January 23rd - 27th, 2012

Hey All!
Hope the 2012 is treating everyone well!  The year is moving right along and we're off to a great start in this new year!  The children have really enjoyed a new song I found for our mimio board about the 12 months of the year...ask them to sing it for you...it's a great tune!

Here's what's happening this week:

Language Arts:
We'll meet our new alphafriend for the week:  Fifi Fish!  She'll teach us all about the letter/sound of Ff!  We'll revisit some of our stories that we've been reading - all counting stories!  We'll compare/contrast them and talk about what we liked and didn't like.  Our strategy focus this week is on asking questions during a story to check for understanding.  Our reading comprehension focus will be on recalling the beginning, middle and end of the story.
We'll review our sight words that we've learned so far and we'll also review our word families: -at and -an.  The children are really moving right along with their reading progress!  I have just completed all of the children's Guided Reading levels and they are all doing so so well...well on the way to being ready for 1st grade!

Math:
We have finished up our section on numbers 0-10 and are taking a break for numbers for awhile to work on GEOMETRY!  =)  We'll review shapes and then go onto harder ones...sphere, cone, cylinder and explore some other early concepts to geometry.

Religion:
We'll finish up our section on learning about God's wonderful gift of our world and how it is our duty to take care of it.  I can't wait to see the posters they will make about caring for God's world.  We'll then move onto learning about Jesus as a teacher and how he teaches us many lessons through stories from the bible.

Science/Social Studies:
We'll learn all about the Chinese New Year (celebrated on Monday, Jan. 23rd) and make a dragon puppet during Center times with helpers Mary Jane Grande (on Monday) and Mary Jo Gingras (on Wednesday). 
We'll be learning about Polar Animals...focusing on the Polar Bear and the Penguin.
I'll be working with them in Centers to learn about Polar Bears from their National Geographic for Young Explorers magazine.
The 2nd Grade have buddied up with us to learn about Penguins.  We'll be doing a penguin book with them on Tuesday and a Heart Shaped Penguin Art Project on Thursday.

Please keep your eyes open for FEBRUARY Snack & Center Calendars and also information concerning Catholic Schools Week. 
Last year the Kindergarteners and I decided to to a short little play for the Variety Show and I'm planning on doing that again (different story this year.)  Hope you can plan to attend this!

Keep those Movie Themed Items coming!  We've got a good start on our basket...thanks for your donations for our Silent Auction basket!

Have a wonderful week!
Thanks for stopping by!
~ Mrs. Westlund  =)