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Cascade Heights National Honor Society members are offering tutoring support. Please fill out this form and submit it to your child's teacher. This a free service.
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Upcoming week:
Riggs:
We're deep into the multi-letter phonograms, and kindergarteners are doing great with them! Remember, if at any time you're stumped by the phonograms, refer to the "Riggs help" tab above, and there are videos with the sounds/names of the phonograms and other resources.
Saxon 1 Math:
Lines of symmetry; 1/2 of a whole; fractions are equal shares; writing fractions; capacity of containers (again!); writing two-digit numbers for sets of objects; comparing and ordering two-digit numbers; odds and evens.
Core Knowledge:
We will focus on finalizing our science fair project and continuing our study of presidents. Our science fair project is to answer the question: which is germier: paper money or metal money? Kindergarteners learned about petri dishes (cozy, delicious homes for germs to grow) and how to properly swab for a sample. You can come see our research results this coming Thursday after school in the gym, along with all of the other amazing science fair projects students in grades 4-8 have been working so hard on.
Life skill:
We will probably keep on with the proper handshake.
We're working on: firm grasp (wrap your fingers around the other person's hand), strong arm (no floppy elbows), three to four pumps, and some good eye contact. Oh, and the trickiest part: shaking with the RIGHT hand.
Other:
Seventh grade canned food drive is continuing, and kindergarten is WINNING! We are very proud of how much we are helping Oregon families who have a hard time buying groceries.
FIELD TRIP FRIDAY: We will start the day by going downtown to see a Geronimo Stilton play. We will practice theatre etiquette! After that, it gets a bit more complicated, but doable: we are sharing a bus with second grade, so we will then: drop 2nd off at a Chinese restaurant, then visit the Wells Fargo Center to learn about banks and money. Then we will be driven to the Central Library, where we will eat lunch and visit the children's library. From there we will return to the Wells Fargo Center to pick up second grade (who were driven there for their own tour while we were at the library) and head back to campus. We will get really good at boarding and disembarking buses! If you're signed up for the field trip, please remember to bring outerwear for crummy weather, a lunch for yourself, and a smile and flexibility for the day (these are the two I sometimes forget!).
Week in review:
Riggs:
We wrapped up the "er"s, and tackled the longest phonogram we will will learn: sh. Every time we write this, we say "sh: used at the beginning of a word, at the end of a syllable, but not at the beginning of most syllables, after the first one, except for the ending -ship: sh." This opens up a whole new world of words we will be able to decode! Here is a video of kindergarteners reciting the whole thing, to help with practice and memorization at home this weekend.
Saxon 1 Math:
Estimating capacity of containers (gallon, cup); ordering capacity of containers; drawing a picture to solve a problem; using a 100 numbers chart (counting by 10s, 5s); counting dimes and pennies (this is a great one to practice any time you have a few minutes of waiting!). We also reviewed counting by twos.
Core Knowledge:
We learned about Abraham Lincoln and Teddy Roosevelt. We thought and wrote about what we would do if we were president (kindergarteners should be able to explain that the president can be male or female, is chosen by the people, is the boss of the United States, and whose job is to make the country be a better place). We made aMAzing presidential portraits of Washington and Lincoln!
Friendly reminders, clarifications, and requests:
PLEASE: no juice, no cookies, no Doritos at school or on field trips. It is my job to help families adjust to school at Cascade, and these three things are not in line with our nutritional policy. Juice is full of the natural sugars of fruit, but without the beneficial fiber of simply eating the fruit. Water bottles are best at school. Cookies (Nutter Butters, Oreos, etc.) are cookies and are a delicious treat after school. Instead of Doritos, you can send regular corn chips. Thank you for your support of Cascade's nutrition policy!
Your little kindergarteners are growing! Please consider adding another item to their lunches. What we do at our house is always have a container of mixed nuts or trail mix in lunch boxes, so there's always something more to eat. It lasts a long time, so it's not too much of a hassle. In the same vein, I am all out of extra snacks for children who have eaten everything from home, or didn't bring a snack. If you are willing and able, we could use some more granola bars and applesauce cups!
Valentines Day is coming up. Please read how it is handled at Cascade Heights here.
