Ms. Nicky and Ms. Julie’s March News
Thank you to all of you for taking the time to come to conferences! It was nice to meet with all of you to discuss your child’s accomplishments. Also, thank you to those of you who were so willing to be flexible about changing your conference times due to the snow day!
We are wrapping up our STEM Unit of Study on Weather. We have had many opportunities to be scientists during this Unit. Hopefully your child has shared some of the fun things we have done to learn about weather, including discussing the weather cycle, exploring what causes it to rain or snow, and what characteristics make each season unique.
During the week of February 29-March 4, we will be celebrating Dr. Seuss’ birthday with many fun activities. Please check the flier sent home, as well as the attached calendar to find out what special event is happening each day.
Following Dr. Seuss week, we will be starting a STEM Unit of Study on Robotics. We will talk about what features make a robot a robot, and will also spend a lot of time exploring with the robots we have at Spark!, including Cubelets, Bee Bots, and Dot and Dash. If you have any knowledge of Robotics, or have any access to Robotics resources, please let us know. We would love for you to share your expertise.
Jumpin’ Juice and Jumpin ‘Jam Event
On Monday, March 14, the school district’s Physical Activity Grant Coordinator, Paige Jennings, will be coming to Spark! to do a special movement activity with the students, and then the students will have the opportunity to sample three different smoothies. This is in collaboration with SVVSD Nutrition Services and our “Mission Nutrition” grant with the Chef Ann Foundation. You are welcome to join us for this fun event! Our morning class will take part from 9:50-10:20, and our afternoon class will attend from 12:40-1:10.
STEM Profile of the Month: Enthusiastic
“I am excited about learning and the world around me.”Some books to talk about enthusiasm with your child:
Lilly’s Big Day by Kevin Henkes
Clark the Shark by Bruce Hale
Working With Your Child at Home
Thank you for continuing to work with your child on their homework. We are doing a lot of work with beginning sounds in the classroom so, hopefully, your child is able to complete the Beginning Sounds assignments with little assistance. This is a great emergent reading skill.
Another great emergent reading and writing skill to work on at home is Rhyming. Some quick ideas for working on this include reading books that have a rhyming pattern and asking your child what rhymes they have heard. You can also play a game in “I Spy” fashion and say, “I’m thinking of a word that rhymes with ____” and see what they come up with. It’s okay if they come up with nonsensical words–the point is to just get them to hear the patterns within our language.
Our Big Idea for Math for the month of March is Data Analysis. Some ideas of things you can do at home to work on this skill are:
-Check the weather each day and make a graph of how many sunny, cloudy, snowy, windy, etc. days there are in the month of March.
-Have “votes” among family members—favorite food, favorite movie, etc. Ask your child to record answers by making tally marks on a piece of paper under each person’s preferred choice. Discuss the results.
Important Dates
February 29-March 4: Dr. Seuss celebration week
March 7: All-School Movement
March 10: Pajama Day
March 10: PTO Meeting (6:00-7:30)
March 17: Harvest of the Month snack-Pea Pods
March 17: St. Patrick’s Day-Don’t forget to wear green!!
Items Needed
Dixie cups
Dry erase markers