Hi Families, 

We just celebrated the 100th day of school, which is a reminder of all the new and exciting skills your students have learned so far in school. It is important that students are practicing these skills at home so that they are not a one-time learning experience. We want to ensure students are fully understanding what they are learning in school and applying them at home and in other environments. The students learn so much information and continued practice at home will help them to retain that information for future use. 

A group of teachers at Terraset are beginning to work on some resources that would support learning at home, but first, they want your feedback! In the upcoming week or two, please be on the lookout for a link in either the Terragram and/or directly sent from your teacher. This quick survey will be asking families their preference in learning topics and other vital information to make sure these at-home learning resources are catered to what our families need and want. The survey should take no more than five minutes to fill out! Thank you in advance for taking time to share your thoughts with the team. 

Kindly, 

The Kindergarten Team

Language Arts

What are we learning?

• We will be finishing up our unit on Character Feelings and Small Moment Stories over the next two weeks!

• Readers think about characters and make connections to themselves by asking, “Have I ever felt that way?” or “Has something like that ever happened to me?
• Readers make connections among characters across stories by: 
  • Noticing characters who have similar feelings 
  • Noticing characters who have similar experiences
• Readers think about what the author wants them to learn.
• Readers begin to think about and respond to others’ ideas: 
  • By building on an idea with more thinking. 
  • By sharing evidence from the book. 
  • By sharing a different idea.
• Writers will share stories from their own lives through Personal Narratives. 
• Writers will create Small Moment stories about something that has happened in their lives. 

Home/School Connection

• Sight Word Practice: Continue to practice reading and writing these words at home!
  • a
  • the
  • I
  • see
  • can 
  • am
  • look 
  • at
  • me
  • said
  • like 
  • we
  • is 
  • here
  • you
  • on
  • no 
  • go 
  • so 
  • he 
  • she
  • and
  • it
  • on
  • come (will be introduced on 2/28)
• Ask your student to pick a small moment of their day that they remember; now have them draw a picture and write about it. Here are a few things to encourage them to do: 
  • Have clear pictures that match their small moment…this isn’t their whole day, just a small part of it. 
  • When writing: 
    • Are they starting the sentence with a capital letter? 
    • Do they have their finger spaces between words? 
    • Are Sight Words spelled correctly? 
    • Are words sounded out phonetically? (ie. pizza→pezu)
    • Is there a period at the end of the sentence?
    • Are their pictures consistent with a Small Moment Story? 
      • Characters look the same across all pages.
  • Do a few of these throughout the month of February and create a book with the saved writings! 
  • Pick out some of you and your student’s favorite Fiction books! Spend time making connections to the characters in the story. 
    • “Have you ever felt this way?”
    • “Has something like this happened to you before?” 
  • Ask questions about what happened in the story; have students give evidence from the book that backs up their answer.

Math

What are we learning?

We will begin our next unit, measurement. In this unit students will…

• Compare two objects or events
• Using direct comparisons 
• Describe objects based on 
  • length (longer/shorter)
  • height (taller/shorter)
  • weight (heavier/lighter)
  • temperature (hotter/colder)
  • volume (more/less)
  • time (longer/shorter)

Home/School Connection

When working on this unit at home, you can ask students to…

• Compare different items at home using vocabulary from above
• Use different items to measure toys or areas (use a pencil to measure the height of a bear and a doll)
• As children are cleaning up, ask them to pick up two items and share which is heavier or lighter
• Challenge students to clean up the heaviest items first
• Give students a variety of objects to compare and give them the option of which two to compare using any of the object descriptors being focused on

Science/Social Studies

What are we learning?

• Students will investigate and understand that humans have senses that allow them to seek, find, take in, and react or respond to information in order to learn about their surroundings.
•  
• Students will investigate and understand that there are simple repeating patterns in his/her daily life.

Home/School Connection

• Go on a Nature Walk and record what you notice with your different senses…what did you see, hear, smell and feel?
•  
• Record the weather for the week.  What did you notice?  Was the weather the same all day long or did it change?

Class Compliments

• Miss Matthews would like to shout  out Mrs. Dillon and the entire class for being so AWESOME while I was out last week.  You all rock!
• While learning about Presidents’ Day, George Washington, and Abraham Lincoln the topics of freedom, slavery, and equality are discussed.  Ms. Johnson and Mrs. B are impressed with the discussions that emerged and congratulate students for keeping an open mind about how these topics affected our history as well as how they affect our present and our future.
• Mrs. Bender and Mrs. Santoro would like to shout out the class for working so hard on their small moment pictures! The students took what we learned in class and made it come alive on paper. Most importantly we had fun with it!
• Ms. Powers and Mrs. T would like to shout out our amazing kindergarten class! We have been working so hard to count our friend’s 100 items, share our strategies, and think in different ways. We love that you challenge yourself everyday and use mistakes as opportunities to grow!

Social Emotional

• Kindergarten has learned about the Kimochis® Character named Bug. He taught children about the feelings left out, shy, brave, and scared. Bug is the Kimochis® Character who is thoughtful and very careful. He is very smart and loves to talk. But Bug is afraid of change, and because he is a caterpillar, this is hard for him. Although Bug is afraid, he secretly dreams of flying, but it is hard for him to try new things!

Home/School Connection

• Common Language: Positive self-talk: Encouraging self-talk you use inside your head, such as: “I think I can,” “I have done hard things before,” “I know I can do it” 
• Coach Positive Self-Talk 

• • Share your positive self-talk. “I’m not giving up even though I am frustrated. I can do this.” 

  • Suggest positive self-talk when you see your child is reluctant to try something new. Whisper in his/ her ear, “Estelle, I know you can do it! Tell yourself, ‘I can do it!’ 

  • With your child, wonder aloud about times he/she used self-talk when challenged. “I noticed you stuck with [name the task or activity]. What did you say inside your head to help?”

Positivity Project

What are we learning?

• Positivity Project (P2) for the week of February 22-25 is cheering others’ success
• Positivity Project (P2) for the week of February 28- March 3 is enthusiasm

Home/School Connection

• Ask your child things they think they are good at doing and things they think they need to practice more.  Then share things you think you are good at doing and things you would like to work on.  Children might be surprised to hear that even adults are not great at everything.  We are all works in progress!

Important Upcoming Dates

• Thursday, March 3: 2 hour early release
• Friday, March 4: Teacher work day, no school for students
• Saturday, March 5: PTO Skate Night 6:10-8:00pm, 1800 Michael Faraday Ct. 
• March 10 and March 24: Mind in the Making Parent Workshop with Jen Blum.   These sessions will be virtual, and you can see the flyer for topics .To learn more, visit the Mind in the Making website or email [email protected]. Click here to sign up for the workshops.

Click here to see what students are learning in Specials!