🌷 Spring Break 🌷

Ask Your Child About...

1. Identify and write: do, down

2. Identify, sound, and write: Uu

3. Read, write, and manipulate numbers within 100

4. How To writing

  

🌎 International Night was a huge success! Thank you to all who participated, whether it be sharing about a place with your student or learning about them. It is wonderful to see all families getting together to share, learn, and spread joy and pride among our school community!

🦁 A note has come home about Lincoln apparel on a blue paper. If you would like to order Lincoln clothing, please visit the online store at https://stores.teamelitesports.com/lincoln_elementary/shop/home 

The time for ordering items will end on March 25th and items will arrive to students on April 10th.

😴 You will see your child's rest blanket/towel coming home with them. Please wash and return your child's blanket after spring break. Thank you!

😷 Please remember, if your child is not feeling well, keep them home until they are 100%. This helps ensure your child is ready to come back and will not get sick quickly after their return and it will not spread to other students. Please also remind your child to cover their cough and sneeze, and to wash hands after said actions as well as before eating and after playing outside or going to the bathroom. Thank you for helping to remind and encourage healthy habits!

🦁 We have also reached our next whole school paw ticket goal and will be celebrating the Friday after spring break: Friday, March 27th with a whole school assembly and karaoke celebration. Go Lions!

🍎 Upon arrival from break, we would love a few more snack options. We currently have skinny pop (popcorn) and veggie straws. All district approved healthy snack choices are welcome! Some options include, but are not limited to: graham crackers, pretzels, goldfish, and granola. Thank you for helping us have healthy and tasty snacks!

📚 We have worked on cause and effect this week in reading. What a great time of year to discuss cause and effect! We were able to look outside and use the natural elements and events to help us understand the concept and begin to create or explain our own cause and effect. Over spring break, you can continue this discussion by helping your student identify various cause and effect matters occurring around them.

🔢 Our math study of place value is coming to an end, however, it is a topic we will continue to look at throughout this year and the years to come! We are becoming more confident in our identification of numbers when they are written, spoken, and expanded out! Your child can continue this work at home by reading and putting together numbers, writing numbers and equations to make new numbers, and identifying the different values within a number (27 is two groups of ten and seven ones).

🖊 We have been working on and off with our How To writing unit as we spent some time on social studies. Many of us are nearing the end of a solid How To story! Over break, ask your child about their story and prompt them to walk you through their list of things you need and each step. We have been acting out these stories to help us get a better understanding of what we are informing our reader to do and what we might be missing. This is a fun and rather hilarious method of checking our writing! 

😊 I hope you all enjoy spring break! The weather should be nice for outside play and exploration, and much more time to spend with family and friends. If you are traveling, I wish you a safe and fun journey! For all, I wish a healthy and happy return to school on Monday, March 23rd!

Wonderful Weather 🌞

Ask Your Child About...

1. Identify and write: it, in, he, no, an, she, all, said, good, make, play

2. Identify, sound, and write: Hh, Kk, Ee, Oo, Xx, Jj

3. Move to different numbers within a 100 chart

4. Good citizens

😊 Thank you all for meeting with me for our winter conferences! It is always great to chat about the kiddos and all they have done as well as what we plan to do next to ensure they are continuously growing. If you ever have questions, comments, or concerns please reach out- I am here all the time for you, not just during conferences! Thank you all again.

💙 International night is Tonight, Friday, March 6th from 5:30-7:30 pm. We look forward to seeing all of the wonderful displays created by our students and their families as we learn more about the cultures that surround us within Lincoln and make us who we are. Thank you for all who are participating as well as those who come to see and learn!

🌞 We are so glad to have such beautiful weather this week and are looking forward to more! Please help your child pick out an appropriate jacket for the day or pack in layers. We are still too chilly to allow no coats/sleeves, but lighter versions are more than welcome!

📚 Our focus in reading this week was text and graphic features. We looked at books that had extra information included through fun facts, keys, table of contents, and labels. We saw these types of texts during reading, centers, and social studies time! We discussed why they are separated from the story's regular text and why some authors decide to add them. You can continue this exploration at home by identifying various text and graphic features in readings you currently have at home or that you get from the library.

🔢 We are currently focusing on place value in math. We are now looking at different segments of the 100 chart (such as 21-50 or 61-100 and so on). We find one number and move to another number by looking at the tens and ones spots of our numbers. This helps us remember what the first and second numerals stand for (if we have 21, we have two groups of ten and one more). We use this to help us move quickly from one number to another within the 100 chart, as well as make connections across and between the decade numbers.

🌎 This week in social studies we have been looking at citizenship. What is a citizen? How can we be a good citizen? We understand citizen as the people of an area. We then discussed and sorted between things that can help us be good citizens such as picking up trash, helping others, being kind to all living things. As you are out and about, help show your child how to be a good citizen with these and so many other small but impactful actions!

