FEBRUARY
It’s February and we have a busy month planned in Kindergarten. I look
forward to experiencing it all with your children!
Snow Day was a success. We did science experiments with the snow and the
students made “Snow Ice Cream”. They had fun playing in the snow and enjoyed
warming up with their hot chocolate at the end of the day. It was a great
day.
The Character Key for the month of February is Gratitude. Please discuss what
gratitude means with your child.
Language Arts
Reading: We will soon begin a new theme in our language arts program titled
“Wheels Go Around.” The objectives of this theme are:
Phonemic Awareness: Blending and segmenting phonemes
Phonics: Sounds for the letters Qq, Dd and Zz
Decoding: Words with short i
Words to know: Introduce the words “love”, “for” and “have”.
Reading Strategies: Summarize, clarify, question, and phonics/decoding
Comprehension Skills: Text organization and summarizing, cause and effect,
making predictions
Vocabulary: opposites, position words, parts of a car, and words for travel
Writing: The students will continue writing short sentences in their journals
with the high frequency word wall words. They are always encouraged to sound
out any words they do not know. We will continue our school wide writing
strategy called “Rainbow Writing”. To review what Rainbow Writing is: the
students underline each part of the sentence with a different color. The
Rainbow Writing colors are as follows:
• The capital letter is blue (also known as the “cool blue capital”).
• The adjectives are yellow (describing words that tell “like what?)
• The nouns are red (words that answer “what?” or “who?”)
• The verbs are green (action words that tell “doing what?”)
• The prepositional phrases are orange (words that tell “where?”)
• The period is purple (purple punctuation).
We have learned the short vowel “a” and the short vowel “i” in class. The
students are now able to begin making words with the letters we have learned
in combination with these two short vowel sounds. Words that have a CVC
pattern (Consonant-Vowel-Consonant) are being worked on and blended together
in class. Some examples of CVC words are: pan, cat, ham, sap, fit, dig, bib,
and lip. In your spare time at home, write down a CVC word and ask your child
to sound it out. Another way of practicing these words is to sound it out and
have your child try to write it using the sounds he/she hears.
Oral Language: The February poem went home and your child should be
practicing It and be able to recite it to the class. We encourage using hand
gestures and/or expression in speaking to enrich the experience of reciting
the poem.
Sharing: Our sharing for the next few months are items that help us think of
verbs, or “action words”. Therefore, instead of the students bringing in an
item and telling us adjectives to describe it, we will now bring in items and
use verbs to guess what it is. For example: If you want to bring in a trophy
to share, you would say “I got this for kicking, running and blocking.” Or if
you want to bring in a dog stuffed animal, you would say “It can bark, jump
and lick.” You get the idea. We are learning what verbs are and this is
another way of reinforcing it. Thank you for your support!
•Home/Community Connections: Below are some easy ways to help your child
practice skills.
1. Take turns naming things that have wheels, such as cars, bikes, and
scooters. Look for examples both inside and outside of your house.
2. With your child, enjoy books together. Talk about clues in the words and
pictures that help readers guess what is going to happen next.
3. Ask your child to draw a vehicle that he or she would like to drive. Ask
your child to sign the drawing and tell about it (using adjectives). If your
child wishes, help him or her add a simple label, such as “My fire engine.”
Math
This month we continue to practice counting by fives and tens. We will be
comparing and working with a penny, nickel and dime. We will continue working
with addition sentences. We will still be reinforcing knowledge and
understanding of the numbers 11-19, and helping the students be aware of the
concept behind the number (such as knowing that 13 is 10 + 3). We are
comparing two or more sets of objects and identifying which set is equal to,
more than, or less than the other. The students will demonstrate an
understanding of the concept of time (e.g., morning, afternoon, evening,
today, yesterday, tomorrow, week, year) and tools that measure time (e.;.,
clock, calendar). The students will continue to identify and describe common
geometric objects that are in the shape of a circle, triangle, square,
rectangle, oval. The students will be introduced to three dimensional shapes
such as a cube, sphere and cone. The students will compare familiar plane and
solid objects by common attributes (e.g., position, shape, size, roundness,
number of corners).
Science
In science we are finishing up a physical science unit title, “Investigating
Water.” This unit has included activities such as: Where is water found?
How does water move? What is water like? Which objects sink? Which objects
float? How does water change? What weighs more, snow or water? What are
the similarities and differences between snow and water? How is the
temperature of water different than the temperature of snow? Does ice melt
fast in water, salt or saltwater? The students also used their five senses to
describe water and snow, and will be writing about water and snow in their
journals.
Social Studies
In social studies we learned about Groundhog’s Day. Most of the students
predicted the groundhog would see his shadow and get scared, causing six more
weeks of winter. They were right!
We will also be learning about the Chinese New Year which will be Feb. 7th.
It is the Year of the Rat.
We will be learning about George Washington and Abraham Lincoln in honor of
their birthdays coming up.
The students will be reaching out to the veterans by making and writing
Valentine cards for them. The cards will then be delivered to the veterans by
my sister who is a nurse at the VA Hospital in Los Angeles. Hopefully the
cards will let some soldiers know they are remembered and cared about. If you
would like to donate a bag of individually wrapped Valentine candies to give
to the veterans with the cards, please have your child bring the donation to
school by this Friday, Feb. 8th with a note on it stating it is for the
veterans. Thank you!
Art
Look for your child’s clay penguin to be coming home soon. In February we
will be making a heart shape out of clay. In February the students will have
a directed draw lesson on how to draw Abraham Lincoln and George Washington.
We look forward to our Art S.C.A.E.P lessons too!
•“Thank you!” to all of you for supporting our Snow Day! The students really
enjoyed it and learned a lot as well. Hopefully you were able to catch a
glimpse of the snow!
• Wednesday, February 6th: Sycamore Canyon Science Fair Night
• Friday, February 8th: The 100th day of school!
• Thursday, Feb. 14th: Valentine’s Day
• Friday, Feb. 15th: NO SCHOOL (President’s Day)
• Monday, Feb. 18th : NO SCHOOL (President’s Day)
• Feb. 29th: Sycamore Canyon International Night.
The Kindergarteners will be learning a song for International
Night. Any Kindergarten student who is planning on attending
International Night will be invited to sing the song for the school
at a designated time (to be determined). Look for more information
coming home.
Please have your child read the paper take-home books to you. They usually
go home on Fridays in the Finished Work Folders.
Please make sure your child has a snack. Some students are complaining they
do not have a snack to eat at recess time.
The Sycamore Canyon Weekly Newsletter is available for viewing on the 2nd,
3rd, 4th Wednesday of each month on the following website:
www.sycamorecanyonschool.com and Click on Newsletters
