January 6, 2017
Dear Parents,
Your children will be going on great adventures next week! They will be taking off from planet Earth and exploring galaxies far away. Some will land on the moon!
_____ Encourage your child to look at the sky during the day and after dark and to tell you what he or she sees. Try to let your child see the first star out one night this week. Have your child imagine the star configurations to be some animal or object. Check out the moon to see if it is a full moon, a half-moon, or a crescent moon.
_____ Math Focus: We will review numbers to 20. Cut out the rocket pattern for your child. The two horizontal lines on the rocket will also have to be cut. These should probably be cut out by an adult. Slide the rectangular piece of paper with the numbers on it through the horizontal line opening until the numbers show. Slide the paper down and let your child say the numbers as he/she waits to blast off. (Ex. 20, 19, 18…) Slide the numbers up and down (out of sequence) and ask your child to identify them. Have your child “rename” the numbers 10-20 by saying how many tens and how many ones are in each number. (Ex. One ten and four ones makes 14, One ten and six ones makes 16, etc.) If your child knows these numbers, make another strip with random numbers to 100 on it. Slide this paper up and down for your child to identify. Then let your child count by 2’s to 20, by 5’s to 100, and by 10’s to 100. Don’t forget to review counting to 100 by 1’s and counting backwards from 10. We will be assessing some of these items for the report card.
_____ Sight Words: Ask your child the words on the first and second nine weeks. He/she should know all of them except for “this.” Use the words he/she does not know to complete one sight word activity found on the sight word activity page. (KEEP THIS ACTIVITY PAPER AT HOME FOR FUTURE USE.) If you notice your child is unable to quickly identify the sight words, please make flash cards and review them nightly. I am finding that some of the children are having trouble with many of the words. This is keeping them from progressing in their reading levels. Remember our district expects the children to be reading on Level 4 when they enter first grade.
Which sight word activity did you choose?
Which words did your child work on?
What did you think about the sight word activity that you selected?
____ Read five books or let your child read five books to you.
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
_____ Review: letters, letter sounds, beginning and ending sounds, rhyming words, retelling stories, the five senses, the four seasons, shapes, shape descriptions, words, and writing first and last names.
_____ Words: a, am, are, and, come, can, do, did, eat, it, in, is, I, like, my, me, no, now, run, saw, see, to, the, what, with, we, you, yes, up, go, how, they. Your child should be able to write these words as you call them out. Have your child write the words (as you call them out) on the enclosed paper and then have him/her write his/her first and last name on the paper. Return this to school.
_____New words: how
_____ Have your child read Animals Can Move to you. It will put the known word back into text for him/her. Don’t forget to let your child read the other books that I have been sending home. (Have your child write this word on the “word- writing” paper too.)
Reminders
January 13-End of second nine weeks grading period
January 16-Martin Luther King holiday-no school
January 17-Teacher inservice, no school for students.
January 27-Report cards go home in the VIP folder with kindergarten students.
Leveled and class books: Please help your child to remember to return the books that he/she brings home to read so that the books will be available for another child to check out. These are the leveled books that are usually in a bag with a feedback form and the class books that all of the children have worked on.
I appreciate all that you do to make school a successful place for your child to be! As partners, we can have a strong impact on your child’s learning.
Your Partner in Education,
Alyson Fricks
Child’s name:
Parent’s signature: