Hello friends! I am so sorry that I didn’t get the blog posted last week. To be honest, it was a really hard week for us at RQES, as we found out that our dear friend and colleague, Mrs. Ellen Hardy (2nd grade teacher) is battling stage 4 stomach cancer. She was at school, perfectly fine before Spring Break and then got very sick very quickly. We would covet your prayers and good wishes for her treatment and recovery. We had several other staff members with surgeries, family emergencies, and other personal tragedies. Then on Wednesday morning, I got ill at school and had to leave quickly to go home. We have had friends in class sick with one thing or the other – and to quote one of my favorite books….it was just a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day (week). We are just hoping things improve and we can get back on track this week. Thanks for all of your thoughts and well wishes. And despite the horrible week emotionally and physically, we had a great week of learning!
This week, we are finishing up Unit 4 in Reading Street. Our story is Abuela and it is a great story about a little girl and her Abuela (her Grandmother) using their imaginations to go on an adventure! (Since I speak almost ZERO Spanish, our friends Sergio and Ana Paula had a great time trying to help me pronounce the Spanish phrases in the book.) We all had a good laugh and they loved being the teacher. This week we are still working on the “sticky vowel /e/” and we are learning about pronouns. We are trying to see which pronouns make sense in the sentences. We are also working hard on writing sentences correctly, recognizing that there must be a capital letter and correct ending punctuation marks. Our journal writing is coming right along! Most of our friends are very comfortable in writing more than 1 or 2 sentences and are learning to trust their own knowledge of letter sounds to write the sounds they hear in the words. We will have Unit 5 starting next week, and that means only 6 more weeks of Reading Street. What does that mean for you? Not a lot of time to master those kindergarten words and letter sounds. Really Really focus on your short vowel sounds when working with the children so they can practice blending CVC (consonant/vowel/consonant i.e. c-a-t) words together smoothly.
In math, we are learning all about addition and subtraction sentences. We are learning which key words mean we should “compose” (add) or “decompose” (subtract). All of the games and activities we do from here on out are really getting us ready to be first grade fabulous!!
In science, we are getting ready to do our study of animals and habitats to get ready to go to the Zoo at the end of April! We are jumping in with some insects and on Friday, we learned about the life cycle of the butterfly. We made life cycle hats AND…..our caterpillars arrived in the mail!! We got to look at them for a bit on Friday afternoon, and by Monday, they will be twice the size! It will take about 3 weeks for them to complete their metamorphosis, so you can expect quite a lot of talk about the caterpillars for a while! We are officially waiting on Wings!! Our caterpillars will develop into 10 painted lady butterflies that we will get to observe for a while before we release them into the wild.
Did you hear the news?! We are writing a book!! We are going to choose an animal to research and after we learn all that we can about the animals, we are going to write about them and illustrate them! You will be able to purchase (optional) one of these hard back books as a keep sake of our kindergarten year! This is one of our favorite end of the year activities! (Did you see what I just said there???)
Ms. Davis is working on some opinion writing. This week we will focus on our opinions about colors! On Friday, your child will need to wear the color he picks tomorrow in class. A reminder note will come home so you won’t forget that Friday is our color day! We will also be making some rainbows and learning about what it takes to create a rainbow in nature! So much good stuff going on! Don’t you just love spring?
New Dates and Activities!
March 31: Color Day! Wear the color that you will pick at school on Monday.
April 14: Egg Hunt (more info coming soon)
April 17-27: Ms. Davis will be with us all day, every day for this time period
April 21: Earth Day Activities
April 27: Zoo Fieldtrip (PLEASE read the blue note that came home last week in the Bear Binder)
May 3: Tuscaloosa City Schools READS day (more info coming soon about this fun event!)
May 12: Field Day
May 18: Spring Fling (after school) & Kindergarten Breakfast (for NEW RQES incoming kindergarten students) Encourage your friends and neighbors to register early so they won’t miss it!
May 25: Early Dismissal Day
May 26: Last day of Kindergarten (early dismissal day)
Have a super week! Alicia