Closing February

Ask Your Child About...

1. Identify and write: it, he, in, no, she, all

2. Identify, sound, and write: Hh, Kk, Ee

3. Create teen numbers using different groups of numbers

4. Identify patterns within one hundred

5. Maps!

Our University practicum, Ms. Elliot, reading to the class.

🔆 I hope you all are enjoying the change of weather! The kids have loved the warmer and sometimes sunny days for recess! We are very excited for Spring to start showing its signs to us.

🙂 Thank you to the guardians who have already met with me for conferences! I am glad we have this time to catch up and discuss all the growth your child is making through the year. I look forward to meeting with everyone else on Monday! If you even have questions or comments, please do not hesitate to reach out. Conferences is a wonderful time to discuss with each other, but it is not the only time I am available- just let me know, I am here for your child and you.

🍎If you would like to donate a snack option to our class, we would love to have them! We are nearing the end of our current snack options within the next week or so. Thank you so much for your continued support in providing our friends with healthy and tasty choices!

🏡 Thank you for your Ronald McDonald tab donations! Our classroom house collection is slowly rising... let's fill it to the roof! We get very excited to add more tabs and look forward to continuing to do so through the end of the year.

📚 In reading this week we focused on drawing conclusions. We were able to see how we can take what a character is feeling, saying, or doing to help us gather information about what is to come. We were also able to connect this work to our daily lives in school and our community. We held a few community circles to talk about when and how we can use these skills to better understand our peers and express ourselves. 

🔢 Math has brought us through teen numbers and into greater place value understanding. We will continue to look at teen numbers and their relation to single digits and beyond. We have focused on number sets from 0 to 50 as well as the decade numbers (10, 20, 30, 40... to 100). We are finding patterns within our 100 chart that help us see the relationship between numbers and how we can work through them in efficient ways. You can help your child by finding patterns and connections among numbers, counting by different groups (ones, tens, fives) and by identifying numbers in the world around them. You can also prompt your child with what is one more? ten more? one less? ten less? and so forth. 

🌎 Social studies has brought us to maps and understanding where we are in the world. We have worked from small to big and big to small! We know what city, state, country, and world we live in. We have created maps to help show how our surrounding gets bigger from where we are. We have also created maps to show different rooms or ways around a town. You can encourage these skills by creating a map of your own neighborhood! Walk the block and draw landmarks you see and show which direction you need to go. You can also get creative to draw a treasure map leading to a specific spot or item in your house or neighborhood.

Lion Love 💗

Ask Your Child About...

1. Identify and write: said, good

2. Identify, sound, and write: Xx, Jj

3. Write and explain equations for teen numbers

4. Pancake Day

5. Valentine's Day

      

🥞 Pancake Day was a HUGE hit! Thank you to all of the guardians who volunteered to help set-up, operate, and clean-up our wonderful smelling and delicious tasting pancakes! The kids loved being a part of the making process and eating their creations. We were also very excited to see so many of our very own parents at the event! Wow! Thank you!

⛄ I hope everyone was able to stay warm and enjoy the day off due to the cold temperatures. Although there wasn't much snow and the temperatures were too cold to really play outside, it is always a nice surprise for the kids when they get an extra home day.

💕 Valentine's Day was wonderful and the kids showed their love for friends and learning all day long. Thank you to the guardians who helped provide some extra special snacks for our party! 

🏡 We are on our way to filling our Ronald McDonald house with can tabs. Through the remainder of the year we will collect these as a way to support the efforts of the Ronald McDonald House. Whether you have one, a handful, or baggies full of can tabs, we will gladly accept them! Thank you for your participation!

📚 Reading this week focused on story structure. We took note of how a story starts, what events occur that lead up to a major point of interest, and how the story comes back down to a resolution. This skill not only helps us better understand the stories we read, but it also helps us write clearly and productively, as well as retell our own events and stories to others. We also met our new practicum student who will be joining us for this last half of the school year. Ms. Elliot is studying Elementary Education at the University of Iowa and will be joining our classroom every morning (except Thursdays). If you have any questions please let me know!

🔢 We are continuing our study of teen numbers and how we can write and represent them in many different ways. This week we focused on the use of ten frames and creating equations that add up to a teen number. Help your student practice this skill at home by setting out objects in a group of ten and some more. Translate this into an equation by writing your two number groups and the final answer. Don't forget- sometimes we know the answer and not the groups!

Celebrations!

Ask Your Child About...

1. Identify and write: make, play

2. Identify, sound, and write: Oo

3. Identify, count, show, and write teen numbers

4. 100th day celebrations!

5. Our all school celebration!

Our Groundhog predictions from last Friday and the results below from Monday.

💯 We celebrated 100 days with many different activities! We read several books about 100 things, completed a 100 chart, used 100 cups to build different structures, wrote 100 rhyming words, used 100 drops of water for a science experiment, created crowns, and counted 100 objects many times! Your child is bringing home a special 100th day treat to enjoy as you talk about all the activities!

