Short but Sweet!

 It was a pixie of a week here in SK, but we still packed loads in!  Read on for more details about our days here at school...



Language

- New decodable: Hop In!  We learned more about a story's beginning/middle/end with this book, and also introduced the "-ed" family!

- New word work: We are continuing to practice medial vowels by playing good matching games (fish, map, pen... i, a, e), as well as our work with digraphs (ship, chocolate, whale, thirsy... sh, ch, wh, th)

- Beginning/Middle/End: We discussed what makes for a good story, and we all agreed that it needs a beginning (introduction), middle (problem), and ending (solution)!  Friends even created their own mini stories, using three small sketches first and then writing about each one to tell a B/M/E story.  Bravo!

- Journals: We practiced our recipe/direction writing with pancakes as our focus - a good skill, consiering we're starting a business!  Breaking a job down into steps and writing about it can be hard work, but it's so important for our brains to practice doing these good things... both for our reading, and our writing!

- Printing: Ww and Xx joined the ranks this week - so many pull down and push-up slants are tricky, but friends are mastering this diagonal letter with lots of good practice!

Math

- Economics: There have been loads of last minute tasks to complete with the opening of our restaurant coming up quickly (next week Thursday!)  We worked through job assigning, supply order taking, menu choice making, table cloth making, shop decor crafting, staff name tag writing, order notepad compiling, bill template designing... it's all coming together!

- SK Bank: We learned more about paychecks and money value, exchanging our hard-earned $0.15 paycheck for three nickels at the bank this week.  Now we each have three coins, one to spend at each of the other SK shops!  We also know that, to lighten our load, we could carry one dime and one nickel, or if we love clinking coins around, we could carry fifteen pennies! 
- Comparison Stories: We compared stories about pancakes, using "more, and less/fewer."  For example, "If Mrs. Duffey made four pancakes, and Ms. Schwartz made seven, how many more pancakes did Ms. Schwartz make than Mrs. Duffey?"  We also tried stories like "If Mrs. Duffey made four pancakes and Ms. Schwartz made three more than Mrs. Duffey... how many did Ms. Schwartz make?"  Friends LOVED figuring these stories out, drawing pictures and sharing answers.  Try telling stories to your SKer and giving them cheerios, blocks, or marker+paper to figure them out!

Announcements

- Pop surprise! Indeed!  We won the Popsicle party - hundreds of thanks to you all for clipping the winning number of box tops!  We owe our prize to you all - thank you!

- Art Bags and Sleeping Bags: We have them ready for you all to tote home from conferences on Wednesday and Thursday.  Please enjoy their work (encourage your SKer to our in an art show for you!), and send us back their sleeping bag after a good spring cleaning - thank you.

Reminders

- Conferences: We'll see you on Wednesday or Thursday for our short sit-downs!  We appreciate your time and look forward to talking with you all.
- No School: SK Friends will stay home on Thursday and Friday - happy snow-rolling, snow-building, snow-sledding, snow-skiing, snow everything!
- Spring Break: Just a friendly reminder that our USM Spring Break runs over the course of the last two weeks of March.  We are looking forward to talking tales-of-a-two-week holiday with your munchkins when we come back to school in April!