January Newsletter

CALENDAR EVENTS

1/6 Welcome Back! Classes Resume

1/10 Friday Singing, 8:15 in Little Theatre

1/16 Lower Form Assembly, Dress Uniform
1/17 Friday Singing, 8:15 in Little Theatre

1/17 Spirit Day: 49ers Colors!
1/17 Friday Singing, 8:15 in Little Theatre

1/20 Martin Luther King, Jr. Day - No Classes
1/24 Writing Workshop Celebration, 7:55-8:15  AM 

1/24 NOTE: Friday Singing is Canceled
1/24 Spirit Day Theme: Favorite Characters

1/31 Community: Neighborhood Models, 7:55-8:15 AM
1/31 Free Dress for Walk to School Golden Shoe Win!

 

                                                     

LANGUAGE ARTS
Word study skills continue with a review of the v-consonant-e rule (v-e) and blends. Girls will be introduced to adding suffixes at the end of words:  _s, _ing, _ed.

Comprehension strategies are introduced with lessons from the featured big book, Life in a Suburban Community and reinforced with reading group selections. This month's comprehension strategies, include:
• Analyze story elements: character(s), setting, problem, and solution
• Summarize and synthesize to enhance understanding 
• Make inferences using what you see in pictures and read in texts
Girls will be performing the Reader's Theatre, Humpty Dumpty's Fall.  

Our current Writing Workshop focus on writing teaching books includes sharing our favorite places in San Francisco and learning about national symbols. Girls have done a fabulous job on writing nonfiction information to teach readers about a topic. They are revising their pieces for content and editing for capital letters and punctuation.

We look forward to sharing their accomplishments at a morning Writing Workshop Celebration on Friday, January 24th, 7:55-8:15 AM.

Sharing Our Teaching Books 

Pets: Chapter 1 - Dogs

Weather: Chapter 1 - Sunny

Vacation Places: Chapter 1 - Hawaii

SOCIAL STUDIES: Communities Near & Far

Who are members the Educational Innovation and Information Services team in our community? Where can we find them? How do they contribute to student life at the Broadway and Pine St. campuses? Girls will be visiting Mr. Howard Levin for an interview to find out about his responsibilities as Director of Educational Innovation and Information Services. This will be followed by meeting Mr. Levin's educational innovation tech support personnel in the Tech Hub and faculty in Spark Studio.

As part of our community theme, girls will be collaborating in small groups to build small-scale models of neighborhoods. They are making connections and using knowledge from their experiences related to living in a city. We look forward to sharing neighborhood models at the end of the month. 

This month girls will be introduced to national symbols that connect us to a larger community, the United States of America. Literature selections, including multiple copies for shared reading, provide information about our country's history: American Flag, Statue of Liberty, Liberty Bell, Bald Eagle, and White House. 

SCIENCE

Girls  continue to investigate how sound is made from vibrating objects. They'll explore ways to change volume and pitch using hand-made sources: xylophones, spoon-gong system, and phone system (paper cups & string). 
Crosscutting concepts include:

• Patterns: Patterns of pitch result when you pluck strings or hit metal tubes of different lengths.

• Cause and Effect: Volume and pitch of sounds are predictable. For example, when more energy is used to pluck or strike an object it makes the sound louder. 

Investigation 2: Changing Volume

Working with Partners: Xylophones

Experimenting with 3 Tubes

"What pitch is this one?"

What Happens When You Add
More Tubes?

Please look for a science letter on January 9th in your daughter's homework folder: Home/School Connection Investigation 2: Changing Sound.   There is a fun home activity to do! 

NOTE: We will view "videos created with everyday objects around the house" the following week, Jan 13-17th.

MATH

Our next math chapter introduces Numbers to 20, including place-value. Girls are learning to build two-digit numbers using place value mats with materials: base-10 blocks (cubes and tens), connecting cubes, and craft sticks. In the game, Roll the Number Cube! girls are introduced to the concept of trading 10 cubes for 1 ten.