Week of April 21st

Mrs. Preskill
Apr 25
3 min read

Happy Friday Pandas!

General Updates:

Please check out the specials classes update here!
If you have already signed up to be a mystery guest, I would love to welcome you back to the classroom for a second time!
1. This is a fifteen-minute time slot that you are able to sign up for to either be a mystery reader or to teach us about your beautiful cultures! Please note, there are only two adults over the age of 18 allowed into the building for this volunteer opportunity at a time.
2. Some ideas of things you could share related to your culture (but are not limited to) are: photos (holidays, travels, clothing, etc), videos, music, games, stories, puppet show, art project, etc. You are also welcome to bring in any stories and read them to the class for enjoyment! If you are bringing in books, please bring 2-3 books to share during this time. Cultural connections are totally up to you and what you are comfortable with. We can't wait to welcome you into our classroom this year! If your work schedules are tight and the time slots available do not work for you, please reach out and we are able to plan this over Zoom or you are able to send a video in that we can share with the class!

This week in literacy...

Phonics: We started learning how to read and write two-syllable words! We practiced breaking the words into smaller parts to help us read and spell them.
Words like sunset, basket, and napkin helped us understand that each syllable has a vowel sound and that putting them together makes reading easier!
- We also continued to identify short and long vowels in words.
  - Short Vowels
    - cat (short "a")
    - pen (short "e")
    - bit (short "i")
    - pot (short "o")
    - cup (short "u")
  - Long Vowels
    - cake (long "a")
    - feet (long "e")
    - bike (long "i")
    - note (long "o")
    - cute (long "u")

Sound Collection: /m/, /s/, /l/, /n/, /f/, /r/, /v/, /z/, /p/, /g/, /d/, /t/, /k/, /b/, /w/, /h/, /kw/, /j/, /y/, /ks/, /z/, /a/, /e/, /i/, /o/, /u/,

Letter Collection: m, t, p, a, s, c, h, i, d, f, r, o, g, l, n, u, b, k, v, e, j, w, z, q, x, y

Heart Word Collection: the, in, my, a, is, for, I, am, here, and, at, go, it, like, be, to, can, not, you, are, do, will, did, too, with, me, all, was, no, so, say, now, have, said,

down, come, they, that, this, ate, our, who, where, what, must, we, he, she, but, want, there, saw, own, please, make, good, new

Reading: We learned all about seeds and planting! We read informational texts that taught us real facts about how seeds grow and what they need to become plants.
As we read, we focused on finding juicy words—interesting and important vocabulary like sprout, germinate, and soil. These words helped us better understand the planting process and sparked great discussions. We even planted our own seeds! Ask your child what juicy words they remember and what they learned about seeds this week.
Writing: We dove into narrative writing! We learned that a narrative can be real or make-believe, but it always includes characters, a setting, events, and a reaction. We will continue writing stories together in the coming weeks!

This week in math...

We continued to work on story problems! A story problem is like a mini story that includes numbers we need to solve—using addition or subtraction.
We practiced reading each story three times:
1. First, to understand the characters and what the story is about.
2. Second, to find the important numbers.
3. Third, to figure out the math question we need to solve!
The pandas are doing a great job thinking like little mathematicians!

Reminders

Please label your child's snack daily and pack this separately from the lunchbox.
Water bottles stay in the classroom. If you want your child to have a drink for lunch, please send a separate drink.
If you would like your child to buy a drink at lunch, please make sure there is money in the account for the lunch card.
Extra clothes and PE shoes should be labeled and stored in your child's cubby.
Please see Mrs. Smith's Principal's Message for further information about Willow Grove: principal's message