Week of August 26th

Happy Friday Pandas!

General Updates:

1. Willow Grove is in the process of creating a MakerSpace library. MakerSpace is a place during play where students can explore, design, and create. Students have the freedom to build and construct during our paly. We are so excited to bring MakerSpace to our classroom, but we need your help! In order to have a successful MakerSpace for students to use, we are in need of donations year round. If you are able, we would so appreciate any donation you are willing provide. Below is a list of different items we would love to add to Willow Grove's MakerSpace library.

This week in literacy...

• Phonics: This week the students learned words are made out of sounds. We practiced "peeling" off the first sound in words like /g/ goat and /v/ violin. We also learned that a sound is something we hear when we say words or sentences out loud. The sounds we learned this week were /m/, /s/, /l/, /n/, and /f/.

• Reading: We introduced our first cycle of literacy: exploring communities. In this cycle learners will understand that people participate in their communites in a variety of ways. This week we read Fergus the Fire Engine and While I am Sleeping. Both of these are literature texts that are make believe stories. Literature texts include story elements. The story elements we focused on this week were character and setting.

• Writing: Our writing unit begins with pictures! We learned how to make a WOW! picture. A WOW! picture is a picture that is sketched in pencil (in case we make mistakes), has multiple colors (at least 5 if your child is 5 years old) and tons of details. The pandas learned how to add emotions and movements to their pictures to really make the reader say "WOW!"

  
  

This week in math...

• In math we continued to explore manipulatives and 5-frames. We used cubes to determine how many we had and we counted the empty boxes in the 5 frame to determine how many more we needed to make 5.

  
  
  
  

Reminders

• Please label your child's snack daily and pack this separate 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

Upcoming Dates

Monday, September 2nd- No School Labor Day

Friday, September 6th- Picture Day

Friday, September 13th- Erin's Law presentation

Tuesday, September 17th- Early Release

Friday, September 27th- Willow Walk (more information to come)