Week of January 30th

The Monkeys had a fun week!  We discussed the differences between day and night and understand that day and night repeat in a pattern.  We also studied objects in the day sky and in the night sky.  We realized that some objects can be seen in both the day and night skies, such as the moon and clouds.  We will finish up our unit on objects in the sky this upcoming week.  Here is our rain cloud in a jar from a couple of weeks ago.

 

During language arts this past week we began our unit on fairy tales.  We discussed the various elements of fairy tales.  They usually begin with, "Once upon a time," and end with "happily ever after."  Fairy tales have a beginning, middle and end; they have good and evil characters; a setting; a problem and a solution; and magic.  We will continue learning about fairy tales next week, but we will also be reading, writing and completing activities to prepare for our 100th day of school on February 6th.  During math we began focusing on teen numbers and the different ways that teen numbers can be represented.  The students are learning that teen numbers are 10 and some ones.  

Don't forget to keep reading and logging the books your child has read and the minutes your child has read each night on the Six Flags and Schlitterbahn reading logs.  They are due on February 27th and your child can receive a free ticket to Six Flags and/or Schlitterbahn depending on if both reading logs are completed.  The January Pizza Hut BookIT reading log is due on Wednesday, February 1st.  Your child will receive a certificate for a free personal size pan pizza if they turn it in.

Reminders:  Work on making your child's shirt with 100 items on it for the 100th day of school on Monday, February 6th.  We will wear them that day and show them off during our 100th day parade in the hallways.  You are welcome to come and watch the parade, but please remember to get to school early to sign in at the office and get a badge.

If you have not already sent in a cereal box for your child, please send one by this Friday, February 3rd.  We will work on them the following week and make them into Valentine's Day mailboxes.  

The Monkeys were excited to learn all about our superstar student, Jackson, this past week!  We were able to learn about Jackson's life and interests.

We look forward to learning all about our next superstar, Henry, this upcoming week!

Week of Jan. 16th

I hope you are all having a great holiday with your children today!  This past week was a busy one filled with a lot of learning and fun.  We had our STEAM night this past Thursday to showcase our learning about engineering and the arts.  We hope you enjoyed STEAM night and were able to see many great projects and interactive displays.  

During science, we continued learning about seasonal changes and weather.  If you ask your child about how the weather changes over the seasons, they should be able to tell you all about it.  We tracked the weather with a "Weather Watcher" chart over the past week and made predictions.  We will focus more on just weather this upcoming week.  In social studies, we discussed needs and wants.  Your child learned that we all have basic needs to stay alive such as water, food, shelter and clothing.  They also learned that wants are not needed to stay alive.  These are things such as toys, candy, bicycles, vacations, etc.  In language arts we finished up our STEAM project retelling videos and focused on asking questions and finding answers (which will prepare us for research in upcoming units).  We asked questions about snow and read some expository text to find out information.  We had a blast making snow!  Your child got to take some home in a baggie to continue to explore.  We wrote about our observations and described our snow.  We also created a fun snowflake craft and wrote about how we could best catch snowflakes.  In math, we focused more on addition and what the = sign means.  The students learned that both sides of the equation must balance or be the same.  

STEAM Project

Making Snow

The Monkey class was excited to learn about the life and interests of our Superstar student, Elijah!

We will announce our next Superstar student this upcoming Friday for the week of January 23rd.