Fun Night This Friday!

Students practiced mindful movement today.  We practiced walking and doing squats carefully enough to keep a yellow foam dice on our heads.

Fun Night!!!
There is a A2STEAM Fun Night scheduled this month for kindergarten, 1st grade, and 2nd grade students.  It will be held on Friday, January 27th from 6:00 PM to 8:00 PM. There will be games, crafts, movies, and food.  This flyer tells you more and has a link where you can sign up to help.  I will be there helping out too.

Pasta for Pennies
A2STEAM is participating in the Pasta for Pennies fundraiser to help raise money for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society.  Information went home with students today and I discussed it in class as well.  This video had more information.  The reason they call it Pasta for Pennies is because Olive Garden sponsors a pasta meal for the class who donates the most.

Valentine’s Day Cards
Today I sent home a list of all the students in Room K-3.  It was printed with bright red ink to help you locate it.  In preparation for Valentine’s Day I would like you to have your child prepare a valentine for every student in our class.  Stores like CVS and Target sell inexpensive valentines cards in sets specifically for school children.  You can use those cards or make something very simple like cut out hearts.  If you need construction paper from me, let me know.  Students will pass out their valentines on Friday, February 12th—I just wanted to give enough time to create the cards with your child.  If you have any questions please email me.

Homework
Some simple homework will go home with students tomorrow afternoon.  It consists of an open-ended writing piece and one simple activity sheet.  Full instructions are included, email me if you have any additional questions.

Snacks
Thank you for all your snack contributions over the fall.  We need to refill our supply of quick snacks I can give the students in the morning between the start of school and lunch.  All contributions need to be nut free.  Here are some good, and nut-free, options: Wheat Thin Originals, Ak Mak Crackers from Trader Joes, Ritz Crackers Originals, Annie's Cheddar Bunnies.

Curriculum Overview
Science -  We are working on new Project Lead the Way unit called ‘Pushes and Pulls’.  Students will learn about basic physics and the forces they experience in their life (using the swing on a playground, playing tug-of-war, dropping something).  Last week students were introduced to the idea of forces and that some forces like gravity, magnetism, and wind are invisible. 

Reading -  Last week we really worked on understanding the difference between fiction and non-fiction books.  We also looked at features of non-fiction like captions, headers, a table of contents, etc.  I recommend going to the Traverwood public library and getting non-fiction books to read with your kids.

Writing - This week we are continuing to study what makes a complete sentence: Capital letters, lowercase letters throughout, punctuation at the end.

Math - This week we are looking still closely at place value and understanding tens and ones.  Understanding these larger numbers will help us we begin tracking and graphing the outside temperature at Ann Arbor STEAM.  Later in the week we will also study the '+' symbol, and the equal symbol.

Word Study - Students are identifying the vowel sounds found in words.