February Update

Hi parents!

Just wanted to check in about a couple new things coming up in our classroom. We have been hard at work with out "Sous l'ocean" Unit (Under the Sea) and have been learning about whales (les baleines), starfish (les etoiles de mer), fish (les poissons), and many other sea creatures.

In literacy, we are continuing to focus on sound blends (like the sounds "oi", "au", "on", "ou", "in", etc. We are learning about writing lists and about components of stories (such as characters, setting, author's message, etc.) We are also continuing to focus on our sight words or "Mots magiques". For a list of these words, check out this blog post.

In math, we are focusing on measurement and measuring weight, length, height, temperature, volume and time. The students are loving exploring our different measurement centers and learning how to estimate measurements before measuring and checking to see if their guesses are accurate. We are just beginning to learn about telling time (the current focus is time on the hour, ie. 3:00, 6:00, 7:00) and we will continue to focus on telling time in future weeks and will start to learn about half hours as well. We encourage you to practice these skills at home as well as this is often a difficult concept for students to grasp at first and will require lots of practice for some.

We had hoped to send home our math bags this week but due to some technical difficulties, the math bags (your child's math homework in the form of math games that you can play to practice math skills with them) will go home starting on Monday. These math bags will be sent home every Monday and should be returned by the following Friday. These games can be played as many times as you would like and are intended to practice skills we are currently working on at school.

Also, report cards went home Wednesday February 6th and I ask that you please review your child's report with him or her and fill out the last page of the report card and return it to school. If you have any questions regarding your child's report card or their progress, please don't hesitate to contact me.

*** Important note: We are hoping to make small shoebox aquariums for our structures program in 2 weeks. We are asking that parents send in one small shoebox (or similar sized box) in with their child so that we may plan, create and present our shoebox aquariums as part of our structures program. Thanks parents!