Ms. Hall

Happy Mother's Day

I hope you all had a wonderful and very deserving "Mother's Day."  It is hard to believe there are only ten days of school left. Our theme for the end of the year is Ocean.  Our reading, writing and center activities are based on this theme.  This week we will finish up with our reading groups and our last writing sample.  They have grown so  much.  Please continue to read all summer and have your child keep a little journal in the summer and write two or more sentences a couple times each week.

In Math, we are continuing with addition and subtraction.  The children are quickly learning math facts through our math games. 

In Social Studies we will wrap up the year with Memorial Day and its meaning. 

Everyone should have received the sheet on the last week of school-FIVE FUN DAYS!  If you did not receive it let me know and we will send another copy.  We will have our end-of-year ice cream party on Thursday May 21st, at 12:15.  We will begin by passing out the Nicholson Star certificates.  We would love for you to attend if you can work it out in your schedule.  The party will only last 30-35 minutes.  We have Art at 12:50. 

This week Thursday, May 14th is Field Day.  If you can help run a station on field day please let me or Mr. Dougherty know.  Volunteers are NEEDED! 

Thank you all again for your support.  Let's have a great last 10 days!!!

Laura Hall

We have formally introduced the last letter of the alphabet this week.  The children are expected to know all letters, and sounds including the short and long vowels.  We have learned to blend sounds to read one-syllable words and we continue to learn more sight words.  Your child is expected to read all 40 sight words to receive a consistent and successful grade on their report card.  Keep practicing words and reading. We will begin assessing soon. 

In writing, we are learning how to write simple directions.  We will continue this for the next few weeks and then finish up the last few weeks with story writing.  Please have your child practice writing sight words.  It will help them to learn to spell them as well as give them practice in correct letter formation.

In Math, the children are doing a great job learning how to combine sets (addition). This week we are introducing separating sets (subtraction).  Everyday in calendar math (RAP) we  continue to practice counting objects beyond 30 and counting pennies as well as practice identifying coins and their values.  We make fair trades with pennies, nickels and dimes. We count using ordinal numbers and continue learning new patterns. All these skills will be assessed on their report cards and we want to make sure it is fresh in their minds.

In Science, we have begun a unit on plants. This falls under our Living/Nonliving unit.  We will be sorting and comparing similarites and differences in plants.  We will also grow a plant from a seed and keep track of the growth in a daily journal.

In Technology, we are learning how to create a graph using a program called The Graph Club.  We gather information from the class and then form our graph based on the information we gathered.  We continually work on keyboarding skills and practicing labeling images we find in the Kidpix program.

The children have made amazing progress!  It has been fun to watch them grow. Just a month left of school lets keep up the great work right up to the end!

Field Day is coming up May 14th.  Please let Mr. Dougherty know if you are able to volunteer that day.  We need lots of help to make it a success!

Thank you again for all you do.

Laura Hall

Happy St. Patrick's Day

I want to thank all the parents who sent in a special treat today.  We  appreciated the decorative plates and napkins to the yummy cookies and juice box!  I also want to thank the parents who donated books from the book fair to our classroom.  We have enjoyed reading all the books and look forward to revisiting them in the near future.

Please look for your child's report card on Thursday, March 19th.  Please sign the white card and return the card and envelope the following day.

Don't forget our field trip to Cagle Dairy Farm is Friday, March 20th.  If your child is sick and will not be in school that day please call the office to let us know as soon as possible on that morning.  We will be outside the whole day so make sure your child is dressed appropriately for the weather.

Friday, February 27th is spirit day!  Chicken biscuits will be sold that morning with proceeds going to St. Jude's Childrens Hospital.  We hope to make this our biggest sale ever!!

Thank you all for all you do!  Have a great day!

Laura Hall

March is Here!

First, I want to thank everyone for the Boosterthon support.  It was a great success!  More importantly, I want to thank you for sending in the pledged money so promptly.

Everyone should have received a copy of the March homework calendar.  Along with this was a field trip permission slip to Cagle Dairy Farm, scheduled for Friday March 20^th.  Please check your

 child’s folder and return as soon as possible.

Don’t forget we have Math and Science curriculum night tonight.  There are lots of fun activities going on school-wide along with the book fair in the media center.  We would love to see you!

In Language Arts we are continuing our letter of the week.  We are adding more sight words and continue to practice sounding out words. For example:  p-i-g/ pig.  We are working on recognizing and producing rhyming words.   In writing we are focusing on organization: beginning, middle, and end in our stories.  We are learning to use a rubric so we  become better writers.

In Math, we are working on calendar skills.   The standard states each student will be able to name the days of the week, months of the year, and the four seasons.  They will understand the concept of yesterday, today and tomorrow.  We will continue practicing money and counting objects up to 30. 

In Social studies, we learned about the flag, the bald eagle, the Statue of Liberty, the Lincoln Memorial, the

Washington

Monument

, and the White House.  I will be assessing the children the next few weeks on identifying and explaining their meaning.

