Grant El.
Kindergarten Weekly News
From Mrs. Conran and
Mrs. Caya
Week Beginning: March 23, 2015
Important Dates
March 24 BINGO
Family Night – Watch for Details
March 27 End
of 3rd Quarter; No School
March 28 Saturday
Morning Book Club 9:30am
April 3 No
School; Spring Break Begins
April 13 School
Resumes
April 23 Save
the Date: K/1 Music Concert 6pm
No Guided Reading Books This Week
Please be sure that you have returned all books by
Tuesday, March 24th. Books
will be sent home again on April 15th.
Spring Weather
Weather can be very unpredictable in spring. Please be sure that your child has
appropriate outerwear for recess. The
outside temperature was below 45 degrees at recess several days this week, and
some students were very cold in only sweatshirts. It is better to send a few light layers than
to skip a jacket. We always check the
temperature before we go out and advise students about how many layers they
need.
Reading
We are very proud to report that many Kindergartners have become
wonderful, excited readers. Take
time during the next few weeks to celebrate your child’s reading
accomplishments.
Go to the library. Have a home reading night. Write a book together. Have a book club with your child and talk
about a favorite story. Get several
books about one topic that your child is passionate about and dig for new
information.
Whatever you do, tell your child how proud you are of their reading!
Comprehension: This week we are using weather books to
build our background knowledge. While
reading we will focus on asking questions before, during and after reading that
support our understanding. We are
working on noticing when what we read doesn’t make sense and asking ourselves
and others questions to clarify.
Comprehension Learning Target:
I can ask and answer questions about books.
Phonics: At
this time your child should have a large bank of sight words that they can read
quickly on sight. Knowing sight words
helps us read more fluently, which strengthens our comprehension.
Phonics Learning Target: I
can read sight words.
Words to Practice: All Kindergarten words in Take Home
Folders. New words will be added soon.
Writing
This week, we will conclude our unit on opinion
writing. Many students have been very
skilled at writing a well-crafted opinion paragraph. Please look through your child’s papers and
enjoy your child’s opinion writing!
Writing is one of the most powerful ways to build your child’s literacy
(reading) skills. Write often together!
Positive Behavior Interventions and Support (PBIS) & Social Skills
It’s About Respect
Having respect for yourself and others is vital to the way
you choose to live your life, as well as how you interact with your friends,
family members, and teachers. When people respect themselves, they will not
destroy their minds or bodies with drugs or engage in any other risk-taking
behavior. When people respect each other, there are less conflicts,
disagreements, and misunderstandings. Think about the last time you witnessed a
conflict, or were involved in one. Was respect shown? Was the conflict resolved
without name-calling or put-downs? If put-downs were used, did they help the
situation or make it worse? The likelihood is that disrespectful words and
actions contributed to the conflict, and caused hard feelings to linger.
Although we know that name-calling and other disrespectful behavior only make
problems worse, many people resort to such behavior when angry, or accept them
as a normal way to interact.
What Is The Right
Way?
Sometimes it’s hard to figure out the right way to behave,
because we now live in a society where both verbal and physical disrespect have
become part of everyday life. You see it on TV and the Internet, read about it
in books and experience it in real life. In fact, the line between acceptable
and unacceptable behavior has become so blurred that those who show respect for
themselves and others by dressing appropriately, speaking politely to others,
and studying hard are often ridiculed and hassled. There are people who even
think it’s fun to steal or damage property. Before we go any further, let’s set
the record straight. Making fun of others, stealing or destroying their
property is not funny or cool. It’s just disrespectful and wrong.
Math
The
Standards for Mathematical Practice describe varieties of practices that rest
on important “processes and proficiencies”. Each week will be information on
one of the math practices so you can help develop and support your learner.
CCSS.MATH.PRACTICE.MP1
Make sense of problems and persevere in solving them.
Mathematically proficient students start by explaining to
themselves the meaning of a problem and looking for entry points to its
solution. They analyze givens, constraints, relationships, and goals. They make
conjectures about the form and meaning of the solution and plan a solution
pathway rather than simply jumping into a solution attempt. They consider
analogous problems, and try special cases and simpler forms of the original
problem in order to gain insight into its solution. They monitor and evaluate
their progress and change course if necessary. Older students might, depending
on the context of the problem, transform algebraic expressions or change the
viewing window on their graphing calculator to get the information they need.
Mathematically proficient students can explain correspondences between
equations, verbal descriptions, tables, and graphs or draw diagrams of
important features and relationships, graph data, and search for regularity or
trends. Younger students might rely on using concrete objects or pictures to
help conceptualize and solve a problem. Mathematically proficient students
check their answers to problems using a different method, and they continually
ask themselves, "Does this make sense?" They can understand the
approaches of others to solving complex problems and identify correspondences
between different approaches.