🦁 Wow! The whole school reached over 6,000 paw tickets and was able to celebrate with an all school Minute-to-Win-it challenge! We loved testing our skills in just one minute. Ask your child about their penny stacking abilities and what their favorite minute game was and why.

     

🎉 We have also filled our own class jar again, and will celebrate on Monday, February 10th with a pajama day! Please be sure to help your child pick a set of pajamas that will keep them comfy throughout our entire day. Thank you!

🍎 If you would like to donate a snack option to our class we would love the new options! We are at the bottom of our last snack options and will be needing some replenishing soon. Thank you so much for your continued support in providing our friends with healthy and tasty choices!!

🏡 Student council has passed out Ronald McDonald houses for each class to use for collecting can tabs (such as those on pop cans, bubbly water cans, and so on). We will collect these through the remainder of the year. Your child may bring the tabs in as they are used or collect some in a baggy and then bring the baggy in. Through this collection, we will be able to help support the wonderful efforts of the Ronald McDonald House. Thank you for your participation!

😊 Winter conferences are upon us! If you have not signed up for a conference slot yet, please click the link to do so. I look forward to meeting with all of you!
 https://www.signupgenius.com/go/60B0A4AA9AA22A6F85-winter

🥞 On Wednesday, February 12th we will celebrate Abe Lincoln's birthday with an all school pancake day! This is a tradition at Lincoln that all enjoy! There will be stations where the students and a volunteer guardian will make the pancakes and tables set up for the students to enjoy their creations after!

💕 Friday, February 14th we will celebrate Valentine's Day. The kiddos are very excited for this celebration that will be filled with fun activities and a celebration and passing of valentines at the end of the day. If your child is bringing special valentines, please be sure you have enough for all in the class (21 students). I will have paper bags for the students to decorate- if your child wants a box or container, it will need to come from home. Thank you!

  

📚 This Wednesday was World Read Aloud Day! We had a few special guests read us some of their favorite book choices. Many of the stories focused on characters and how we can understand their thoughts, actions and feelings. Continue the joy of World Read Aloud Day at home with your own favorite stories!

🔢 We continued our work with teen numbers in math this week (11-20). We looked at how we can identify them, split them into ten and some more, what one or two more or less would be, and how we can show these numbers in different ways (using ten frames, drawing pictures, writing equations, and using mathematical words! We also looked at numbers all the way to 100 on Friday with all of our celebrations! Keep encouraging your child at home by finding numbers in the world around them. Ask them questions of how they know, what they could show, and what is more/less, or even creating/solving an equation with these numbers.

Snow Daze ⛄

Ask Your Child About...

1. Identify and write: is, how, find, be, will, for, this, go

2. Identify, sound and write: Dd, Rr, Ii, Gg

3. Identify and solve addition and subtraction in many ways
4. Identify, write, and show teen numbers (11-19)

5. How-to writing essentials
6. Our new science unit focus

Kindergarten penguins enjoying the snow and ice patch 🐧

🦁 Lions ROAR with pride again! We have filled our class paw jar to the brim! We celebrated on Friday with extra iPad time- ask your child what their favorite iPad activity is.

🍎 Huge thank you to all who have brought in snack for the class. The students have loved the variety and are very grateful. Thank you!

💯 If we have no school cancellations, our 100th day of school will be next Friday, February 7th! We will celebrate by doing many 100 activities. To help your child prepare, count with them orally, using objects, and by looking at different numbers to figure out if it is more or less.

💕 The following Friday, February 14th, will be our Valentine's day celebrations! We will have this towards the end of the day for about one hour, followed by our afternoon recess. Our celebration will include special activities and treats! If your child decides to bring Valentine's to school, please ensure you have one for each of our 21 students.

We are readers! We read the entire book all together!

📚 These past few weeks we have worked on several skills! We use a great effort to gather evidence from the words and pictures to help us predict what might happen next and to help us analyze why an author might have chosen to write this story. We used phrases such as: "I saw in the picture....", "The character said they felt... so I think that means ....", and "I think the author wanted us to know... because they showed us a lot about ...." We also worked on retelling a story using major sequence of events. We remind ourselves of the beginning, middle, and end which helps us determine what is the big picture. Then we use major happenings to retell.

🔢 In math we have finished our addition and subtraction of numbers 1-10 and have moved to recognizing and practicing teen numbers. Although many of us can orally count these numbers (and beyond), many of us still forget how to write teens or swap numbers when counting objects. Have your child show you how a teen number fits into a ten frame and has more left over. Help them identify the one group of ten and connect it to the 1 they write first on their paper- then identify how many are left over and connect it to the number they write next to the one group of ten. The will help your child conceptually understand how teen numbers and place value work.

