Week of January 13th
- Mrs. Preskill
- Jan 17
- 4 min read
Happy Friday and welcome back Pandas!
General Updates:
We had a great time celebrating bring a stuffed animal to school day!
We will celebrate our 100th day of school on Wednesday, January 29th. We have planned a fun day where the children will experience 100 through many different activities. To help us visualize what 100 objects look like, we are asking that each child decorate a plain t-shirt with 100 items on it (if you would like to). Some ideas to use as decorations are stickers, googly eyes, fabric paint, cotton balls, buttons, pom-poms, safety pins, stamps, etc. The lighter the weight the item, the easier it is to glue, stick, or attach 100 things to the shirt. Please also remember that your child will be wearing the 100 things all day (it will get very uncomfortable to wear 100 heavy things like pennies or crayons on a t-shirt.) Fabric paint is an excellent decoration because it is lightweight and doesn’t fall off. Have fun creating any shirt that you would like with 100 items on it
Please have your child wear their shirt on Wednesday, January 29th as we celebrate the 100th day of school! This year our class will have a “fashion show” at school to model our 100 collections. Attached to this note you will find a card. Please complete the sentences describing your child’s t-shirt and return the card to school on our 100th day. During the fashion show, your child’s teacher will read the card while your child models his/her creation!
KEEP IN MIND THAT EACH TIME SCHOOL IS CANCELLED DUE TO WEATHER CONDITIONS (SNOW/COLD DAY), OUR 100TH DAY WILL BE DELAYED UNTIL
THE NEXT DAY.
We celebrated a panda's birthday today. Happy birthday, Emilia!
Update from the PTO
2025 Dessert Day (Remainder of this School Year!)
Renewals for Dessert Day for 2025 are now available for purchase. The flavors will remain the same as in 2024: Polar Blast Fruit Punch Pop, Vanilla Ice Cream Sandwich, and Chocolate Sundae Cup. If your child had Dessert Day from September - December, you will need to purchase the renewal to continue with the full year of Dessert Days. Purchase Dessert Day here: https://wgkcpto.membershiptoolkit.com
With the colder weather, we will continue to go outside for recess. Please make sure you send your child to school with appropriate clothes for the outdoor weather.
Please check out the specials classes update here!
I would love to extend open arms and welcome families into our classroom! This year we will be welcoming families in to be a "mystery guest"! 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.
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!
Please only sign up for one slot per family. If you have any questions, do not hesitate to reach out :)
This week in literacy...
Phonics: This week we practiced short vowel sounds. Short vowel sounds are the sounds that the vowels (A, E, I, O, U) make in words where they are pronounced quickly and do not say their "name." For example:
A as in cat
E as in bed
I as in sit
O as in dog
U as in cup
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
Reading: We began our new cycle Living Together: This is Home. In this unit, our goal is for learners to understand that home is an important concept to all living things and that the environment affects living things. This week we read the informational text, Animal Homes. Using this text, we identified the main topic and key details.
Writing: The pandas continued to focus on writing and editing a complete sentence. The pandas were reminded that a full sentence starts with an uppercase or capital letter, includes finger spacing between each word, and punctuation at the end. A full sentence must include a naming part (who or what the sentence is about) and a telling part (what is happening/the event). The pandas practiced writing their own sentence along with editing already written sentences.
This week in math...
The pandas practiced solving addition and subtraction equations within 10. Addition means put together and subtraction means take away. The pandas are working to identify the difference between the plus and minus symbol to determine if the number will get bigger or smaller.
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
Upcoming Dates
Tuesday, January 14th- Early Release
Monday, January 20th- No School
Wednesday, January 29th- 100th Day of School Celebration
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