Happy February!

It's hard to believe we are already in the month of February and have almost reached the 100th day of school!  February is filled with many exciting events!  I hope that you were able to read through the note I sent home last week.  Here is a quick recap if you did not see the note:

February 4th: Book Fair Preview Day
Just to look and see what is for sale...not a purchase day!

February 7th: Book Fair Purchase Day
Your child does not need to purchase books that day. The book fair is open a couple of evenings and you and your child can purchase then.

February 8th: 100th Day of School
We will be celebrating with a special Hiyaku (100th Day trail mix) snack. Your child can bring in 100 small food items to add to our trail mix: pretzels, goldfish, raisins, etc.  Please make sure everything is nut free.

February 14th: Valentine's Day
If your child is making Valentine's, please make sure there is one for each child.

February 22nd:  Kindergarten Sea Creature Open House 8:00-8:30am in our classroom

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We had a wonderful week in Kindergarten with lots of learning about sea creatures! We had four more shares this week and learned about the sting ray, angler fish, octopus, and shark.  Can your child tell you any interesting facts about these creatures or tell you which zone the creatures live in?  The children also had a chance to draw and paint some sea creatures for our hallway mural. They did a great job!  Be sure to ask your child about his or her contribution to our mural.

During Reader's Workshop, we have been reading nonfiction texts and learning how to be better readers of nonfiction books. As we read nonfiction, we may learn some facts or information that we did not know.  We call this new learning.  As I read a book about insects, the children jotted down words and drew pictures of any new information they learned about insects.  We also learned that readers of nonfiction ask questions to learn more.  So as we read a book about spiders, we stopped and thought of questions or wonderings we might have about spiders.  We will continue to use these two comprehension strategies as we read nonfiction books independently.

At Writer's Workshop, the children have been working on their teaching books. This week we learned that nonfiction books have special features that help a reader learn more.  We call these nonfiction text features.  The first feature we explored was labels.  We found that many books had labels, explaining about parts of the subject of our book.  The children were then encouraged to add labels to their writing.

Each child also began their own informational book about penguins.  We have been reading many penguin books, listening for new learning, and are going to use that learning to create a book to teach about penguins.  This week we worked on the first page..."Penguins are...".  We look forward to sharing all of sea creature knowledge with you at the end of the month!

In math, we continued with our geometry unit.  This week we have been sorting shapes. We are recognizing their attributes and using those attributes to sort.  We were sorting by color, shape, and size.  We even began to look at the sides and the corners and sorted by curved sides and straight sides and the number of corners a shape has.  Look for shapes at home with your child and ask him or her to tell you the shapes' attributes!

Please contact me if you have any questions about upcoming February events. Have a great weekend!