🖊 We have wrapped up out short true story unit and have begun our how-to unit. We have examined a few different stories to decide whether they are stories or how-to. We have come to the conclusion that how-to writing explain something to their reader. They often provide items that are needed, and go through step by step to tell us how to complete the task the author is telling. Help your child explain each step of a task to help them identify each little thing they do and need to tell to their audience.

       

🌳 Our materials and motion kit is on our second material: paper! We have examined how different types of paper react to being folded, colored, and getting wet. We have also begun manipulating paper in new ways. This week we recycled toilet paper to make a new sheet of our very own paper! We also created strong bowls from paper by layering it with a special mixture! 

Hello January!

Ask Your Child About..

1. Identify and write: this, find

2. Identify, sound and write: Gg

3. Determine if a story is addition or subtraction

4. Show addition and subtraction in many ways

5. Our new friends!

⛄ I hope you all had a wonderful winter break filled with plenty of relaxation and fun! We were all excited to see our friends at school again and tell each other a favorite part of our break. As we get back into our daily routines here at school, the kiddos become more excited (and tired). Please help your child get plenty of rest this weekend so they are ready for another full week ahead. 😊

🦁 Starting Monday, January 13th, the Kindergarten students will meet in the cafeteria before school. The other grades have been doing this all year, and a few classes are now meeting in their rooms right away. This leaves some extra space for our Kinders to join in the cafeteria. This will help with supervision and hallway congestion when heading to classrooms. Please help remind your child to head into the cafeteria every morning starting Monday. Thank you!

🍎 Thank you to those who have already brought in some tasty snack options for our class to enjoy. If you would like to bring a snack for the class please remember to check the healthy snack list on the school website and send it with your child in the morning. Thank you so much for such a great supply!

📚 In reading this week we focused on inferring and drawing conclusions. We were able to practice this skill with each of our books this week. We looked at the pictures to help us figure out how a character was feeling and listened to the words for special details. We also transferred this skill into our daily routines! We were able to draw conclusions during math, infer how friends were feeling about certain activities, and so much more! Keep this skill going at home by prompting and asking your child questions that require them to dig a little deeper.

🔢 We have continued to explore our understanding of addition and subtraction in math this week. We worked on identifying addition and subtraction problems and showing our understanding in different ways. This means we can use mathematical words, drawings, and equations to explain our thinking! We also looked at equations "forwards" and "backwards". It is a common confusion that the equal sign has to be at the end, but we know it can be at the beginning as well!

🖊 Writing required our detective skills this week as we completed mystery sentences. These consist of pictures that use their first letter as a part of a word. We identify each letter, put the words together, and are able to read a secret sentence. The kids loved this mystery work! We then used these sentences to help us tell short stories.

Winter Cheer ⛄

Ask Your Child About...

1. Identify and write: you, what, me, come, with, are, my, now

2. Identify, sound, and write: Aa, Bb, Ff, Nn

3. Create subtraction equations

4. Our first material: wood!

We loved exploring frost on leaves and the frozen prints left underneath!

💗 Today was our last day with Ms. W. We will surely miss her, but we have learned a lot with her help and wish her all the best in becoming a teacher! Ask your child their favorite thing about Ms. W or a memory they have of all the reading work they did with her.

🙂 Student council has created a fun-filled week for us next week. To bring extra cheer and school spirit to Lincoln before break we will have a special  event each day!

Monday: Pajama and stuffed animal day

Tuesday: Color Day (we are red) and Candle Light Lunch 

Wednesday: Wacky (crazy sock and/or hair)

Thursday: Throwback (pick a decade to dress as)

Friday: Change your name day

💗 We will also be collecting donations for Ronald McDonald House! We have a special place in our room to set these items if you would like to send something with your student. Each grade level has a goal of reaching 20 donations and will decide on a special celebration if it is reached! If you would like to donate, we would love to have any of the following items: 

Tide or All Free and Clear Laundry detergent and dryer sheets

Swiffer Wet Jet refills: pads and solution

Leather wipes, multi-surface Pledge

Plastic utensils

First class postage stamps

Clorox wipes, diapers, paper bowls and plates

🦁 A note from a first grade parent who has been kind to lead a project for our Lincoln stairway: We are looking for positive sayings/quotes that can fit on the stairs. The letters need 2-2.5" each with spaces between words needing the same so I think we can fit roughly 30 spaces per stair. So sayings would have a total of 30 spaces... letters and spaces between the words. I would suggest 5 sayings per class ranked in popularity in case we get redundant sayings from various classes.

Please let me know if you and/or your kiddo come up with any short sayings that would fit in the 30 spaces per stair for our class to offer as an option. Thank you for your help with this project!

📚 This week in reading we have been focusing on sequence of events. We have read various stories and then worked to put them back in order. This included talking through the story, rearranging pictures, and asking for small bits of acting to help us remember what came next!

