Weekly News (Jan. 4-8)

Happy New Year! I hope you all had a fun and restful winter vacation. It has been great to see the kiddos again. They have jumped right back into our daily routines, and the new year is off to a fabulous start!

Math
This week we practiced moving forward and backward on the number line to solve number stories that reinforce addition and subtraction concepts. The children also practiced sequencing the numbers from 0-20 and made a set of number cards that they will use next week to play a new math game called Top-It. This is a game similar to the card game "War." Using our set of number cards from 0-20, the children sat side by side, flipped their top card, and compared the two numbers to see who had the higher number. The one with the higher number added both cards to their stack. You can play this game at home using a regular deck of cards, or you can even login to your child's Everyday Math Account to play the online version.

Jolly Phonics
The children were excited to begin learning the sounds from Book 7 this week. This is the last book in the Jolly Phonics program. We learned the following sounds:

/qu/ as in "quack"
/ou/ as in "mouse"
/oi/ as in "oil"

Literacy
Reading Workshop
This week we finished the last few mini lessons of our Fiction Unit. Using the book A Balloon for Isabel and a short story called Camping at Grandma's, the children reviewed and practiced how to pull out key ideas from a text using a story map. We also practiced using the following words to help us retell the major events. We will begin our Nonfiction Unit next week!

Writing Workshop
I had such a fun time reading all about what the students did over winter break. They have continued to grow as writers and were able to write TWO sentences about their winter break adventures! We also wrote about what we like to do in the snow. In the upcoming weeks, we will practice leaving spaces between words, using lower case letters, beginning each sentence with a capital letter, and ending with a period. 

Guided Reading
The children were thrilled to begin meeting in guided reading groups this week, and it was so exciting to hear how much the children enjoy reading their new books at home. Be on the lookout for a new book next week! 

Handwriting and Number Writing Practice
We also began handwriting instruction this week. We learned how to write the letters Cc and Oo and practiced writing the number 1.

Welcome Winter!
Although it was rainy today and the children didn't get to play outside, they did get to go outside on Wednesday, which was a great time for them to practice putting on and taking off their snow gear. We are using the following steps when putting on our gear at school. Any practice you can do at home to practice and reinforce these steps would be so helpful! :)

Have a great weekend!