Kindergarten Testing
We will begin kindergarten achievement testing (similar to the MAP test) on Monday, April 16th. During the week of the 16th, it is extremely important that your child: get plenty of rest each night, eats a healthy breakfast (oatmeal, biscuit, eggs, or other non-sugary food), gets to school on time each morning, is only absent if absolutely necessary, and wears glasses to school. Please encourage your child to do his/her best on the test.

Snack
Please keep our daily snack time in mind when you are at the grocery store. Thank you to those who have already donated— the kids absolutely love them! :)

No School...
...this Friday or next Monday. Enjoy your four day weekend!

Book Orders
These are due Thursday, April 4th. If you order, please look into doing it online so our classroom receives free books for our class library. There may be some books or games your child would enjoy and many of the books are only $1.

Spring Break
There will be no school March 19th and 20th for our spring break. However, we will be in school March 21st for a makeup snow day. Enjoy your break!

New Secret Word
Our secret word for March is three. Have your child write the word three in three sentences and bring it to school. The word THREE is the secret word because some of our newest sight words are number words. Your child should be able to identify the words: one, two, three, four, and five. It would also be good to teach your child how to identify the number words six, seven, eight, nine, and ten. We will study these words soon!

Dr Seuss
Recently we have been doing many activities related to the Dr. Seuss books. We have read Green Eggs and Ham, Horton Hatches the Egg, One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish, and many more. The kids even got to watch the teachers and parents fry our own green eggs and ham. They were each brave enough to try some, and most of the kids really enjoyed it! If you visit the "Picture" section of the blog, you will be able to see pictures of the kids making Cat in the Hat hats, using their hands to create silly fish from the Red Fish book, having guest readers, and frying the green eggs and ham.

Parent/Teacher Conferences
Don't forget about the conferences scheduled between 3:30 and 6:30 Thursday afternoon. The book fair will be taking place in the Library during this time, so make a point to stop by after your conference.

Library Book Fair
The boys and girls will go to the book fair during their library time this Wednesday afternoon. If you would like to send money to school for your child to buy an item from the book fair, please send it in a marked envelope, stating the child's name and what the money is for.

Things to Practice
· Writing sentences that include capitals and periods
· Addition Stories (Sam ate 3 grapes, then he ate 2 more. How many grapes did Sam eat altogether?)
· Matching analog time with digital time to the hour
· Adding coins (three pennies means I have 3 cents, five dimes means I have 50 cents)
· Recognize geometric shapes in student’s environment (dice= cube, ball=sphere, soda can= cylinder)

Mrs. Garner's Last Day
Tomorrow is my last day! It will be a bittersweet day! I am sad to leave but very glad to be finishing up my time as a college student. I have enjoyed the opportunity to teach the kiddos new things! I have also learned so many things during my time here! I am going to miss this classroom so much and definitely plan on coming back for a visit soon! This group of students is such a joy to be around and I am so grateful that I had the chance to get to know them! I am looking forward to having a classroom of my own in the future!

Mrs. Garner

Justin Bieber: If your child is a fan of Justin Bieber, you can visit this link to watch him read The Cat in the Hat. We will be watching it at school during Read Across America Week! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8jV_VaKW4Tw

Animals Science Unit
The posters that came back to school looked so good! I am very pleased that the students got the opportunity to work with their families and share the experience! We are just finishing up the post-assessment this week and the students are doing well! I enjoyed teaching the unit and enjoyed the students getting so excited about the different activities we did and the videos we watched! Thank you for your help with the posters!

Mrs. Garner

Box Tops
We are in a school-wide Box Top race for the month of February. Please save your Box Tops and encourage your family and friends to do the same. This is an EASY way to raise money for our school, because every Box Top earns our school 10 cents. This may not seem like much, but when we all pull together and save, it turns in to hundreds of dollars! Please send these to school before the end of February and our class has a chance to win a nacho party or a treat each day for a week!

Practice, Practice, Practice
We are learning so much these days and beginning to prepare for first grade. Here are some things you can practice with your child at home:

• Counting by 5 up to 100
• Counting by 2 up to 100 (We have not practiced this yet, but it would be great if you get a head start!)
• Blending words with three and four letters. (If your child can do that easily, challenge him/her with longer words with two syllables.)
• Read number words 1-10 (one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten)
• Identifying all of our sight words (We have practiced all of the ones listed below and we are starting on additional words.)

Here are the sight words your child should know:
I am the little to a
have is we my like he for
me with she see look they you of
are that do one two three four five
here go from
yellow green blue red
purple pink black brown white
orange what said
was where come

Library is every Wednesday. Please place your child’s library book in his/her backpack Tuesday night so your child can exchange his/her old book and get a new one on Wednesday. However, please do not store it in your child’s blue folder, because the thickness of the book usually ends up tearing the pockets. Thank you for your help.