Week of May 5th

Mrs. Preskill
May 9
3 min read

Happy Friday Pandas!

General Updates:

We celebrated a panda birthday! Happy Birthday, Kassidy!
The pandas did a wonderful job performing in the music show! They worked so hard! Thank you to those that sent some wonderful photos :) !
Please check out the specials classes update here!
If you weren’t able to sign up for Mystery Guest this year, there is still a chance to join us! I would love to work with you to find a day that fits your schedule before the school year ends.

If you're available for a quick visit between 1:20–1:35 PM or 2:25–2:40 PM on another day, please do not hesitate to reach out via email. I’d be happy to coordinate a time that works for you!

This week in literacy...

Phonics: We have officially learned all of our heart words for the kindergarten school year. We will continue to practice these words eachd day! We also continued working on 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, out, one, two.

Reading: We enjoyed the literature text The Tiny Seed by Eric Carle. We focused on identifying the character and setting—and discovered that the main character is actually a thing... a seed! We worked hard to find the most important events from the beginning, middle, and end of the story to help us retell it in our own words. We also started another literature text called Lola Plants a Garden.
Writing: The panda class continued working on narrative writing! This week the pandas were able to begin brainstorming their own stories. We started by brainstorming our own characters, settings, events, and reactions to build the pieces of our very own stories. We use a flow map to brainstorm the beginning, middle, and end of the story and then work to transfer this brainstorm to a book!

This week in math...

We worked on story problems! We practiced reading each problem three times—once to find the characters, once to look for the numbers, and once to figure out if we needed to add or subtract. The pandas did a great job thinking carefully and using clues from the story to decide what to do. We are building strong problem-solving skills one step at a time!

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