, use of sight words, detailed pictures and having a cover. They broke up into small groups, read their books aloud and provide one another with feedback. It  was wonderful to hear their meaningful compliments! We will begin a non-fiction "How-To" unit after break.

Words Their Way: We continue to do our word sorts.

Math Workshop: We have been working on teen numbers. The children worked in pairs to show teen numbers as ten fingers plus the "extra". We also continue to practice subitizing using ten frames. We are also working word problems and learned about the plus and equal symbol. After vacation, we will be adding to our math homework. We will begin practicing our math facts through 5.  A letter and materials will be sent home after vacation. Be on the look out!

Up-coming events:

• Word of the Week- me
• Handwriting-k & y
• Lively Letters- e
• School District Meeting- 3/6 at 7:00 pm *The PTO will be showing a movie starting at 6:30 and babysitting will be provided by the Stratham Teachers' Association
• Teacher Workshop Day NO SCHOOL- 3/13
• Field Trip- 4/2

Have a safe and wonderful vacation week!
Kristen

2/13/15

Happy Valentine's Day!

We celebrated today with lots of fun, love-themed activities! The children came back from the maker space super enthusiastic about something Mr. G demonstrated. Be sure to ask your child all about it! They also used a typing app to practice keyboarding skills.

Up-coming events:

• Word of the Week- do
• Handwriting-e &l
• Lively Letters- x & y
• February Break- 2/23-2/27
• Teacher Workshop Day NO SCHOOL- 3/13

Have a great weekend. Hopefully we won't get too much snow with this storm!
Kristen

100th Day!

We have had a busy 100th day of school today!  The fish were celebrating this BIG number by doing lots of activities. During math workshop we worked on filling out a 100 chart, we did a 1-100 dot-to-dot, and stamped 100 times.

During music and movement we did 10 different movements 10 times each. Be sure to ask your child some of the movements they chose.

We also wrote a class book entitled What My Mother Has Told Me 100 Times. I plan to send it home as the next "Fish of the Day" book. It is super cute! We are also working on a 100 piece puzzle and go to use the GOLDEN 100 Cuisenaire rod for the first time.

I have put pictures of our 100 day projects in FLICKR. We are in the process of re-scheduling our kindergarten can count. Thank you for your donations! I will keep you updated on that.

Have a good night!
Kristen