🔢 We have continued our study of subtraction starting again with counting groups and separating them, moving towards writing full equations, and ending the week with identifying subtraction within a story problem and creating a picture diagram as well as a number sentence and an equation.

   

🌳 As we discovered last week, we have started a new science unit of Materials and Motion- starting first with wood. This week we explored wood through our five senses and careful observation. We discovered different types of wood, what types of trees they come from, and why they might look, feel and smell differently. We then explored what happens when our wood gets wet! We experimented with drops of water and a full tub of water! Ask your scientist what happens when wood gets wet! We ended the week by testing our wood with a few other tools: rubber bands and paper clips. We turned our wood piece into a raft and tested how many paperclips it took to sink our raft! We then discovered half of our class had much different results... we investigated and found out we used two different pieces of wood! Then, as scientists do, we questioned and considered why our results would be different for our two types of wood. Keep the exploration going at home by discovering wooden objects in your home or testing various items with water.

December ❄

Ask Your Child About...

1. Identify and write: are, now

2. Identify, sound, and write: Bb

3. Take apart groups to create equations

4. Materials and Motion!

      

🦃 I hope you all had a wonderful fall break! We enjoyed talking about what we did and all the people we were able to spend time with. We are very thankful for our family and friends!

🚌 Our field trip to the Iowa City Children's Museum today was wonderful! The students loved touring each of the areas in the museum and discovering how we can turn our imagination and play into a story. We read The Idea Jar by Adam Lehrhaupt and would love to hear it again if you check it out at the library or find a read aloud online. Extra special shout out to the guardians who were able to help us be safe and have fun on this trip- thank you! 😊

📚 This week in reading we have focused on cause and effect. We read stories that helped us identify the cause and effect of certain events and feelings. We were able to transfer this learning into our daily life by making observations of the things around us. We also continued our work with rhyming by playing a few interactive rhyming games such as I have... who has..., rhyming match, and rhyming bingo.

🔢 This week starts our first look at subtraction in the classroom. We have been talking, manipulating, and writing number sentences that express how we can take apart numbers as well as how we can take from numbers. You can help your child with these concepts at home by gathering a group of objects, telling how many in all and then asking them to show two groups taken apart from the whole. You can then ask them to put the groups back together to make an addition equation!

🖊 This week in writing we worked on checking our story. We want to make sure everyone can read our story- even us! We realized that sometimes we write something a little sloppy, don't have spaces, or are missing some details and then when we go to read our story to someone we can't. We know that authors edit their stories, and we can too! We go back and read our story again to make sure we have it just right.

🌳 We have begun our new science kit this week: Materials and Motion! This kit focuses on how we can use materials in different ways. We will focus on one material at a time and how it can be changed or put into motion. Our first material is wood! What a great material to start with as we have been learning so much about trees in our last science kit!

Up next... Fall Break 🦃

Ask Your Child About...

1. Identify and write: what, you

2. Identify, sound, and write: Ff

3. Create math equations

4. Talk about their story!

🍎 Thank you all for such wonderful meetings to discuss our growth! I look forward to our next conferences, but in the meantime, if you ever have questions, comments, or concerns please reach out!

📚 Thank you to those who stopped by the book fair and supported our classroom library! 😊

🦃 Friendly reminder we are in school only two days next week: Monday and Tuesday! The rest of the week is off for fall break. I hope you all have a wonderful time relaxing with family and friends!

🚌 The Friday after fall break (December 6th) is our field trip to the Iowa City Children's Museum. We will be enjoying this trip from 9:00 am - 12:00 pm. Thank you greatly to those who have volunteered your time to help us be safe and have fun! 

📚 Our reading focus this week has been to identify the author's purpose. This entails reading a story and then questioning what the author shared with us and why the author might have done so. We did this with story books as well as informative books. You can help your student continue to work on this goal by asking similar questions about various stories at home!

🔢 We have continued our work with addition this week moving from only one part of the equation to completing all of the equation ourselves! You can help your student at home by telling them story problems and asking them to show you how to solve the problem with pictures, objects, and equations. You can also show your student an equation from a story problem that you know is right or wrong, and then ask them to show the problem and check if your work is right or wrong. 

🖊 Our story writing unit is well under way! We have started to really make sure our writing tells all the details. It is rather funny when we start reading our story and then have to stop and say "Whaaaat?", then we know we need some more information! We remind ourselves, that writer's say "When I think I'm done, I've just begun!" Help your child with their stories at home by asking them what they are writing about and having them tell you the details of each page. Prompt them with questions that will focus their thinking and drive them to details.

Mid-November

Ask Your Child About...

1. Identify and write: come, me, with, my

2. Identify, sound, and write: Nn

3. Review the two sounds of Aa (a- apple, a- ape)

4. What math sign means and

5. What math sign means is

🍎 Thank you to those of you who have already completed conferences with me. I look forward to meeting with the rest of our class on Tuesday (reminder there is not school on Tuesday). We have grown so much and are excited to show it!

