Week 16:11/25-11/26

Hello KC Families, 

This week is short and sweet before we head off to celebrate Thanksgiving with our families. There will only be one page of homework due back on Tuesday. Tomorrow during our Thanksgiving Feast half-day students are invited to stay the full day, with dismissal at 2:45. 

Here's a look at our short week:

Spalding:  This week we will review all phonograms we have learned so far and take a look back at our spelling words from last week.  

Sight Words: We will review all sight words we have learned so far. We have taught up to list 5 so far. 

Literature: This week will learn two poems, Georige Pordgie and Little Jack Horner. We will also read "Turkey Trouble," and students will discuss the problem and solution of the story.

Math: We will discuss equal sets (for example: cups and straws).  Students will be asked to match things that go together.  There will be one page of homework on the back of the color 

by sight word page.

 History: We will wrap up our unit on exploring and moving to America by learning more about the First Thanksgiving. Students will participate in their classroom Thanksgiving celebration.

Thank you for everyone's support during our winter concert, it was a wonderful success!

To prep students for the concert and how to listen well while others are performing each student got to play a little bit on Ms. Weddle's keyboard, how fun!

And last but not least after reading the Gingerbread Man we went on a hunt around school following clues to find him!

Week 15: 11/18-11/22

Greetings Families, 

This weekend flew by, phew!

 Here's a quick concert reminder from Ms. Weddle:

"Our Winter Concert THIS WEDNESDAY, November 20th! It will be at Higley Center for the Performing Arts: 4132 E Pecos Rd, Gilbert, AZ 85295. Please have your kindergartners at Higley Center for the Performing Arts by 4:45pm and 1st and 2nd graders there at 5:00pm.

Students’ attire for our performances is NOT school uniform. Gentlemen are expected to wear a plain white dress shirt, black pants, black socks and black closed toed shoes. Solid dark colored vests and ties are optional for gentlemen. Ladies are expected to wear a white top, black skirt, black tights and black closed toed shoes."

Here's what we have coming up this week:

Spalding: This week we will learn 4 new phonograms ng, ea and the partner phonograms aw/au (cue: not used). 

We will also learn our first five spelling words: 

Me, do, go, and, at.  

Sight Words: This week we will review list 5.

Literature: This week we will read "The Gingerbread Man.”  We will explore different versions and in the afternoon we will even go on a hunt to catch the Gingerbread Man. The poem will be, "Three Blind Mice. Please continue to send your child’s book bag daily with their sight word lists inside. Students should be be reading their assigned book to you each night and reviewing their sight words. Thank you for your continued support!

Math:This week we will explore weight and capacity.  We will introduce students to how to use a balance.  Students will decide which object weighs more. Students will work with different size containers and decide which container can hold more.  There will be an assessment on weight and capacity on Friday.

History: We will continue learning all about Christopher Columbus and his voyages to the New Land. Students will be able to name his ships and where they landed. We will then continue to explore how more and more colonies from Europe settled in the new land as the years passed. They will learn about the voyage of the Mayflower and all about the Pilgrims who journeyed with it. Students will become familiar with the Wampanoag tribe and how they helped the Pilgrims and celebrated the First Thanksgiving in America.

This week was so busy I forgot to snap picutres, but here are the few I have. We have been studying measurement in math and we used marshmallows as our tools. 

Week 14: 11/11-11/15

Happy (almost) three day weekend to you! Harper has her first dance class this weekend so we have been prepping all week, wish us luck! 

Thank you for taking the time to fill out our latest homework survey. We value your opinions and appreciate all the feedback. We met as a team to discuss the results and although there will be no major changes at this time we will consider your feedback as we progress through the school year. 

Congratulations to our October virtue award winner, Jed. Way to be a model of honesty to your peers!

Here's a look at how we will spend our week when we come back on to school on Tuesday:

Spalding: Last week we learned the Er’s (er, ir, ur, wor, ear). In order to tell these phonograms apart we use our cues and this sentence “Her first nurse works early.” We will spend this week reviewing the er’s.

