St. Patrick's Day

Students started off the week by meeting our silly leprechaun.  He told the students they could build traps to try to catch him in blocks, write him letters in writing asking where his gold was, or draw him maps in art where they thought he should hide the gold.  It was so nice to see the students in all the centers!

On Monday, students worked on measuring St. Patrick's day images with cubes.  The concept if measuring is very tricky as they don't always understand that they need to stay withing the two sides (or dots in this project) in order to determine "how many cubes big" something was.  Keep working on this at home! You can measure with anything! How many place mats big is your table?  How many hangers wide is the closet?  Have fun with it!

Students have begun typing their names at sign in to get them familiar with the keyboard as well as the different font for the computer. In addition to the letters in their name, they are working on shift for capital letters, enter to go down a line and will be doing space soon.  We will be adding to our typing as time goes on as well.


Our traps got knocked down at night by that silly leprechaun, but they kept trying!  He also left us a note on Tuesday that we had to discover what two colors mix to make his favorite color green!  It was a messy project but we discovered that blue and yellow make green!

On Wednesday, students made rainbows in which they had to read the color word (based on initial sound of that first letter) and then rip paper into tiny pieces to fit into the slices on the rainbow. This works on those fine motor skills and strengthening them.

We did our usual letter of the week.  We did our usual letter of the week as well.  The letter of the week was Ww .  We learned the sign language for a letter, the literacy link sound symbols, the letter sound, and looking at and writing it in both capital letters and lower case letters.  Click here to view the many ways we learn the letter of the week!

Each week we watch letter videos from "Have Fun Teaching" and the students are really picking up the names of letters, formations, and the sounds of letters.  Check out these videos with you child!  Click HERE.

The Tuesday project of letter of the week is to decorate a letter with something that starts with the letter. This week we decorated the letter Ww is for watercolors.  On Thursday, our letter of the week project was to read a page from our alphabet book, W is for Whale.

Important Notes:

• Our School day starts at 7:50am.  Please have your child in the building at that time.  We are going to be watching tardy's very carefully for the 4th quarter so please make an effort to be in the building by 7:50.
• Snow/Cold Day Make Up: We unfortunately had more snow/cold days this year than we had planned into our schedule.  At this point in time, pending no more snow days, we will be having 2 additional days added to the schedule.  At our last staff meeting, it was said we would be attempting to add Fridays instead of extra days in June. WE ARE ADDING FRIDAY APRIL 25 AND FRIDAY MAY 2.  No extended day with Mrs. Zaijeck will be offered on Fridays.  Please plan a pick up for your child on that day.  
• We have the District Wide 4K Event  for spring coming up April 3 5-7pm.  RSVP was by March 19, but if you have an update please let me know so I can send numbers to the teachers at HES.  Fliers came home 2 weeks ago.
• Book Orders came home and are available. They are due March 28 (if you submit them electronically).  If you submit in paper form with cash/check, you need to have it in by Thursday March 27.
• BECAUSE IT IS FINALLY GETTING WARM ENOUGH TO GO BACK OUTSIDE, PLEASE BE SURE THEY ARE DRESSED FOR THE WEATHER TO GO OUT.  Please send your child dressed for the weather as we go outside as long as it is not raining or below 0*(students are more than welcome to bring layers daily or to leave in their lockers)  It may also be time to change out the change of clothes to make sure they are weather appropriate.  If you send a new change of clothes, we will send the warm weather clothes in their backpacks.  We go outside on TUESDAYS AND THURSDAYS, Extended day kids go out EVERY DAY.
• Folders. Please be checking your child's daily folder each night.  We put notes on the notebook pages in their folders as well as any notes we may have for you.  Artwork is also sent home this way. As we start letter of the week, we will also start sending home homework to help reinforce the letter concept and identification.  Please work on this with you child to help the students make the connection between home and school. 
• Also, Please check the student's Wednesday Folders.  Please try to take info out and return the folder and any forms/info/payments in those folders a day or two after receiving. 
• Literacy Bags come home every three weeks.  Students will have a week to complete the project inside and can then return the bag with completed sheets in it on TUESDAYS.
• Library Books come every week.  We go to library on Monday and student have the opportunity to check out a book and keep it for a week. It can be kept in their back packs or at home, but please remember to bring it on Mondays. 

Next Week:
Theme: SPRING BREAK--Outer space to follow break
Letter of the Week: Xx to follow break
Snack: Beyer Family Following break