📚 This week and last week in reading we focused on retelling a story and drawing conclusion about a story. We did this by orally telling, sorting pictures, and acting out. We also looked at how the characters are feeling and what is being said to help us draw conclusions about what might come next or why a character has done a certain action. Last week we focused on the words come and me, and we added with and my for this week. Last week we looked at the letter Aa again in order to help us identify the two sounds the letter makes (short a - apple, long a - ape) and this week we moved to the letter Nn. 

🔢 We have moved to topic 6 in math which brings us to addition. These are some very important foundational skills that will shape the future understanding of our math. We have focused on numbers up to ten and have spent a few days focusing on each aspect of an equation. Specifically, identifying the missing numbers of a problem, looking at the plus sign, looking at the equal sign, and connecting the concepts of number sentences and equations. We will continue this work next week!

🖊 Our Lincoln Lion Rainbow Publishers have completed their very first writing unit: teaching books! You will see one of your child's favorite teaching books at conference, and the rest will be making their way home as the writers see fit. We have started our next unit: stories! We have been reading lots of helpful books that show us different ways to ensure we have a story. We remind ourselves that stories tell who, what, when, where, and why/how. These stories will have all the details! We also learned about word bubbles and how they can help make our stories come to life!

🦁 Thank you for your continued support and encouragement to our class as we continue to work to our very best ability! As always, if you have any questions, comments, or concerns please do not hesitate to contact me. Have a wonderful weekend! Lincoln Lions ROAR with PRIDE! 🦁

Happy Halloween! 🎃

Ask Your Child About...

1. Review all our letters: Mm, Ss, Cc, Tt, Aa, Pp

2. Review all our words: we, see, a ,to, the, I, like, and, can

3. What classify means

4. Our expectations and assembly

Halloween Party Success!

🎃 I want to give a special thank you to all of the guardians who came out to support us on Halloween! We loved having everyone line the halls to see our costumes, and appreciated all the help our added adults were able to give us. Thank you!

🍎 Conferences are almost here! We still have slots available, so if you have not signed up yet, please click the link and chose a time/day that works best for you. Please let me know if you have any questions or concerns about conferences. 

Thank you! https://www.signupgenius.com/go/60B0A4AA9AA22A6F85-fall

🦁 This week the school went over our expectations for bathroom, hallway/stairs, recess, and lunchroom. Please ask your child what the expectations are for each of these areas (such as body to self, voice level, and so on). We also held an assembly to learn the Lincoln Lion Roar! You can sing your school pride at home with your child:

Lincoln Lions roar with pride

Working together side by side

Honest, Caring, Responsibility, Respect

These are the traits that we expect!

Lincoln Lions here us ROAR!

📚 In reading this week we have focused on reviewing our sight words so far, and the letters we have explicitly learned. Help your child by practicing reading and writing each of these from the list above. We also worked on the concept of retelling. We focused on the big parts of the story and worked to put the events in order. You can do this at home with your child verbally, through pictures, or reenacting! 🎭

🔢 Topic 5 of math is a review topic that helps the kids connect all of the concepts we have focused on thus far. We have worked to count groups of objects, identify different ways of classifying, show a number through picture/object representation as well as written numerals, and compared the groups to find which is greater than and which is less than.

🍂 In science we continued looking at leaves and comparing their similarities and differences. We discussed shape, edge line, texture, and color. We are still collecting leaves for our class shape collection, so please send in any special leaves you find around your neighborhood! We also had fun discussing the difference in weather we have had this week- from perfect fall to what seems like winter!

   

🍁Our Leaf Pile on Monday to Snow Tracings on Thursday! ❄

Fun Weekend 🦁

Ask Your Child About...

1. Identify and write the letter Pp, as well as its sound

2. Identify and write the letter to

3. What one more would be

4. Leaves

5. Our caring day

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💗 Today we celebrated one of our four Lincoln Lion traits: Caring! We wore red (or shades of red) for all to see that we care about caring. We also had special red paw tickets to give out to others who we saw being caring. That's right, not just teachers were on the look out for caring friends- all the school was watching and saying thanks by giving out a red paw ticket. Spread caring like confetti!

🦁 Tomorrow is our Lincoln Fun Night! We will have games, food, and prizes available for all to join in the fun. Come on over to the school Saturday, October 26th  from 4-7pm! 

🎉 We have filled our class paw ticket jar! We will celebrate on Monday, October 28th by having a pajama party! Please help your child pick out a set of pajamas that is comfortable and appropriate for all of our regular school day activities. Thank you and Go LIONS! 🦁

🙋 If you would like to volunteer for our field trip to the Iowa City Children's Museum on December 6th from 9:00-noon please let me know! You would help a small group of students move from room to room at the museum for some active play. Thank you!

