Happy Leap Day!

Well, it's almost time to say good-bye to February.  It was a busy, busy month for firsties!  We celebrated Groundhog's Day, 100th Day of School, Valentine's Day, President's Day, and Dental Health.  That was a lot to cram into such a short month.  Good thing it's Leap Year and we get one extra day!  March is looking like it is going to be just as busy.  We will start with the Read-a-Thon and celebrating Dr. Seuss' birthday.  Next, up is St. Patrick's Day and then we reach the end of 3rd quarter.  Time flies when you are having fun!

Please read the following from the PTA blog about the road construction that is starting next week.

Good afternoon!

On behalf of Knife River, welcome to Bench Boulevard road construction email updates. Our goal is to serve residents near the project by providing direct, timely updates each week.

As you may be aware, on Wednesday, March 2, Knife River will begin reconstructing and modernizing the remaining stretch of Bench Boulevard. Early construction will occur north of Barrett Road and related utility relocation will continue south of Wicks.   

Throughout the project, crews are anticipated to work Monday through Friday from 7 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. During construction, there may be occasional brief delays, side street closures, short-term driveway impacts, and detours for adjacent residents and businesses. We encourage through traffic to use alternate routes such as Main Street or Hawthorne Lane when possible.

Safety is our top priority while working in your neighborhood – please partner with us to ensure the safety of all residents and crews on Bench Boulevard. We ask drivers and pedestrians to obey all signage and flaggers while we make roadway improvements. Please be aware that fines in work zones will double.

Weekly notifications will also be available in the Billings Gazette and online at http://mdt.mt.gov/pubinvolve/benchblvd. Residents can also tune in Mondays for updates on the following radio stations:

102.9 FM Cat Country 

97.1 FM PopCrush

103.7 FM The Hawk

Thank you again for requesting email updates. We are here to serve you – for questions or concerns about the Bench Boulevard Project, please call 406-281-2098 during business hours or email info@bigskypublicrelations.com.

In reading this week we are working on different text features and how they help us better understand what we are reading.  We will be working with terms such as, headings, captions, table of contents, index, etc. 

Spelling: king, kings, dish, dishes, fox, foxes, take, takes, babies, hers 

They take the dishes.

We are continuing to work on our opinion pieces, specifically, book reviews and recommendations. We are finishing up our book reviews early this week.

In math, we are moving on to adding multiples of 10 to a number.  This is another tough concept.  We start by using manipulatives so the students can really see and understand what we are doing and then move on to drawing pictures to represent the problems.

Also, a big congrats to my two Purple Hand Cookie Award winners, Jayce AND Kory. The kiddos voted and there was a tie!

Read-a-Thon 2016

Let's have a great kick-off for our reading totals! If students read at home, please write down the amount of time (even if for homework). Honesty is the best policy, so the students can only read up to 5 hours on school nights, and unlimited on the weekends. We are encouraging read-to-self, but you can count minutes that you read with your child if they aren't quite to that point yet. 

In spirit of the Read-a-Thon, we are doing a spirit week next week!

Monday, February 29th:  Sweat It Out With A Good Book- Wear Sweats

Tuesday, March 1st:  Get a “Kick” out of Reading- Wear Western Clothing

Wednesday, March 2nd:  Knock your socks off with a good book- Wear Crazy Socks

Thursday, March 3rd:  Hide in a good book- Wear Camo

Friday, March 4th:  Get your “Paws” on a good book- Wear Bobcat Spirit Wear/Colors

Go Team Dimock!!!

Moving Right Along...

Welcome back! This week will be full of learning and discovering. I've noticed the kids really stepping up their writing and reading game in the last few weeks. I can't wait to see their progress this month before report cards. Quick reminder-the Read-A-Thon will be starting soon. I sent home a flyer on Wednesday, but expect more info and packets coming home in the next week or so. This is a big deal for our school, especially the library. Any participation is welcomed and the kids enjoy the competition between the other classes. I will allow students to skip morning walk on Friday to come into the classroom from 8:10 to get minutes on their reading logs!

