Happy New Year! I hope you enjoyed the holiday season with your families! I want to express my appreciation for all of your thoughtful Christmas cards and gifts, as well as your tasty class potluck contributions before the break! Your kindness and support is sincerely appreciated! 🎄🎅🎉
📰 I sent some notes home on Monday. You should have received a January class calendar, home reading goal information, Scholastic book orders, and a Munchalunch order form. I have attached the class calendar to this email for you as well.
❄ As we get through a cold and slippery January, please help remind your child about the importance of dressing for the weather appropriately and ensuring they take additional precautions to be safe outside. As snow mountains and icy patches scatter our school area, we are guiding students to make safe choices about where they walk and play. Thank you in advance for your support with reinforcing this at home!
📚 Learning Updates
📓 Math - We are focusing on further developing our addition and subtraction skills. We will be moving forward to focus on 2 digit and 3 digit equations with and without regrouping. We will be starting with visual strategies that utilize our existing place value knowledge. We will then build up to using more advanced strategies to solve equations accurately and efficiently.
📝 Language Arts - We are back into our daily routine of balanced literacy activities, including word sort tasks, cursive writing practice, and writing and reading skill development. We are also beginning to focus on narrative story writing. We will be breaking down the process of how to write a complete narrative story and challenging ourselves as writers! A way to support writing at home is to provide your child with various notebooks and paper to let their imagination run wild. You can help them brainstorm story ideas and be their co-author! Adding story illustrations or designing a title page is a creative touch that will help to engage them! Writing activities at home support all aspects of writing that we work on at school - idea development, printing, spelling, and conventions! 😊
🌏 Social Studies - Once we wrap up our Science unit, we will begin learning all about India in Social Studies. Our class will be taking virtual field trips using google maps and viewing various photos and videos about life in India. We will be focusing on many interesting aspects of India, including the Taj Mahal, land, climate, fashion, food, music, dance, festivals, celebrations, and transportation. If you or anyone you know would like to come in and share about the culture of India, please let me know!
👂 Science - We are continuing our study of hearing and sound. This week we completed many experiments and projects to deepen our understanding of what sound is and how it travels. We learned how to use tuning forks to explore how sound waves travel through solids, liquids, and air. The kiddos especially loved getting splashed as sound vibrations traveled through water. We also created paper cup telephones and pan flutes! Ask your child to show you what they made and share what they know about sound and hearing!
🎸 Sound Gadget Project - Today your child has brought home some green pages that explain an exciting take home project where they will get to create their very own instrument/sound gadget! We made pan flutes as a class and an example of our process using the project format was included today. The other copy is a blank project package for your child's instrument/sound gadget that they will be designing at home. These pages are also attached to this email.
Projects will be due back to school on Monday, January 21st.
Students will get to present their project to the class and they will be displayed for others to admire. I look forward to seeing all of the creative ideas!
📅 Important Upcoming Dates
⛄ January
Thursday Jan 17 - Book Orders Due
Friday Jan 18 - PLC Friday - No School for Students
📚 January 21 - 25 - Literacy Week (More Details Coming Soon)
Monday Jan 21 - Sound Gadget Science Projects Due
Thursday Jan 24 - Dress as Your Favourite Book Character Day
Friday Jan 25 - Family Literacy Day
-Family Reading Event @ 2:15 - 3:00 (More Details Coming Soon)
Monday Jan 28 - Munchalunch - Hot Dogs
Wednesday Jan 30 - Home Reading Goal Agenda Check
January Home Reading Goal: 300 Nights as a Class
💘 February
Friday Feb 1 - Home Reading Pajama Party (if we reach our goal)
Friday Feb 8 - PLC Friday - No School for Students
Monday Feb 11 - Munchalunch - Taco Time
Thursday Feb 14 - Valentine's Day Card Exchange & Class Party
-Valentine's Day Family Dance - Evening (More Details Coming Soon)
Monday Feb 18 - Family Day - No School
Monday Feb 25 - Munchalunch - Boston Pizza
Wednesday Feb 27 - Pink Shirt Day
🌭 Munchalunch
Here is the link and information for the Winter 2019 Munchalunch Menus!
https://munchalunch.com/schools/riverstone/