Sight Words: We will introduce list 5, that brings us to 50 sight words!  The words are: an, each, which, she, do, how, there, if, use, their

Literature: We will explore King Midas and the Golden Touch in Literature this week.  We will read the story and discuss the characters, setting, and plot.  It’s a good idea to ask these questions of your child while reading their books at home, too.  We will discuss the consequences of being greedy by comparing King Midas and the book “The Magic Fish.” Old King Cole will be our poem.

Math:We will continue our unit on size.  We will be measuring items, using vocabulary like “bigger, smaller, longer, shorter”.  On Friday, we will have an assessment on length and size.

History: This week we will introduce the kiddos to the Wright Brothers and how they contributed to history and science. Each child will get to make their own paper airplane and see how far it can fly. We will discuss the virtue of perseverance and how the two brothers practiced this virtue during their lifetimes. Later in the week, we will begin a unit that will lead up to the First Thanksgiving. Students will learn about Christopher Columbus and his travels. 

Thank you Wannlund family for coming in to celebrate Emma's birthday!

And here's a peak into our classroom from this week. 

We wrote our sight words, then built towers with the number of letters in the word.

Testing out what is magnetic around our classroom. 

Winter Concert Update

The PSO normally has a uniform exchange to help families with putting together concert attire, but they needed to move the date of the exchange for the Prep's awesome playoff game! Unfortunately the exchange is now after the concert, Nov. 20th. If you would like to use the uniform exchange, please email Deanna Carpenter at uniformexchangepso@gmail.com 

The dress attire for the concert will be as follows:

Boys: Black pants, white dress shirt, black dress shoes, and black socks.  Hair should be combed neatly.

Girls: Black skirt, white top, black tights, and black dress shoes. Hair should be pulled away from the face with no distracting adornment. Please follow the Archway Arete dress code for guidelines on jewelry.

Week 13: 11/04-11/08

Greetings KC Families, 

I don't know about you but I am ready for a restful weekend! It was a busy week in Howard house and we could use some rest from all the fall festivities :) 

  Picture re-takes are next Tuesday 11/05. Please fill out the paper in your child's green folder to let us know if you'd like your child's picture redone. It's officially sweater season and with that please remember to label your child's sweater. 

Here's a look at next week. 

Spalding: We will continue to learn our double letter phonograms this week by adding 5 new phonograms. When saying phonograms with cues you will say the sound, have your child repeat it, then give them the cue, your child will not repeat the cue. 

Cues are:

er (her)

ir (first)

ur (nurse)

wor(works)

ear(early)

 If you have any questions please don’t hesitate to ask. 

Sight Words: This week we will begin reviewing list 4 and adding it to your child’s sight word ring soon.

Literature: This week our story will be another African trickster tale, “The Great Tug-of-War.” Our poem will be, “There Once was a Little Girl.”  Please continue to read nightly with your child as well as practice their sight words. They are off to a great start! 

This week we will use part of our literature time to give our students an opportunity to complete their first service project.We would love to show our students the satisfaction of giving back and helping others. For November students will write thank you letters to the troops for Veterans Day. Our kindergarten goal is to write 200 letters! If your family would like to participate you are more than welcome to send letters in your child’s green folder and I will turn them in. 

Math: Our unit for this week will be covering length and size. We will begin by using every day items to measure school supplies and ourselves! These items will include unifix cubes, paper clips, yarn, and various body parts. We will use the language of shorter, longer, tallest, smallest. 

Science: We are exploring magnets this week! Students will learn that magnets have 2 poles and that they can attract and repel other magnetic things. Scholars will get to experiment with magnets around the classroom. They will predict what things a magnet will attract and what it will not. 

 

History: We will be learning about the continent of Europe. Scholars will become familiar with the names of a few countries in Europe as well as their famous landmarks. We will learn more about European castles and why castles were important in medieval times.

We had the best time yesterday celebrating our Read-a-Thon. We had a school assembly, had a group of 3rd graders read to our class, had a party and finished our day with some awesome guest readers! I came home with a full-heart and a very tired body! Thank you all who donated time or treats to our party. A big thank you to our class moms for diligently planning a fun experience for our scholars. Here's a look at our fun day.