Also, I've noticed quite a few lunch slips needing money in accounts.  Miss Chris, our lunch helper, is a super nice lady that is in charge of our school program. You can call her with any questions/concerns. If there is anything I can do, please let me know!

Reading Comp: We will focus on story retell, matching pictures to the text, and speech bubbles. I have a few comic book lovers that will really enjoy these lessons!

Reading: We are in Unit 4 Week 4 of our reading series. This week, we will continue to discuss conservation and protecting the Earth in all of our reading groups.

Spelling: like, side, bite, nice, five, nine, kind, child, I'm, sometimes
You can have five bites.
HFW: watched, high

Math: Two digit addition and subtraction, focusing on multiples of 10

I'm looking forward to a productive week!
Mrs. Dimock

Update 2/15-2/19

We had such a great Valentine's Party! Thanks for all the donations, the kiddos really snarfed down all those snacks and then were begging to dig into their treat bags! We do have a spelling test this week, even being a short week. I'll be sending the spelling tests from last week home on Tuesday.

I spent the long weekend doing some spring cleaning at home and at school, charging through Costco to buy snacks for class, celebrating a friend's Birthday, and celebrating Valentine's Day by spending time with my pup and husband. I hope the kiddos had a restful long weekend full of fun and family time!

Spelling:
sale, make, able, grape, came, acorn, chase, late, acorn, their, favorite

I was late to the sale.

HFW:
don't, two

Reading:
Unit Four Week 3 "Why must we protect Earth?"

Math:
10 more and 10 less, 1 more and 1 less
Review place value and greater than/less than

We are learning so much so quickly this quarter. Thanks for all that you do at home, like reading with your child, spelling practice, and math fact practice. It really shows in the kiddos' day to day academics!

Wishing you well,
Mrs. Dimock

Valentine's Celebration and Update 2/7/16

It's Almost Valentine's Day!!

What a fun week we had.  The kids were so adorable dressed up as 100 year olds!  It was a day full of 100's, from reading to writing to math.

We had an assembly on Thursday celebrating "The Bobcat" award.  This award is given to one student in each class that shows kindness and compassion towards others.  Caleb was the recipient.  Congratulations, Caleb!

Friday we were invited to watch the NOVA performance.  It was great!  Students in 4-6 try out for the play and practice for two weeks after school. They put on three performances and did a fabulous job.

Spelling was a tough one last week.  This week shouldn't be as difficult.  The words and sentence are:
cuff, sniff, tell, still, kiss, dress, jazz, fizz, funny, will
Tell her to get the dress.

In math this week, we will be working on numbers that are ten more and ten less and greater than, less than, and equal to.

In reading, we will read "Our Natural World" and discuss what are earths natural treasures (wind, water, bees, etc.) in reading group.

We will be finishing up our "Favorite Places" book in writing.  Each student chose a place in Billings that they think a new student should go.  They had to state their opinion, give reasons, and try to convince the reader.

We will be celebrating Valentine's Day on Thursday the 11th.  We will make our Valentine bags on Monday or Tuesday so there is no need to create anything at home.  If you would like to donate stickers to accessorize their bags, that would be great!

Since Thursday is a half-day, we will be having healthy snacks in addition to a few Valentine treats. We are asking for healthy snacks to fill the kids up on the half-day. Some ideas are meat and cheese platters, cut up fruit and vegetables, crackers, cheese sticks, and juice.  If you’d like to donate, please call or email so that we make sure we’re not doubling up or overdoing it on one item.

Here is a list of the kid’s names. Please make sure each student receives a Valentine.

Bridger, Jaden, Zander, Kyhler, Caleb, Dominic, Kory, Jayce, Jonathon, Ashton, E.J., Lillie, Isabella, Reese, Ceilia, Brooke, Olivia, and Talis

Have a great week.  Remember school dismisses at 12:00 on Thursday the 11th and there is no school on Friday the12th and Monday the15th.