Week of: March 31 st – April 4 th

1. Week of: March 31st – April 4th News to Know Rowdy Readers Next Friday is `the “Let’s Get This Party Started” Hawktion Party. The kindergarten-2nd grade party is from 5:00-7:00. I know that the slots are filling up so check for more information on the school website or give the office a call at (708) 524-3100. Please keep an eye on the weather on a daily basis. This time of the year is tricky. We never know when it will be freezing or if it will start to heat up. Please make sure your child comes to school with appropriate clothing. We have been going through various science lessons and experiments for the last month with the primary focus on water. We have discussed properties of water, sinking and floating, states of matter and dissolving. Please reinforce and ask about some of these learned facts with your child at home. The next kindergarten registration for the 2014-2015 school year is Tuesday, April 22nd and Wednesday, April 23rd. If you have any friends or family with a soon to be kindergartener, please pass along this information…THANK! • This week in reading we started a new unit about plants that will really get us ready for the spring. We read a lot of nonfiction books that go us thinking about what plants need to grow, how they grow and the parts of a plant. Some of the books that helped us learn this week were: • Oak Trees • Seeds, seeds, seeds, • How a Tree Grows • Rain • Sticky, Sticky Pine • The Conceited Apple Branch • We also added new sight words and new vocabulary words this week. Remember, sight words are meant to be ready by sight and not by sounding out. Vocabulary words are meant to improve our oral language. The new sight words for the week were “little” and “said”. Our current sight word list is up to 30 words. The new vocabulary words for the week were: conceited, grow, plant, charming and equal. Math Madness Upcoming Dates This week in math we really concentrated on proper number formation. We used parts of our handwriting curriculum to know exactly how write 0-9. Some students made comments such as “I don’t make my 2s like this”, however I would like them trying the new number formation that was taught this week. Friday, April 11th: “Let’s Get This Party Started” 5:00-7:00 Kindergarten-2nd grade Friday, April 18th: NO SCHOOL Things we do at Holmes/Things to do at Home • Write about personal experiences • Ask about unknown words in a book • Add drawings to written works • Speaking loud and clear • Understand that some words have two meanings, e.g. duck the animal and duck down