🍎 Conferences are headed our way! I sent out a link last week with the available slots. I am also attaching the link here: https://www.signupgenius.com/go/60B0A4AA9AA22A6F85-fall

Please let me know if you have any questions regarding conferences and sign up. Thank you!

🎃 Our Halloween Party will take place on Thursday, October 31st from 1:00-the end of the day. If you would like to help contribute to our celebrations please click the link below. It is also Lincoln tradition to parade around the school block for all the students and neighborhood to see- feel free to join in watching! Thank you! https://www.signupgenius.com/go/10c0d4aaca82ea5fd0-20191

📚 Our reading focus this week has been with the letter Pp and the word to. We practiced writing and reading each of these as well as kept our eyes open for them in the world around us. See how many letter Pp and word to you can find this weekend! We also looked at different text features we might see in a story; such as word bubbles, charts, or little fun facts. We understand that these can be helpful to fully reading a story, as well as just some extra information that might be good to know.

🔢 We are finishing up topic 4 in our math study this week. We are very strong in our ability to identify which group of objects is greater or smaller and are working on being able to do the same when we only see the numeral representation. We also worked with +1. This is a very important concept to understand as it helps build a solid foundation for what is to come. Ask your child about items you see around the house or while you are at the store. Ask them the tell which is greater and which is less, or are they the same? Ask them to show the numeral representation to you, and ask what one more would be. Our goal has been to not recount the group, but rather to say "I know this is 6, and one more than 6 is 7, so there would be 7."

🍂 We have continued our study of trees and use of our five senses by focusing on leaves. We have been noticing more leaves falling at recess and see so many on the ground! We have discussed how we can use our five senses to observe leaves, the shapes of leaves, and how leaves are different. When your family is outside enjoying the fall weather, see if you can find different shapes of leaves together. If you do, have your child bring them in! We are trying to start a collection of different shaped leaves!

🍁 We are loving fall! 🍂

🍁🍂🍁

Ask Your Child About...

1. Identify and write the letter Cc, as well as it's sound

2. Identify and write the word a

3. Compare groups of objects using drawings, numbers, and verbal sentence frames

4. Our five senses

5. Perseverance!

6th grade friends helping with a small group

🦁 Conferences are coming up quick! I sent out a link last night with the available days and times. I am also attaching the link here: https://www.signupgenius.com/go/60B0A4AA9AA22A6F85-fall 

Please let me know if you have any questions regarding conferences and sign up. Thank you!

🦁 Friendly reminder that next Saturday, October 26th from 4-7pm will be Lincoln's Fun Night! Please join us for some fun games, exciting prizes, and tasty food!

🙋 I am still looking for two volunteers for our field trip to the Iowa City Children's Museum. There is a note coming home in your child's blue folder with more information. Please let me know if you are interested and available. Thank you!

🎃 Our Halloween Party will take place on Thursday, October 31st from 1:00- the end of school. If you would like to help contribute to our celebrations, please click the link below. Thank you! https://www.signupgenius.com/go/10c0d4aaca82ea5fd0-20191

📚 This week in reading, we focused on the letter Cc, word a, and concept of details. We read several books that used our word and letter of the week and had fun finding this sound and word in them all! We also paused throughout our stories to identify important details of the story that would help us understand what and why something is happening and better predict what might happen next.

🔢 We are focusing on the written form of our numbers this week when looking to compare groups. This means we counted two groups of objects, wrote their corresponding numbers, and then considered which numeral was greater and which numeral was less. Going through each of these steps helps solidify the math concepts as well as build a deeper understanding of what it all means.

🖊 Our Lincoln Lion Rainbow Publishers are hard at work on their teaching stories! We learned that writers don't just give up when it gets hard to spell or draw... no way! Writers keep on trying until they get it just the way they like! Help encourage your child to persevere when the going gets tough by reminding them of the Little Engine That Could. We can do it!

🌳 Science has brought us to our five senses this week. We are focusing on each of the senses and what they can help us observe about the things around us. We used our five senses to check out our tree a little closer. We listened for our tree's sound, we sniffed for our tree's scent, we looked for our tree's shape, and we felt for our tree's texture. Go on an adventure with your family and see what you can discover with your five senses!

Short but Sweet Weeks 😊

Ask Your Child About...

1. Identify and write the letters Aa and Tt, as well as their sounds

2. Identify and write the words see and we

3. Group items in different ways to show 5 and 10

4. Identify, count, and write numbers 0-10

5. What helps a tree grow?

6. Our new tree planted by us!

7. Their teaching story

8. Fire Safety

SO HAPPY to have grass again! Grass Angels were made!

🍎 A huge thank you to you all for sending tasty, healthy, and exciting snack choices for our class! I will let you know when we are in need of more again, otherwise you can always send more as you feel inclined. Thank you!!

🦁 A day to take note: Saturday, October 26th 4:00-7:00 pm will be Lincoln's Fun Night. There is an information sheet in your child's blue folder that tells more information about this event. We hope to see you there!

