The students had a great first week back by participating in the fun run.  Students came in ready with their magnificent t-shirts ready to show their banks best.  Thank you to the volunteers for helping with t-shirts, supporting our runners and to Mrs. Wood (Lillie's mom) and Mrs. Gregory (Drew's mom) for decorating our door.  The kids had a blast and really did a great job in getting pledges.  Students shared how they went out to get pledges and also heard stories of students emptying their piggy banks to donate to our school.  Now that shows a lot of our character traits!  We are still collecting pledges, it is not to late.  We are in 4th place and could easily move up with some more pledges.  I know the class would love to win one of the celebrations.
The past two weeks we have been busy starting our new science unit animals two by two.  We started with pill bugs and sow bugs.  The kids are very excited but it seems I have some compettion.  They really liked our in house science field trip and I told them that  experience would be hard to beat.  In reading and writing we are working on reading and writing nonfiction about animals.  They are doing a great job getting all the facts down.  In math we started working on partners of 10.  Have students practice adding and subtracting to 10 fluently.  Thank you again for all your help and support!!!

Important dates.....

Scholastic book order is due April 17th.
No school April 18th.
Family fun night April 24th 5:30-7:30
Saturday school make up day and our class field day April 26th .
Saturday school make up day and rain date for field day May 3rd.
Last day of school May 30th
Family fancy dance May 30th

Pictures from science is fun for everyone!!

100 Days Smarter.....

It has been a busy two weeks in Kindergarten. We celebrated our 100th day of school on January 14th. The students participated in math and literacy centers incorporating the number 100. The theme for the day was 100 days smarter. In math we have finished up our unit on shapes. We worked on naming and describing 2D and 3d shapes. We will now focus on addition/subtraction and solving math stories. Third quarter students need to count to 70 by tens and ones. In science we will start a unit on weather. In social studies we will learn about needs and wants. In writing we are still working on how to stories. Students should be able to write three sentences with the correct punctuation, spacing , capital letter to start sentence and basic phonetic spelling (ranbo/rainbow). In reading groups we are focusing on reading strategies and sight words. The Banks Road Art Room hosted artist Bryant Holsenbeck for this year’s Artist in Residency program. Together, Ms. Holsenbeck and the students created random weave forms that will become a beautiful new art installation for our school. The kindergarten team will be sending home information about our next field trip. We are in need of snacks for the classroom,erasers,empty plastic water bottles, clorox wipes and baby wipes. Please make sure that your child has a change of clothes at school. I hope everyone has a great week and try to stay warm!!

Skate Night Tuesday January 28th

PTA Spirit Night: Interskate Night 5300 Fayettewille Road, Raleigh (Hwy 401) FROM 6-8 P.M. The cost is $3.00 and includes: skate rental, bounce house fun, exciting games and activities, slice of pizza and a drink! It’s going to be a great night. I hope to see everyone Tuesday night!!

Coin Drive This Week

Banks Road Families, This is just a reminder that our "All for Books" coin drive will be starting on Monday, January 27th and will be running through Friday, January 31st! We will be having a grade level competition to collect coins in an effort to make sure that EVERY student at Banks Road can get a new book from this year's Scholastic Book Fair! Monday - Penny Day Tuesday - Nickel Day Wednesday - Dime Day Thursday - Quarter Day Friday - ANY COIN Day Coins will be collected from classrooms each morning and counted before the end of the day! An update will be sent out each night so you can see how your child's grade level is doing! Remember, ALL classes at the winning grade level receive a piñata party!

Happy New Year!!

I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday. The students did a great job getting back into the routines despite the long break. This week we will read and listen to different variations of the story The Three Little Pigs we are asking and answering questions about key details from the story. We have been learning about characters and setting as well as retelling details from the beginning, middle and end of the story. During writing time we are continuing to add words to our word wall. Please keep practicing your words at home. You can look for the words in books you read, use them in a sentence or practice writing them. Last week we began working on writing about our opinions and we will continued to practice opinion writing this week. We are writing about things we like or do not like and then explaining why we like it or don't. As a class we have been using these sentence frames to help guide us during writing time. I like ___________ because _____________. I do not like ____________ because _____________. I like to __________ because ___________. I do not like to ___________ because __________. During our math time we are working on identifying, drawing and comparing the following shapes: square, triangle, rectangle, circle and hexagon. We have been learning how to identify shapes by counting the number of sides and vertices each shape has. This week we will begin to learn about the following three dimensional shapes: sphere, cone, and cube. We are still working on counting 1-70 by ones and tens and reading, writing and counting objects 11-20. Please remember to send in a change of clothes labeled in a baggie. If you want to order a yearbook the deadline is January 8th. We also have PAC literacy night this Thursday January 9th. Teachers will be reviewing websites that are used with the students throughout their school day.