This week, we’re kicking off our exciting end-of-year research project all about rainforest animals! Each student will be working in a small research group to explore one of the following animals: anaconda, capybara, sloth, or otter.
Students will work together to gather facts, create presentations, and learn how to share their knowledge with others. Their hard work will be on display during our student-led conferences, which will take place at the school carnival on May 29th.
We can’t wait for you to see what your child discovers about these amazing rainforest creatures!
This week marks the conclusion of Unit 8, where we’ve been exploring animal habitats. Our focus questions are: How do habitats help animals meet their needs? and Why do people protect animal habitats? We’ll investigate these questions by reading stories such as Turtle Beach and Day and Night in the Desert. Students will also work on identifying key story elements, including plot, main idea, key details, and summarizing.
In phonics, we'll review the long /o/ sound—listening for it at the beginning and middle of words, blending it into new words, and matching words that share the same sound.
Please continue practicing the April sight words at home! You can find some fun practice ideas here.
This week in Literacy we will be starting our 8th unit, which talks all about Animal Homes.This week specifically we will be focusing on how animals are different, and where different animals live. We will also continue to read and write words and sentences, as well as make the connection between the letter a, and its long sound (heard in words like: April, make, sale).
This week we will focus on phonological review. We will practice final sound deletion (ex: the word is cat now delete the /t/ → the word becomes ca) and practicing initial sound deletion (ex: the word is stop now delete the /s/ → the word becomes top). We also will read some spring themed stories to get everyone excited for the spring season.
We will be finishing Unit 7 in our Literacy Curriculum. Students will continue to explore what plants (living things) need to survive and grow, and how plants are able to get what they need from their environment.
For phonemic awareness, students will practice blending CVC (consonant, vowel, consonant) words. We will introduce the letters “Yy” and “Vv,” as well as review the letters “Ww” “Kk” “Qq” and “Ee.”
Students should have received their sight words for the month of March, so please continue to practice those at home. If you’re looking for some fun activities to try, try some of the one’s found here!
We will be continuing unit 7 of our literacy curriculum investigating the question of: What do plants need to grow? They will expand their knowledge of how living things get what they need to survive from their environment. For phonemic awareness, students will continue to work on blending CVC (consonant, vowel, consonant) words and phoneme segmentation (breaking apart words into sounds). We will work with the letters short ‘Ee’ and ‘Qq’ this week.
We will be introducing unit 7! Time is going by so quickly! In unit 7, students explore what living things, mostly plants, need to survive and grow. In addition to this, they will learn how these living things get what they need to survive from their environment.
For phonemic awareness, students will continue to work on blending CVC (consonant, vowel, consonant) words and will work with the letters ‘Kk’ and ‘Ww’. We will dive deeper into what are digraphs (a combination of 2 letters that make 1 sound - example: ‘sh’).
This week in literacy, we will be on our 3rd and final week of talking about What is a Culture? We will be introducing the /z/ sound. We will also be looking at the z sound as it occurs at the end of the word, where it is spelled as an S (ex. Chins, his, is). For our phonemic awareness, we will be working on matching words by their beginning sounds, and matching words by their ending sounds. We will also be working to identify the beginning and ending sounds of different words. We will be reading more about different cultures around the world, by reading My Dadima Wears a Sari and A Collection of Cultures.
Please continue working on the February sight words at home.
This week we are going to explore culture with two stories: Pass it Down and Cultures and Holidays around the World. In these two stories, we will learn about how traditions are continued through families and take a closer look at how specific holidays are celebrated like Kwanza and Harvest festivals. Alongside this learning, we will also be practicing our letter sounds J and F. We will also continue to practice blending cvc words with vowels o, i, u, and a. Lastly, please continue to work with your kindergarten on their sight words. We will be sending home the February sight words this Friday in their Friday folders.
This week we are going to continue our previous explorations of homes! This week, we will read a book about the steps of constructing a house and pondering the essential question, ‘What makes a home?”. We will be introducing the sounds of /Gg/ and reviewing the sound of /Rr/, and /Oo/. The goal is for your students to isolate those sounds at the beginning of a word, in the end of a word, and eventually in the middle of a word. Please practice sight words at home with your student.