Hardy's Happenings
February 7, 2016
RANDOM ACTS OF KINDNESS WEEK AT PRS
To gear up for National Random Acts of Kindness Day which is celebrated February 17th, our Community 8 Respect Diversity Project Group is sponsoring a PRS Random Acts of Kindness Spirit Week February 8 - 12. We hope you will join us by spreading kindness throughout the Pike Road community!
K - Kickoff Random Acts of Kindness Week MONDAY -- Show support for your favorite
sports team.
I - Inspire someone to be kind TUESDAY -- Dress as your favorite superhero and inspire
others to be Kindness Superheroes.
N - Neon bright WEDNESDAY -- Make the world a bright place by sharing kindness.
D - Dive into kindness THURSDAY -- Dress in your favorite tropical wear or sea life as we
dive into kindness.
Friendly FRIDAY Twins Day -- Pair up with a friend and dress alike.
VALENTINE'S DAY CELEBRATION
We will celebrate Valentine's Day as a class by exchanging valentines on Friday, February 12. Please send a valentine for each classmate (21 not including your child). A list of names was sent home last week as well as emailed. Let me know if you did not receive that list. Please have your child be responsible for writing who the valentine is to and from and putting the classmate’s name on the envelope. We will exchange valentines, make a special valentine snack, and enjoy a making a craft together to celebrate the day!
MONDAY, FEBRUARY 15 -- PROFESSIONAL LEARNING DAY -- NO SCHOOL FOR LEARNERS
THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 25, 6:00 P.M. -- MULTICULTURAL FESTIVAL AND TASTE OF THE WORLD PTSA MEETING
CHANGES IN FRESHGRADE
FreshGrade released updates last Thursday that changed the icons that are viewed in your child’s portfolio. The red dot has been eliminated. Exceeding Expectations is now represented by a cluster of yellow stars. Meeting Expectations and Approaching Expectations now have been divided into two parts. For Meeting Expectations you will see a blue star for the high end of this level of mastery and a green check for the low end of this level of mastery. For Approaching Expectations you will see a yellow semi-circle for the high end of this level of mastery and a pink circle for the low end of this level of mastery. This allows the Lead Learners to show parents a wider range of student learning. Please let me know if you have questions.
SHARED READING
This week during Shared Reading we continued to focus on patterns in text. We read books with repetitive text. We learned about question/answer patterns, expanding patterns and shrinking patterns. We listened and identified these patterns while reading I Went Walking, There Was An Old Lady Who Swallowed A Fly, The Jacket I Wear In The Snow, Five Monkeys Jumping On the Bed, and The Napping House.
We also learned two new sight words--not and big. We found those word while reading these chants/poems and book--"Everything, Everywhere", "I Am Not", "Big City", The Little Mouse, The Red Ripe Strawberry, and the Big Hungry Bear.
MORNING MEETING/MATH
We continue to work through story problems together as a group during our morning meeting time. This week our story problems focused on subtraction.
Over the last two weeks, the children have been earning pennies for their individual banks. They can earn pennies for their work in the classroom (journal illustrations and writing entries, math journal tasks, poetry journal tasks, etc.). On Friday, we opened our class store. The children recorded how many pennies they had earned in their bank book. They represented that number with tally marks or circles. They were then able to shop and spend their pennies. Then, they had to record in their bank book what they had bought and how much they spent. Their last task was to record how many pennies they had left. We will continue earning pennies and our store will be open again in two weeks. This is a great way to practice counting, adding, and taking away for a real purpose.
THEME DEVELOPMENT
We are wrapping up our study of ladybugs. We painted our salt dough ladybugs and added them to tree leaves and branches to display in our classroom. We revisited our list of what can live in a tree. The children voted on our next woodlands creature to study. It will be the Great Horned Owl! We will begin reading and researching about this raptor next week.