April News
Dates to Remember
Tuesday, April 2, 2024 - Presidential Preference Primary Election. Schools Closed.
Friday, April 5, 2024 - Hopewell Spirit Day - PJ's and Slippers.
Friday, April 8-12, 2024 - Spring Recess . No School.
April 15-19, 2024 - Scholastic Spring Book Fair.
Friday, April 26, 2024 - PTO Sponsored Hartford Yard Goats Game, 7:10pm.
Looking Ahead
Friday, May 3, 2024 - Hopewell Spirit Day.
Thursday, May 9, 2024 - Hopewell Art Show.
Wednesday, May 15, 2024 - Field Day.
Monday, May 27, 2024 - Memorial Day. No School.
May 2024- Blue Chip Creamery Order. (Due date TBD. Expect details for this event after Spring Recess)
June 2024
Monday, June 3, 2024 - Kindergarten Celebration for Parents and Students, 2:15-2:45pm!
Thursday, June 6, 2024 - Projected Last day of School.
School-to-Home Connection
Reading Strategies
Continue to encourage your child to apply the following reading strategies:
1. Based on the title and cover photo, think about what this book will be about. (Thinking Power)
2. Look for picture clues (Picture Power)
3. Look at the beginning letter in a word and get your mouth ready for its sound (Sound Power) or look at the beginning blend and say it's sounds (Extra Strength Sound Power)
4. Use your reading finger to point to each word as you read. (Pointer Power)
5. Read the sight words, such as "the," "a," "and," "in," etc. (Sight Word Power) or look for sight words that are "wearing a disguise" such as "liked," "looking," "sees," etc. (Extra Strength Sight Word Power)
6. Look through the whole word and say the sounds.
7. Look for chunks in words to help read the word.
8. Try the other sound of the vowel in the word (6-8 are also Extra Strength Sound Power)
9. Skip the word, read the rest of the sentence, and then come back to the word (Reread Power)
10. While reading think about the following:
* Does it sound right?
* Does it look right? (Cross-Check Power)
* Does that make sense?
Students should be reading every night for a minimum of 10 minutes. I will collect this month's reading log on April 30th.
Building Fact Fluency
You have a key role in supporting your child's development as a mathematical thinker. When your child figures out a fact, you can ask them, "How did you figure that out?" because verbalizing their strategies can help children make connections and develop reasoning.
You can also support your child by talking about numbers as they come up in your daily lives. If you're cooking, shopping, building, crafting, setting the table, doing chores, and so on, you can ask questions about the mathematics you are already doing. For example:
I wonder how many socks we just took out of the dryer? How many pairs could that be when we fold them?
If a grown-up eats 2 eggs and a kid eats 1 egg, how many eggs do we need to make scrambled eggs for all of us?
We've already read 16 picture books this week! How many more do we need to read to get to 20?
Classroom Update
Phonics
Playing with Phonics! After our Spring Recess we will begin our final unit and it is whimsical, experimental, joyful - and most of all, fun! Throughout the unit we will use our knowledge of phonics to experiment and explore the sounds we hear in words and the sounds we want to write. We will work to read, perform, write and revise our own poetry and use our knowledge of rhyme to create our own silly strings of words which we will transform into poetry. The unit culminates with designing and executing our own phonics projects that will be a celebration of our learning!
Reading
Reader's Workshop! Becoming Avid Readers. We are continuing to explore what avid readers do as we focus on reading fictional stories and thinking about characters, settings, and plot. Your kiddos will organize reading playdates and create their own superpowers charts geared toward self-selected goals. We will also become avid readers of nonfiction texts and understand that nonfiction readers can explain what they have learned to others, and talk like experts using fancy words that go with the topic. The ultimate goal of this unit is to celebrate children's natural curiosity, provide many opportunities for self-determination, and to continue to grow their social skills along with their reading skills in an engaging, memorable, and developmentally appropriate way.
Writing
Persuasive Writing of All Kinds - Using Words to Make a Change. In Unit 4 of Writer's Workshop we will write lots and lots of persuasive writing! Children will be asked to look at the world around them in new ways - seeing not just what is, but what could be. They will reflect on troubles they see around the classroom, the school and even the world and think, "What could make things better?" and then do all kinds of writing to help make a change. The goal is to teach them that when they want to create a change, it is important to convince people to agree with them, and letter writing is one important way to do that. This unit will provide opportunities for them to write persuasive texts related to our social studies unit, All About Our World.
Math
In Unit 10, Length, Weight, and Capacity we will work with measurable attributes to compare and sort objects. We'll revisit the idea of sorting by attribute as a way to differentiate between attributes that are measurable and those that are not.
Our vocabulary for this unit: attribute, taller, shorter, longer, measure, compare, shorter than, longer than, the same as, weight, weigh, weighed, heavier, lighter, balance, balance scale, capacity, holds more, holds less, holds the same amount, rim.
Science
During our Life Science unit of study, 'Stayin' Alive,' we will develop an understanding of what plants and animals (including humans) need to survive and the relationship between their needs and where they live. We have some fun experiments coming up and there will be many opportunities for students to record their ongoing observations. For example, we will plant 4 bean seeds, each in its own clear plastic cup. Three of the seeds will be planted in soil, and one will not be. The plants will be put in 4 different conditions with a variable (water, sunlight or soil) missing. For 2 weeks we will observe how each plant grows or does not grow when it is missing something that it needs. We will also have an ongoing lesson in which students will learn about animal life cycles, specifically of a butterfly. In the spring students will observe caterpillars engaging in metamorphosis, and learn how they can provide the animals with an environment that will meet their needs as they grow and change. The culminating Engineering Task for this unit will have students creating habitats that resemble an animal's natural biome. They will research, design, build and explain their work!
Social Studies
In our unit, All About Our World, we will learn ways in which we can help protect the Earth and conserve our natural resources and landfill space by following the three R's: reduce, reuse and recycle .
We will continue to focus on developing the ability to identify and solve problems during our Second Step unit . We'll explore consequences and picking the best solutions. We'll focus on having fun with our friends rather than insisting on getting our own way and we'll reflect on how 'Fair Ways to Play' can help us have fun!
