February Newsletter – Issue 5

News! News! News!Valentine’s Day is soon approaching. I will be sending out a class list of names soon. We will have our Valentine’s Day party on Tuesday, February 14. This will be very low key but very fun! It will mainly be a day where we will put the cards received from our friends in our valentine bags, we’ll celebrate February birthdays with treats and then the kids will get to open their valentines. That’s the best part of it for the children! They love to read the cards. Please remind your child if they choose to bring valentines they need to have one for everyone so no one is left out. Your child may choose to do this one of two ways: write names on each of the cards (as well as their name) OR leave the envelopes blank, only write their own name and just go around each table and put one in each bag. If your child writes everyone’s name and you know that writing can be laboring for your child you might want to have your child do a few each night (7 to 10) and break it up. I have 22 students in my AM class and 25 students in my PM class.

Website: Here is a reminder of how to get to my website: Go to www.westada.org, then find the word Schools on the top of the page (there is a dropdown menu) and find our school and click on it. Next click on Teachers/Staff on our page and find my name. I have the specials schedule, the computer/library schedule for the month and my newsletter added -- it’s under the AM and PM sections (click on the plus sign). The Library/Computer schedule will be done by this weekend (if not before).

Book Orders – I do all Book Orders online. If you need a paper copy of this let me know. I won’t be sending this home unless you need it because it’s all on my website.

Next Book Order is due Friday, February 24 .

What Will We Learn In February?Reading Instruction: We will continue to work on the skills your child needs in order to help them progress in reading (letters, sounds, short vowels, sight words). We will also continue to sing, read and write our sight words as well as continue to work on phonological awareness (blending and segmenting words, finding the beginning, medial and ending sounds, syllables, rhyming, and changing a sound in one word to make it a different word). During seatwork this month we’ll be focusing on short vowels.

Writing Instruction: We have been working hard on handwriting! Please continue to reinforce this skill at home and I will continue to at school as well. We have been working on informational writing by learning about a topic then

writing some facts. We did this with polar bears, a job they learned about and later this week we’ll learn about groundhogs. We will continue this into February. This starts with a prewrite where they write the facts they have learned. Then they copy it on formal paper and add a picture. I am starting to have the children become more independent when it comes to sounding out words. In the past, I would often help them sound out, and now when I help them I have the children sound it out and write everything they hear on their own. This will help them become more independent in their writing.

Math Instruction: We will continue working on Unit 2 skills during math instruction. We will be focusing on addition and subtraction using contextual story problems. We’ve been learning to add and subtract using a number line and we’ll begin learning about place value soon. Regarding place value, we’ll be building 10 and counting on to a teen number. We’ll also continue to build on skills that allow them to understand a group of 10 and some more to help solidify the teen numbers (these can be tricky). We’ll also continue to use the number line and build on those skills as well. We’ll continue to count and work on counting to 100 and recognizing and writing to 20. Friday, February 17th we’ll be celebrating our 100th day of school!

Our themes for the month are: Dental Health, Valentine’s Day, 100th day of school, American Symbols (this is a 3rd trimester skill and we’ll be doing this towards the end of the month)

Upcoming EventsJanuaryHomework is due – please return it and your child will receive a Pizza Hut coupon. A February homework packet is on my website.

Muffins with Ladies – Wednesday, February 1

PTO meeting in library at 4:15 – Wednesday, February 8

Steelheads ticket orders due by Wednesday, February 8

Valentine’s Party and February birthday celebration – Tuesday, February 14

Yearbook order form and money to my by Friday, February 17

100th Day of School – Friday, February 17

We have school on Monday, February 20 th -- President’s Day because of all our Snow Days!

Book Order – Friday, February 24th.

Roaring Spring Log due Monday, April 3rd if you are participating (information came home about this a week ago)

How Can I Help My Child?Continue to have your child do the nightly homework including the reading bags that come home daily. Just a reminder that if your child is bringing home the same book for a couple nights in a row and you know your child can fluently read it, it’s probably because there was not a parent volunteer that day. However, if you ever have questions about this program please ask. I’d be happy to talk to you about it!

When your child is reading books that are coming home in the reading bag have your child glide his/her finger under the sentence and not just point to each word. This helps your child become more fluent and less choppy when reading a sentence.

Continue to have your child stretch out hard words to practice hearing sounds. Your child may not know the vowel combinations and digraphs yet but the important part is that your child is hearing as many sounds as he/she can at this point.

Also, have your child work on learning to read and write sight words – those are words I do want spelled correctly. We have been singing lots of songs to reinforce these words.

In math have your child count out objects and put them in groups of 10’s and 1’s (for example if you have 17 pennies, have your child make 10 by lining them up in two rows of 5 – similar to a 10 frame – and see how many more are left – have them tell you how many groups of ten and how many left over ones and how many altogether).

Have your child count to 100 and beyond this month.

Thank you for all of your support!

Mrs. Westcott