MI Kindergarten Teacher Newsletter
January 11, 2016
Happy New Year 2016 ! We hope you all spent a
wonderful holiday together with
your families. We are glad you are all back from your travels safe and sound and ready to begin our new
year. We would like to thank our students and families for their kind and generous gifts before we left for
Winter Break. We appreciate your thoughtfulness and look forward to working with you in 2016.
Thank you to all the parents who helped their students to complete the Winter Break Homework Packet
which is due Monday, Jan. 11. The January Home Reading Logs and the January Better Chinese Logs
which are attached with this newsletter will also go home Monday, Jan. 11th, in the homework folders.
We are going to get right back to work for the 2nd semester of Kindergarten. These are the curricular
topics for the week of January 11th. We will begin the Language Arts Unit “Animals.” We will practice the
sound of short /o/ and compose words using all the short vowel sounds /a/, /e/ /i/, /o/ and /u/. The highfrequency word for this week is “are.” The English teachers will begin the mid-year Phonics assessment
“DIBELS” this week. We will continue the My Math Chapter “Subtraction”. The Chinese characters this
week are a review: (耳 (ear) 口 (mouth) 心 (heart) 人 (people).
Chinese New Year, the Year of the Monkey, is coming February 8. We will have many
activities planned for the Chinese New Year Celebration, as well as a Saturday festival on
campus. There will be many opportunities for parents to participate in the celebrations so
please watch for more information from our parent committees. This is certainly a highlight
of the Mandarin Immersion Program school year and so much fun!
Our classroom Author of the Month is Jan Brett, whose beautifully illustrated books include the childhood
favorite, The Mitten, and many books about animals. These books are available at your local library for
optional home reading. Her website has many interactive activities and printouts. www.janbrett.com.
MOSSY- (Set by a turtle pond in Hingham, Massachusetts)
THE 3 LITTLE DASSIES-- (Set in Namibia, Africa)
JAN BRETT'S SNOWY TREASURY-- (Anthology)
GINGERBREAD FRIENDS-- (Set in Switzerland)
HEDGIE BLASTS OFF!-- (Set in Kennedy Space Center and in outer space)
DAISY COMES HOME-- (Set in Guilin, China)
HEDGIE'S SURPRISE--(Set in Denmark)
THE HAT-- (Set in Denmark)
COMET'S NINE LIVES-- (Set in Nantucket, Massachusetts)
ARMADILLO RODEO-- (Set in Fredericksburg, Texas)
BERLIOZ THE BEAR-- (Set in Bad Tolz, Germany)
THE FIRST DOG-- (Set in La Brea Tar Pits, Los Angeles, CA)
FRITZ AND THE BEAUTIFUL HORSES-- (Set in Salzburg, Austria)
THE THREE SNOW BEARS-- (Set in Baffin Island, Nunavut, Canada)
HONEY...HONEY...LION!-- (Botswana, Africa)
ON NOAH'S ARK-- (Set in Okevango Delta, Botswana, Africa)
GINGERBREAD BABY-- (Set in Switzerland)
TOWN MOUSE, COUNTRY MOUSE-- (Set in Switzerland)
THE MITTEN (a Ukrainian folktale)
GOLDILOCKS AND THE THREE BEARS
Kinder Calendar
1/11
1/16
1/18
1/28
2/4
2/8
Monday Assembly – Super Star recognized
Mid-term warning notices sent home
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., no school
MI Tour for prospective students 2016
Family Learning Night
Chinese New Year begins
2/9
100th day of school
2/15
President’s Day, no school
2/20
(Saturday) Chinese New Year celebration
2/26
2nd Reporting Period ends, Progress Reports
3/7-3/11 Parent Conference Week Minimum Day
Dismissal at 12:45 (M., W., Th., F.) Tues. 1:40 Early
Dismissal.