Week of January 6th

Happy Friday and welcome back Pandas!

I hope your family had a healthy and happy start to 2025!

General Updates:

1. 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.

   1. 
      

      

      
      

2. We celebrated a panda's birthday today. Happy birthday, Micah!

   1. 
      

      

      
      
      
      

3. Update from the PTO

   1. PTO Movie Night - January 16, 2025

      
      

      Please join us for our annual Movie Night on January 16, 2025 from 5:30-7:30pm in the Willow Grove Gym. Hubby’s Dog House will be grilling hot dogs, bratwursts, and vegan dogs on-site, and we’ll have an Ice Cream Sundae bar. We are asking for families to pre-order Meal Deals and Ice Cream Sundae Tickets on MTK, so we can ensure that there are the correct numbers of grilled items available. Join us as we watch Air Bud and admire the new Buddy the Bear gym decals.

      
      

      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

4. 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.

5. Please check out the specials classes update here!

6.  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 :)

Click Here For Mystery Guest Sign Up

6. 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 play. 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: The pandas learned that there are 26 letters in the alphabet. Some of the letters are consonants and some of the letters are vowels. The vowels are a, e, i, o, u. The pandas also learned that vowels have two sounds, short sounds and long sounds. Right now, we are focusing on short vowel sounds.

  
  

  

  
  

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: This week, we zoomed in on the zones of regulation. The zones of regulation help teach students about self-regulation. We focus on these after winter break to help teach and remind students of good coping and regulation strategies to help themselves when they have bigger feelings. Below is the visual we use in the classroom.

  • 
    

    

    
    

• Writing: The pandas focused 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).

This week in math...

• The pandas practiced identifying numbers and putting them in numerical order from least to greatest. We also learned a new term, number bonds or numbers trees. This is a visual that helps explain the whole and the parts of an equation.

  
  

  

  
  
  
  
  
  

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