Many Events Coming Up

Students worked hard to build numbers into the teens.  Last week we also studied how a teen number includes one ten.  For example 14 is 10 and 4 more.

I hope you are well.  There is a lot of important information included here this week.  For instance there are a couple of different home projects over the next few weeks.  If you have questions, our need help with anything, please email me or send me a note in your child's red folder.

Half-Day Next Wednesday
Next Wednesday, January 30th, is a half-day for students.  School is dismissed at 12:52 PM.

Valentine’s Day Cards, Thursday, February 14th
To celebrate Valentine’s Day I would like you to have your child prepare a valentine for every student in our class.  Today I sent home a list of all the students in Room K-3.  It was printed on bright pink paper to help you locate it.  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 cutout hearts.  If you need construction paper from me, let me know.  Students will pass out their valentines on Thursday, February 14th—I just wanted to give enough time to create the cards with your child.  I encourage you to have them do any writing.  No candy or food please.  If you have any questions please email me.

100th Day of School Project
To celebrate the 100th day of school kindergarten teachers at A2STEAM are asking families to help their student complete a project displaying exactly 100 items.

To complete this project you and your child will need to find a way to count and display 100 simple objects.  Think really simple, like stickers, or circles from a three hole punch.  Once you have decided on what you want to count, organize the items by tens.  This way you can easily count to one hundred.

Posted below (scroll down) you will see 2 photos showing examples of 100th day projects.  You will see the items counted are grouped by tens.

I know this is a different kind of assignment.  If you have any questions please email me. The one hundredth day of school is currently Monday, February 11th, but it might change if we have a snow day.  The projects are due on that day.

NAAPID Parent Involvement Day, Monday, February 11th
In honor of National African American Parent Involvement Day (NAAPID) A2STEAM invites ALL parents, guardians and adult family members to visit our school. You can come in for the whole day or just a few activities.  The school is currently working on a schedule for the day.  When it is ready I will post it, along with my classroom activities, so you can choose which events to sign up for. 

Fresh Snacks
If you would like to bring in fresh snacks like carrots or apples, I updated our fresh snack calendar for 2019.

AAPS Weather Guidelines
This webpage shows the guidelines we follow as a district during inclement weather.  I will usually take the students outside unless the temperature or wind chill is below zero.  When closing school may be a possibility the superintendent might mention her thinking or process on her twitter feed.

Snowball Dance This Friday
This Friday, January 25th A2STEAM will hose its annual Snowball Dance.  It is much different then a typical school dance, there are activities, crafts, a movie and popcorn, and crazy kid dancing in the gym.  A flyer went home on Friday.  I plan on attending.

Curriculum Overview
Science -  In our forces unit last week students learned about the basics of pushes and pulls, this week we will learn more abut invisible forces like gravity and magnetism.

Reading -  This week we will also reading non-fiction books about pushes and pulls as well as books showing strong opinions.  We will see how knowing the differen sounds of the vowels can help us be flexible when sounding out words

Writing - We are continuing our work on opinion writing.  Students are currently writing about what their favorite sport or form of exercise is.  This week in addition to working on option writing we will also touch on what makes a complete sentence.

Math - We are learning about the addition and subtraction symbol and we will practice simple addition and subtraction. 

Word Study - Students will learn about vowels and the different sounds each vowel makes.

During quiet time students have been doing a good job finding quiet areas to work by themselves for a few minutes.