  

🚒 Fire Safety week! We had a visit from the Iowa City Fire Department this week to help us learn some important information. They taught us a few songs about stop, drop and roll if our clothes are on fire, and two ways out for safe planning in every room. Ask your child what they remember Freddy the Fire Engine and Sparky the Dog sharing with us.

🙋 Volunteers Needed: We have two upcoming events that require some parent volunteers. If you are interested in either of the events, please email me so that I can get the information to you and the school screening process can begin so you are approved by event time. Thank you!

1. JA in a Day- Junior Achievement lesson completed in one half of a single school day. All materials provided and training from JA provided. You would lead the lessons and I would support. This is scheduled for November 25th or 26th (We are flexible to which day and morning or afternoon based on volunteers).

2. Iowa City Children's Museum field trip- we are required to have one adult for every five students, meaning we need three parent volunteers for this trip! You would accompany us to the museum and be accountable for a group of 4-5 students as you move through the different sections of the museum. Scheduled for December 6th from 9:00 am to 12:15 pm.

📚 These past two weeks in reading have focused on the letters Aa and Tt, the words see and we, and the comprehension skills of comparing and contrasting as well as understanding characters. You can help your child to continue their understanding of these concepts by reading various texts with them at home and practicing their identification and writing of the focus letters and words. When you are done with a story, or as you read through it, feel free to ask prompting questions about the character and why they might feel or do the things they do. You can also discuss similarities and differences between characters or even between similar books written by different people (fairy tales are great for this!).

🔢 We have continued our study of showing different ways to make 5 as well as different ways to make 10. You can do this at home by gathering various items and creating groups from them, you can also transfer this to paper by drawing the objects (or representing them with circles) and then writing the numbers to compare greater and less as well as use number sentences to explain how the two numbers come together to make 5 or 10.

🖊 Last week we continued writing our stories, expressing how we are in charge of our writing and we can use tools around us to help get letters and words on paper. This week we moved to a specific writing style: teaching books! We each thought of something we know a lot about and felt we could teach to others. Ask your child what their teaching book is about and help them come up with what they should put on each page.

🌳 We have continued our study of trees (and will do so through out the year as the seasons change) and moved to what they need to be healthy, happy, trees. We discussed how trees need sun, water, soil, leaves, bark, and love to grow big and strong. Help your child discover what else a trees needs or what a tree can provide for other living things. Most exciting, we planted our very own tree today! We will continue to check our tree and be sure to give it everything we can to help it become strong.

Picture steps of planting (let me know if you would like a picture of your child watering the tree (or any other newsletter pictures) and I can email it to you!):

Our Red Leaf Maple Tree

        

    

🦁 Have a fantastic weekend, stay warm, and as always please don't hesitate with questions or comments. 🙂

Eventful Week 😊

Ask Your Child About...

1. Review the words: I, and, like, the

2. Identify, write, and voice the sound of the letter Ss

3. Compare groups using the language greater than, less than

4. Our adopted tree

5. The new playground

6. Our new friend!

We love the new playground!

🦁 We have had several exciting things this week including a new classmate, new playground equipment, fire drill, and the Homecoming Parade! It sure is great to be a lion! 🦁

📚 Our letter of the week is Ss! We have been reading many books that have 's' in them, and we have been listening closely for the 's' sound in words we say. Continue to help your child identify the letter and sound of 's' and practice writing them in different ways! You could use play dough, mud, form it with letters and trace over with our finger- all sorts of techniques! This week we also reviewed our previous words: I, and, like, the. Please continue to work with these at home as well. During story time we also focused on the concept of sequencing. We found out that sequencing means putting things in order from start to finish. We are experts at this now- just ask your child to sequence or retell the story after you are done reading together!

🖊 Our stories are coming along quite nicely! If your child is working on a story at home, encourage them to do their very best. Remind them that they are the author, which means they are in charge of what they write. We don't need Ms. Grady or anyone else to tell us how to spell or what to write! No way! We can do it on our own! We learned that writers do their very best and know it's okay if something isn't quite right yet.

🔢 We finished topic two in math and will begin topic three next week. Topic two focused on grouping similar objects, counting to see how many, writing the number, showing how many with counters, and then using verbal cues to indicate which group was greater and which group was less. You can continue to practice these skills at home by gathering various objects from abound your house.

      

🌳 This week in science we adopted a tree! This tree is not a tree that we personally planted, but rather a tree that has been in the ground for quite some time. We will watch our tree throughout each season to see how it changes. We observed our tree to find out what it looks, feels, and smells like. We also measured our tree so that we can check its growth at the end of the year. Maybe you could adopt a tree in your neighborhood too! Enjoy the images of our tree artwork and our beautiful adopted tree!

🦁 As always, please reach out to me with any questions, comments, or concerns. Have a wonderful weekend!