Category Archives: Parent Resources

Websites and information for parents to support students in extending learning from the classroom to home.

Examples of Community Helper Costumes

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In two weeks, the students will share what they have learned about Communities and their Helpers by becoming a community helper, themselves. Please work with your student to create a costume or outfit of a community helper of their choice. Below are a few photos from last year of what the parents and their students came up with. The students also shared what they community helper is called, where they worked in the community, what tools they used to perform their jobs, and how they helped their community. So for instance, a student dressed as a firefighter will say something like: “My name is Ryan. I am a firefighter. I work in a fire house and use a fire hose, fire truck, and helmet to do my job.  I help the community by putting out fires and keeping people safe.”

 

 

Math Songs for Assembly

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Next Thursday, October 23rd will be the first Preschool 5 led Assembly of the year. The students will be singing songs and reciting chants about the 2D and 3D shapes that we have been learning about this term. Your students have specific shapes that they will be in charge of singing, so ask them what their shape is and practice the song or chant with them using the link to the powerpoint below. We have practiced in class, as well, so they should have know them a bit already.

Math Songs and Chants Powerpoint

The Tiger class will be singing about the 2D shapes, triangles, squares, circles, and rectangles.

The Lion class will be chanting about the 3D shapes, sphere, cube, cone, and cylinder.

Your practicing with them at home will be greatly appreciated. 🙂

Conflict Resolution

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When students have conflicts with others during the day, we highly encourage them to try and solve the problem on their own. During our friendship unit we will spend a great deal of time teaching students different strategies for solving their problems. We use Kelso’s Choices to show students these strategies. We will introduce a few of these strategies such as counting to ten or walking away during our first unit so that they are already able to solve problems. Please help to reinforce the strategies at home as well. For more information please visit

http://standupagainstbullyingguy.wordpress.com/2012/02/13/kelsos-choice-conflict-management-skills-program-for-your-school/kelso wheel

kelso 2

The Scientific Method

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Our Unit of Inquiry on Shadows and Light this term focuses heavily on scientific experiments where the students get to explore and inquire into our central idea that “Living things depend on light as an essential resource”. To help guide the students’ understanding of the process of conducting experiments, we are going to use the Scientific Method. Here are the steps so you can go over them with your child at home, as well. There will be a Science Fair towards the end of the term that will showcase what the students have learned as well as their skills as a scientist.

IMG_3674[1]  IMG_3678[1]   IMG_3677[1] IMG_3675[1]  IMG_3676[1]

Reading Strategies and Skills 5

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This week we will be working with the “Skippy the Kangaroo” strategy and inference. “Skippy the Kangaroo” encourages students to skip over words that they are not able to decode and try to use context clues to figure out the meaning of the text. When students make inferences, they need to read the text carefully and use their background knowledge to understand what the author is saying. For example, if an author writes that it is cloudy and the character is holding an umbrella, students can infer that it will probably rain.

Skippy Kangaroo Infer

Reading Strategies and Skills 5

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This week students will work on the Eagle Eyes reading strategy. Students will be encouraged to look at the pictures to help them understand unknown words. Even if students are not able to read every word of a story, they should be able to understand most of the story using the words they can read and the pictures. Eagle Eyes

Reading Strategies and Skills 4

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This week students will continue to work on making connections whenever they read or listen to a story. Students should explain how the story reminds them of something else. For example, they can say how the story reminds them of something they have done or experienced, a movie they’ve seen, or another book that they have read. We will also work with the Stretchy the Snake strategy. Students will stretch out the sounds in each work then blend the sounds to read the word. Try to reinforce these strategies at home when reading with your child, to help them put what they learn in the classroom into practice at home. Stretchy SnakeMaking Connections

Reading Strategies and Skills 3

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This week students will review the comprehension skills of summarizing, asking questions, visualizing, and making predictions. We want to ensure that students have a strong understanding of these important skills. After the April break, we will continue to practice these skills as well as learn others. This week we will also introduce the “flippy the dolphin” reading strategy. Students will learn the difference between consonants and vowels then the difference between long and short vowels. The strategy encourages students to read words with a different vowel sound if it does not sound correct the first time they read the word. Flippy the Dolphin

Reading Strategies and Skills 2

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Last week we focused on summarizing what we read. Students were encouraged to use their own words to retell what happened in the story. We also focused on the listening lion strategy which asks students to listen to themselves as they read. We are encouraging students to listen and think about whether or not their reading makes sense. If not, students are asked to reread the sentence. Questions Lips the fish

Reading Strategies and Skills

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Our students are doing a wonderful job of reading! They have shown significant growth since the beginning of the year. As we continue to encourage students to become stronger readers, we will teach a new reading strategy and comprehension skill each week. Last week we discussed  the importance of visualization. Students should try to make a mental image or movie while reading and listening to stories. Our anchor posters say “I can create a picture in my mind using my senses as I am reading.” Please encourage your children to do this at home too! Our first reading strategy is the Chunky Monkey strategy. Students are encouraged to look for word chunks. “They will find little words inside big words and look for a part that they know to help them read.” This week we are learning all about prediction. Students are encouraged to look at a book’s cover and title and make predictions prior to reading. They should make predictions and provide evidence for their predictions throughout the story as well. predict

VisualizeCapture