Week of March 27-31st

This week we learned all about frogs, their habitats and some cool vocabulary words. Have your child share their frog book with you. On the back page, they should have written two sentences. One fact about frogs and one opinion sentence about frogs. We worked on the differences between fact statements and opinion statements. We also got to see a real tadpole with legs that Cora’s brother found in a pond.

In math, we are working on teen numbers and place value. We are building teen numbers, taking them apart (decomposing) and working on recognition and understanding of the number. We’ve done some fun games to practice. I also sent home some ideas to practice with at home.

Please keep returning the book/game bags after a few days. I have kids who have had them for two weeks. The longer they have them, the less practice they’re getting.

We are all tired of playing on the blacktop and spring fever is starting to show up. We are working on keeping hands to ourselves and making sure we’re including others in our play. Please help give these reminders at home. We are also short on basketballs, playground balls and jump ropes. They tend to vanish…. if you have any you’d like to donate, we’d love to have some more! We haven’t heard a date when the playground will be finished.

We will be going to the Coterie and Legoland on Fri. April 28th for a field trip. Permission slips and parent volunteer sheets will come home on Monday. We scheduled it in the fall not realizing that that is the same weekend as the NFL draft at Union Station. We tried to change the date, but we can’t so we are going to just go and hope we can find bus parking. Parents who are chosen to volunteer will want to carpool. More info. to come later.

The last book order of the year will come home Monday as well. They are due April 13th by NOON. Books are great gifts and incentives for kids. You should also be able to look at the May flyers as well since I won’t be sending those home.

We do NOT have school next Thursday due to Kindergarten roundup. If you know neighbors who have incoming kindergarteners, please let them know to go to the BE website and sign up. Parents WILL bring their future kindergartener to sign ups. The rest of the school, 1-5 HAS school on Thursday, just not kindergarteners.

The end of the year gets a little crazy, but I’m going to add to it! 🙂 Always in the past I have had Royal Readers and let parents/grandparents come into the room to share a story or two. Then covid hit, and now we need to get back to it! I’m going to try and see if this works. If you would like to read, email me a date or two that would work. I would prefer you come at 12:15 or 1:30 (except for E days for the 1:30 slot as we have counselor.) You would need to bring a couple of books you’d like to share with the class. If you let me know which ones, I can make sure it’s something we haven’t already read. It can be a surprise which the kids love, or you can tell them you’re coming. I don’t care, just let me know so I don’t ruin the surprise. Sign up dates will be from April 17-May 19th. We will not have readers on 4/21, 4/28, 5/4, or 5/12. I hope that makes sense! Once you have emailed me and I confirm a time, please mark it down as I will not be sending reminders. If grandparents are in town and they want to come read, they are welcome to as well. Any visitor will have to show an ID and check in through the front office.

Towards the end of April, we will also start our Kids Teach lessons. Each child will be required to teach something to the class, have a plan and a poster to go with their presentation. Presentations will need to be approved by me ahead of time. I will send more info. out soon, but you might want to start talking to your child about what they could teach the class. They can teach “about” something except for what we’ve done in class. So for example, they cannot teach frogs since we have done that. They can teach us how to “do” something or “make” something. It needs to be at least 5 min long but can go up to 20-25 min if they need. The more they can get the class involved the better. For example, teach us about something and then have us make it or do it. They cannot teach how to play a video game or build a lego set. I learned the hard way that that doesn’t involve the class at all and gets really boring for everyone else. Any materials you would need would need to be brought in. Kids have scissors, glue sticks etc so that wouldn’t need to be. A letter with more info. will come home soon.

We had a great week! Hope you have a great weekend!

Week of March 21-24th

This week was all about the weather and the job of a meteorologist. We learned about rainbows and how light is white until it is bent and then we see the colors of the rainbow. We went in the bathroom in the dark and made a rainbow by bending light through a prism. Then we saw them in the puddles on the playground. If you have a glass front door, be sure to look for a rainbow on a sunny day (if we have one again..ha!) We learned about rain, clouds, and today we took a WAY different path with a discussion about tsunamis! We learned about how animals can “predict” the weather! Tomorrow they will learn about the moon and moon phases.

In math, we are working on teen numbers. I put some pictures on Seesaw. Have your child tell you all about the place value house that we’re using to learn place value and teen numbers. Ask them what makes the alarm go off in the ones room! They should be able to tell you!

We added the words, now, well and new. I sent new books and games in book bags. Please do not return those until Monday since I will be gone tomorrow.

Just a heads up for April:

4/3 field trip permission slips will come home and are due the 12th

4/4 I will be gone again so please call the office with changes instead of email

4/6 There is NO SCHOOL for KINDERGARTEN only as it is K roundup for next year’s kids. If you have a neighbor who has an incoming kindergartener, please direct them to the Bentwood website to sign up for a time!

4/13 Half day of school, dismissal at noon

4/14 Professional day–no school

4/27 Bluejay Expo–2:30-3:30 a chance to come up during the school day and see your child in action! More info. to come!

4/28 K field trip to the Coterie and Legoland (info. for volunteering will be on permission slips)

I will update you on May in mid April. There will be lots going on! 🙂

Thank you to those who have asked and checked in with me. My Mom is doing pretty well and we’re hoping follow up appointments say the same. My great-niece got released from Children’s Mercy last night after a week in the hospital. Scary to have an almost 2 year old be so sick! Thank you for all the prayers, they certainly are working!

Have a great weekend! I’ll see everyone on Monday!

Week of Feb. 27th-March 3rd.

We started our bear unit this week by learning general information about bears and learning a lot of new vocabulary words about bears. We started our bear reports and will finish them next week. We have learned about brown bears and polar bears so far. We’ve even watched some live bear cams which has been fun! Today has been all about bear science. We watched a really cool video about a bear scientist. We also learned about solids, liquids, and gasses and then did a gummy bear experiment with different liquids. We are trying to determine if different liquids will change the size of the bears. For math today, we are doing teddy graham math. We will also be doing some more science this afternoon to build bridges and chairs for bears out of different materials. We are working on our synergizing and talking about how to work as a team!

Yesterday we learned about Dr. Seuss and enjoyed some fun rhyming activities, a directed drawing of the Cat in the Hat and a math game to practice addition. I sent an extra copy of the math game and a Dr. Seuss reading game home as well.

We continue to work on subtraction with number bonds and number sentences. They need to be able to solve a problem to find the sum, but also be able to find the missing part. So if they know the sum is 10 and a part is 4, they should be able to find the missing part.

I sent a note home about next week. We have two special activities next week. On Wed., we will finish our bear unit and have a teddy bear day. Our bears will come out of hibernation (but shhh…don’t tell the kids!) Then on Friday, we will have QU wedding! The boys will come dressed as QUarterbacks and the girls will come dressed as QUeens (and in shoes they can go outside in 🙂 We will have an actual wedding and reception. The kids will have to bring a QU gift by next Thursday. Those will come home on Monday. You will help them think of a qu word and this is the ONLY time 🙂 that you can tell them how to spell it. They will write the word on the paper and draw a picture of it and bring that to school as their gift. Please have those back by Thursday.

Spring pics are next Tuesday. We take them first thing. If you want to send clothes for your child to change into, you can. If you want to order a class picture please send in the form and $10 by Tuesday.

Please remember to read the books in the book bags and return every few days.

We went out for recess yesterday and the wind chill was 24 degrees. Spring weather can be tricky and it’s always colder at 9:45 during first recess and we go out when we can. Please make sure your child has an appropriate coat daily. They can always take it off if it warms up for the afternoon.

Hope you have a great weekend!