In Science, we have begun a unit on living and nonliving things.  This will continue into learning about animals and eventually plants. 

In Technology, we are practicing keyboarding skills.  The children are amazing.  They can all type their name, use the shift key, space bar key and enter key.  Most of the children can type a sentence without any assistance.   Please continue practicing these skills at home if you have a computer.

Important dates:  March 9^th- Field trip money due

                             March 19^th- report cards sent home

                            March 20^th- Field trip to Cagle Dairy Farm

Have a great week!

Laura Hall

BOOSTERTHON IS HERE!!!!

Parents,

The Boosterthon is here and we NEED your help!  The Fun Run is Thursday morning 9:00-10:15 for K-2.  You are welcome to come and watch but we are in dire need of pledges.  If you can pledge just $1.00 a lap most children will average 30 laps.  The money we raise will help with technology in each classroom.  Our class is as of Friday at only $6.00 a lap for the entire class.  Our goal is $40.00 per lap for the class.  Please call family or friends and help us out!  Your help is greatly appreciated. 

This week we are focusing in on the letter Ll.  Practice all letter sounds with your child including long and short vowels.  Please continue practicing sight words and you can challenge your child by having them spell the words they already know.  Our writing focus is narrative writing.  We are learning to write a story with a beginning, middle and end.  The expectation is to write at least three or more sentences by the end of Kindergarten.

In Math we will do a formal unit on money.  We will work on fair trades and learning how to count out pennies to buy items that are less than thirty cents.  At calendar time we are working on the Days of the Week, Months of the Year and the four seasons.  We use the words Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow.  If you have a calendar at home these are awesome skills to reinforce.

 In Social Studies, we are learning about presidents and American symbols like the Bald Eagle, Statue of Liberty, Lincoln Memorial, Washington Monument, White House, Pledge of Allegiance, Star Spangled Banner, the National and State flags.  The standard states the student will be able to identify and explain their meanings.

A special thanks to all of you for sending in glue sticks.  We do appreciate it very much.  Thank you all for your continued support.

Laura Hall

February

I have enjoyed talking with everyone this week during conferences.  The children are making amazing progress in all academic areas.  It is so much fun to watch them grow!

February calendar is on its way home.  Be sure to look for the letter about the Valentine’s Day project.  On the back of that sheet is our class list so your child can participate in the valentine exchange.  It is fun for the children to not only give but to receive valentine’s, so please help your child with this event.

In language arts, we will continue with our letter of the week and add more sight words.  We will also work on sounding out three letter short vowel words.  Our writing focus is on narrative writing.  We will work on beginning, middle, and end.

In Math, we will continue to work with teen numbers and slowly work our way up to 30.  We will also focus on number words – zero to ten, graphing and then begin a formal unit on money.

In Social Studies, we will look at national symbols as we approach President’s day.  The standard states:  The student will identify important American symbols and explain their meaning. (national and state flag, bald eagle, Statue of Liberty, Lincoln Memorial, Washington Monument, The White House, The pledge of Allegiance and the Star Spangled Banner.

In Technology, we will work on keyboarding skills.  We are learning shift key, space bar, enter, backspace, typing their name and words.  Anything you can do one on one at home will help us out tremendously.

Calendar reminders:  Early release day is Feb. 4^th

                                 President’s Day is Feb. 16^th – a student holiday

                                 Fun Run!

Boosterthon Fun Run coming soon in February!

This coming February the Nicholson PTA and Foundation have been organizing a unique and terrific fundraiser called the the Boosterthon Fun Run. This fundraiser will be used to help with technology upgrades at our school. Please visit www.boostersuperfan.com to find out more information about this great event!  The following are dates to kick off the celebration. Please come and join us.

February 10th-  Boosterthon Pep Rally in gym at 1:15

                      parents invited at 12:45

February 19th-  Boosterthon Fun Run for all grades

                      9:00-11:30 on the track

LET’S MAKE THE MOST OF THIS TERRIFIC FUNDRAISER TO HELP MAKE NICHOLSON EVEN BETTER!!

 

I hope you all have a terrific week!

Laura Hall

Happy Holidays!

We have an exciting ten days ahead of us!  We have begun our "wants and needs" unit.  The students are really beginning to understand that they don't NEED that new toy but that they really just want it. This week our students will be filling out job applications to apply for the shop that they want to work in next week.  They will choose between the stationary shop,the home goods store and the bake shop.  They will work the same job for three days and will earn money for the job they do.  After going to "work" for three days, they will get to go shopping and spend their earnings to buy the goods that they made.  I am very excited about this unit!  It  will be alot of fun and educational!  Thank you all for sending in supplies to make this a successful event. 

Our December 19th party will begin at 9:00.  Our room moms have sent emails about this event.  We will be making gingerbread houses and would love help from anyone who can attend.  We will be following the early release day schedule on the 19th so that means our lunch will be 10:43-11:13.  There will be a school-wide sing-along at 1:15p.m. in the gym.

