TCE Tiny Texans: February 2017

What we’re

Workin’ on this week..

Language Arts / Social Studies

This week in Language Arts we are continuing our unit on Circle Stories (stories that begin and end in the same place!) We are working on our new literacy stations to help us independently practice all of the awesome reading and writing skills we have been working on! We are getting really excited to show off all of these awesome skills and our work to you at Open House, our theme is "If You Take a Kid to Kindergarten!" Everyone has been working so hard! Book Bags are coming home on Monday!

Math

This week we will be wrapping up our studies on measurement.

We will also be working on collecting and recording data through charts and graphs!

As we are coming to the tail end of the nine weeks, we will soon be testing the following concepts. Many parents have asked about the things that we will be testing on this nine weeks so below is a list of the concepts that were covered as well as continuing concepts that are present throughout the year.

Collect sort and organize data to create a graph
Be able to look at a graph and explain what it is saying
Instantly recognize groups of objects (without counting them)
Read, write and recognize numbers 1-20(in and out of order)
Count backwards from 20
Counting forwards to 75+ by ones
Counting by 10’s to 100
State the number before and after a given number
Compose (we build with base ten blocks) and decompose numbers (we use number bonds- breaking apart the numbers. So 10 could be decomposed into 5 and 5 or 3 and 7)
Identify coins by name
Create and identify 2D shapes
Identify the attributes of a 3D shapes
Compare objects by length, capacity and weight.

There are many videos on both Mrs. McKinney's and Mrs. Brehm's websites. Please reach out to your childs' math teacher if you are in need of any extra ideas to help foster some of these concepts at home!

Science

We are finishing our research and digital story books on different animals that hibernate.

Once we put our finishing touches on our research project, we will be starting our chemical engineering unit: making play dough! The kids always have a blast with this! We cannot wait to show you the processes we will go through before we discover how to make play dough!

Important Dates...

March 6th- Mach 10th- Book Fair at TCE Library
March 7th- Donuts with Dudes (Last names- A-L)
March 8th- Donuts with Dudes (Last names- M-Z)
March 9th- Open House (5:30- 7:00)
March 10th- Spirit Rally (Kindergarten performs at this spirit Rally- it starts @ 8:20 ish)
March 13th- March 17th- Spring Break (no school)
March 24th- Shamrock Shuffle (@ 1:20-2:10)
March 28th- March 29th- STAAR TESTING ( NO VISITORS AT TCE)
March 29th- Kindergarten Field Trip- More information to come

Texans of the week:
K1-
K2-
K3-
K4-

Donuts with Dudes

Save the date! On Tuesday and Wednesday morning, we will be having donuts with dudes in the cafeteria! Please note the day that you have been assigned to come according to your last name. If one date works better than another, please feel free to go to the date that works for your schedule! I know life gets crazy and sometimes some days do not work with your work schedule-- do what is best for you and your sweet kiddo!

The Book Fair is Coming!

The book fair is coming to TCE! Be watching for your child's "wish list" that we will be creating here at school! Please do not feel like you have to buy what your child puts on their list, this is just a chance for them to go and see what is out there and let you know how much the items they are interested in are just in case you wanted to send money in.

Open House

Open House is Thursday March 9th from 5:30-7:00. This is a time where you and your family is invited to come and check out all of the wonderful things your child is doing at school! They will be walking you through some of the projects we have been working hard on as well as showing you everywhere they go throughout their day!

The book fair will be open that night so you will have an opportunity to visit if you would like! We hope to see you all on March 9th!

Spirit Rally Performance

Kindergarten will be performing at the sprit rally on March 10th! This is something the kindergarteners will be working on with our music teacher, Ms. Garrett! It is always such a cute performance! We cannot wait to see what Ms. Garrett has come up with this year!

Our sprit rally usually starts around 8:20 and then ends around 9:15. If you cannot make it, please do not worry! We will be video taping the performance and sending it out on our blog!

Spring Break

Town Center will not be open from March 13th- March 17th for Spring Break! We hope you all enjoy your family and hope you have a restful and fun week!

STAAR TESTING

Due to State regulations, we are not allowed to have any visitors at TCE on STAAR testing days. If you are needing to drop something off for your child, you may bring it to the front office and we will be sure to get it to your kiddo! Please make note that we will not be able to have guests at lunch on these days as well! Thank you for your understanding!

Field Trip

We will be going on a kindergarten field trip on March 29th! Please keep your eye out for the permission form that will be coming home soon! Please be sure if you are wanting to chaperone to fill out the form attached for you so that we can be sure that we know you are coming! We cannot wait! It is going to be so much fun!

What we’re

Workin’ on this week..

Language Arts / Social Studies

This week in Language Arts we are learning about Circle Stories (stories that begin and end in the same place!) We are getting ready for a new group of literacy stations to help us independently practice all of the awesome reading and writing skills we have been working on! We are getting really excited to show off all of these awesome skills and our work to you at Open House! Everyone has been working so hard! We will also keep working on learning new sight words in our word folder! Everyone is doing great!

Math

This week we will be wrapping up our studies on measurement. We will continue our learning through exploring stations focusing on length, weight and capacity. We will continue to focus on measuring objects using nonstandard units of measurement (no rulers/ things with numbers).

Our vocabulary words will be: length, capacity, weight, more, less, attribute, longer, shorter, heavier, lighter, and compare.

Science

We are going to continue our study on hibernation, adaptation and migration. We will be researching different animals that hibernate and creating a digital story on that animal to share with you and the class! This will be coming in a couple of weeks!

Important Dates...

February 20th- Student Holiday (No school- Presidents Day)
February 24th- Jump Rope For Heart (@1:20-2:10)
March 6th- Mach 10th- Book Fair at TCE Library
March 7th- Donuts with Dudes (Last names- A-M)
March 8th- Donuts with Dudes (Last names- N-Z)
March 9th- Open House (5:30- 7:00)
March 10th- Spirit Rally (Kindergarten performs at this spirit Rally- it starts @ 8:20 ish)
March 13th- March 17th- Spring Break (no school)
March 24th- Shamrock Shuffle (@ 1:20-2:10)
March 28th- March 29th- STAAR TESTING ( NO VISITORS AT TCE)
March 29th- Kindergarten Field Trip- More information to come

Texans of the week:
K1- Jacob
K2- Asma
K3- Vihaan
K4- Prateik

Thank you!!

Thank you again to all of the parents for sending in Valentines for your child to give to all of their classmates! Everyone had a blast at our party! Thank you to all of the parents and volunteers who helped make our parties so wonderful! We could not have done it without you all!

Thank you!!
Thank you to everyone who was able to come out to our engineering Extravaganza! We had so much fun engineering different things throughout the building! You all amaze me with your creativity!