Week of Apr. 11-15

**Assessment Times Posted Outside the Classroom Door. Please Sign Up ASAP!**

We had class and individual pictures! The kids looked very cute so I'm sure the pictures came out great. If you did not send an order form with kids on the picture day, they are accepting late forms until Monday.

In Fundations, we have been working on the middle sounds of words as well as practicing tapping out words. At home, have your child practice tapping out words that you see in books they are reading or around the house. Good words for this are CVC words, as well as words with digraphs, like chat. The digraph is one finger when tapping, because the two letters make one sound. They will need to be reminded about this.

In reading, we continue to work on comprehension strategies. All the kids need practice retelling stories and also picking up the main ideas of stories. Ask them for a retell or the main idea after they read at home. It's also good practice to ask for the characters and setting. You will probably need to remind them what these two words mean.

In math, we completed our introduction to the coins and are starting to practice money exchange. Kids counted pennies in their own bags then asked to exchange 10 pennies for a dime, or 5 pennies for a nickel. It's important for kids to practice counting at home and exchanging money so that this concept gets easier for them.

In writing, we returned to the descriptive genre. Kids described their shoes, shirt, and hair this week. We have been working on using different kinds of starts to sentences. For example, not to always say, "My hair is" as the start of a sentence. We also continue to work on spaces, capitals (where they belong), and punctuation.

We also did our BEAR test this week. This is the first standardized test these kids have taken, so it was very hard. They all did great and were very patient and quiet for the exam. When I have the results back from all the tests, I will send home a letter to let you know how your kid scored.

Have a great weekend!