As a fundraiser for Relay for Life, we will be having a school-wide Pajama Day next Friday, December 19th.  If your child wants to wear his/her pajamas bring one dollar!

I hope you all have a very Happy Holiday!  See you next year if not before!

Laura Hall 

November

Happy November!  Everyone should have received the November calendar last week.  Please take special note of Friday November 21st.  The whole Kindergarten will be putting on a short Thanksgiving play at 8:15a.m. in the cafeteria.  Bring your cameras!  The play will last about 15-20 minutes.  There will be an opportunity to take class pics at the end.  We will start promptly at 8:15 because parents do need to get to work.  I hope you will all be able to work your schedules to attend this special event.

This month in Language arts, our letter focus will be on the letter Cc and Nn.  Please continue to practice sight words.  If your child knows all the words you can practice spelling them.  In writing we are talking about informational writing.  We read books to gather information about a certain topic and then write sentences telling something we learned about it.  We continually work on spaces between words, periods and capital letters at the beginning of the sentence.  You can practice letter writing at home also.  Writing is much easier when the child can form the letter properly and  easily.

In Math, we are learning about two and three dimensional shapes.  Your child is expected to know a circle, square, triangle, rectangle, sphere and cube.  We continually work on ordinal numbers (1st-10th) and money.  Practice with real money at home.  We have added the dime and quarter.  We talk about who is on each coin and what the value is.  We do problem solving.  We look at different strategies used to get the answer and we learn how to show our work.  We also continue to work on graphing and how to collect and organize data.

In Social Studies, we are contiuing map skills work and we are adding Thanksgiving and looking at how things are now and how they were in the past.  We integrate these units into our language arts and writing.

Thank you again for your continued support and we hope to see you on Friday, November 21st for our special Thanksgiving play.  Have a great week!

Laura Hall

Happy Columbus Day!

It is officially the end of the first nine weeks of school!  Report cards will be sent home on Friday, October 17th.  Please sign the card enclosed with report card and return in envelope.  You keep the report card. Please use the parent rubric you received at the beginning of the year to help you understand what part of each standard we evaluated.

The second nine weeks of school the expectation will increase a little more with each standard. In Language Arts, your child will be expected to identify all upper/lowercase letters and their sound.  They are expected to name and produce rhyming words, read ten or more sight words, and blend sounds to make words.

In Writing, our focus will be informational writing. Along with learning to write better sentences we will continue to work on writing all letters correctly.

In Math, we will continue working on numbers 0-10 and begin moving into teen numbers toward the end of the second quarter. Also continue with money and include the dime and its value along with penny and nickel. During the second quarter we will do a unit in measurement and geometry (shapes).

In Science, our focus will be motion,gravity and day/night.  In social Studies we will learn about Veteran's Day, Maps and globes, and Thanksgiving.  In Health, our units will focus on nutrition and personal health.  These areas are integrated into our Language Arts as much as possible.

We have the school-wide Fall Carnival coming up on Friday night.  I hope I see you there!  It's always a fun time!  Don't forget our Field Trip to Cherokee YMCA will be Thursday, Oct. 24th. We are looking forward to it all! Thank you again for all you do and for your support.  Have a wonderful week.

Laura Hall

October Is Here!

October is just around the corner!  I hope everyone received the October homework calendar.  The end of the first nine weeks of school is October 10th.  Report cards will be sent home on Friday, October 17th.  We do have a field trip on Thursday October 23rd, to the Cherokee YMCA.  Please send permission slips and monies as soon as possible.

This week in Language Arts we are studying the letter Mm and its sound.  Next week will be review week of all the letters with a focus on the ones we have taught to this point.  We are also working on identifying rhyming words, and sight words.  In writing we are working on the Idea trait of writing and how we come up with an idea.  We are looking at the difference between a letter, word and sentence.  We are using the sight words we have learned to help form sentences.

In Math, we are learning numbers 0-5.  We are looking at different number arrangements to help us gain number sense.  We also talk about how to show a specific number. (by word, number, objects)  We are practicing the concepts of more than, less than or fewer, equal or same.  We are continually practicing ordinal numbers (1st,2nd,3rd etc.), positional words, and identifying pennies,and nickels and their value.  We are learning how to do exemplars (problem solving).

Our Social Studies theme is Fall.  We tie this into calendar and the changes we see outside.  We will be discussing Columbus Day next week and then the following week begin talking more about maps and globes.

In Science, we will continue to use our senses to sort and group objects by their physical characteristics.  You should have received the letter about our Rock unit beginning next week.  We will collect and sort rocks these rocks by shiny/dull, big/little, heavy/light/, smooth/rough, and color.

Please practice the sight words everytime they come home.  If your child knows them work on spelling a few at time.  This will help them when we are writing sentences.  Thank you for all you do to support us.  We appreciate it.  Have a great week!

Laura Hall