Illness Policy. Please read carefully.......

Please note the Memorial School policy below regarding times when your child is or has been sick. This is very important to abide by.

Illness Policy

When should you keep your child home? 
Fever (100 degrees and above), vomiting, diarrhea, or any contagious or potentially contagious conditions are reasons to keep your child home.

When is it appropriate for a child to return to school following an illness? 
~After 24 hours of antibiotic therapy for strep throat, conjunctivitis, or other contagious bacterial conditions
~24 hours fever free
~Once your child is without nausea, vomiting, or diarrhea for 12 hours and is tolerating a normal diet.

How Long? How Short? How Heavy? How Light?

We have spent a great deal of time measuring this week in Math. We continued to measure the length of objects using non-standard procedures. For example, the children measured how long the classroom was using their footprints. It was discovered that everyone had a different answer because everyone had a different size foot. The smaller the foot the more steps it took to walk across the room! We also compared how heavy or light objects were while we used balancing scales to measure the weight of things. Is this item heavier or lighter than the other? How can you tell by looking at the scale? So much fun..........

Such a pleasure.....Johnny the K

Once again Johnny the K came to visit the Memorial School. It is always a delight to listen to his music and find joy in his wonderful funny hats. All the students had a great time!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!

Happy New Year to all of you! The winter cold is here and in full blast. I hope everyone is staying warm.

It was a long vacation break and a bit difficult for all of us to get back into the routine of being in school.....myself included! We began the week talking about our new year's resolutions....writing and drawing about them. The children have just about completed their Time Capsules which are filled with information gathered about themselves in 2014. I have encouraged them not to open the capsules for quite a few years since it would be a lot of fun to look back at their kindergarten days at another time in their lives. I laughed when some said they were going to bury it!

We have also begun our unit on measurement.....length and weight. This past week was spent on length as we measured objects using non-standard procedures i.e. our hands and connecting cubes. We spent time using important math vocabulary to discuss the concept of measurement....length, height, taller, shorter, longer, compare. The children also have been measuring how many cubes tall they are and comparing themselves to each other. We continue to work on place value as well as writing teen numbers and determining different ways we can represent what they mean i.e. tally marks, pictures, ten frames, writing the number and writing the number word are some examples.

Next week, we will introduce weight and start measuring objects on scales.....lots of fun ahead!

In literacy, we are now working on decoding CVC words (consonant, vowel, consonant) along with writing uppercase letters. We continue to read in groups practicing the skills that we work on each day in whole group. We have also been writing in class and are becoming quite the authors and illustrators. We are learning to think about ideas we want to write about and have been using the rules of writing to put our ideas on paper. Editing work is important and the children use a checklist to assist them as they reread, make corrections, add words or more detail to their illustrations. The motto is "When you're done, you've only just begun!"

A Few Important Notes..............

Yesterday report cards were sent home in your child's backpack. Please make sure you keep the report card and RETURN the empty envelope signed by you. We will be recycling these envelopes throughout the year.

Also, it is VERY important that you call the school office absence line when your child is out sick or not attending for the day. This will eliminate having the office call you to check on your child. Thanks.

Recess.....

Just a quick note about recess for the coming cold and snowy days and months ahead. Your child needs to be prepared with snow pants, boots, hats and gloves for recess during these winter months. They will be going outside if there is snow on the ground. If they do not have snow pants and/or boots they will be restricted from playing in the areas where there is snow. They will be required to play on the hard top area instead. Reason being that they may get wet and cold if they are not properly dressed for this occasion. It is strongly suggested that your child carry this winter gear to and from school in a separate bag labeled with his/her name.

Monthly Spotlight

Surprisingly enough, the month of December is passing quickly. We have been working on numbers to 20 in math. We have been focusing on base ten, place value. How many groups of ten and ones does a number have? We have been using place value rods and counting cubes to determine what this means? This is a very difficult concept to understand but we are getting there! We also continue to determine different ways to represent the quantity of numbers. We have been exploring tally marks by counting groups of objects in sets of five. Another focus in math is the concept of more, less or equal. We have been comparing numbers and determining if they are more than, less than or equal to another number.

In literacy, we continue to work in reading groups. How can we become good readers? We are making sure we point to words we read as a 1:1 match. What happens if we can't figure out a word? We are learning to sound it out and/or look at pictures to help us. Each time we read we review all of our sight words, focus on some difficult words in the story, complete some word study work, or even respond to questions through writing. Our letter focus this past month has been on v, w, x and y. We are almost through the lowercase alphabet! We have also been working on hearing beginning, middle and ending sounds. We have begun to segment and blend CVC words and have been using the smart board in whole group for our learning.