Gecko Gazette

Preschool students are off to a great start after winter break!

We’ve been reviewing classroom routines and behavior expectations, including making red and green choices. We are excited to begin our next study on Trees, where children will learn about the parts of a tree, how trees change with the seasons, what trees provide for us, and the animals that live in them.

We are looking forward to a strong and successful second semester!

Happy New Year! The kindergarten team is overjoyed to be welcoming your students back for another fun-filled semester. The month of January promises to be exciting:

• Reading: Students will finally have all their letters and sounds under their belt as we learn v, y, e, x, q, and z, so practice with blending and writing CVC words with all letters will become a bigger focus in our lessons. During read-alouds, students will explore several books with the theme of never giving up while practicing predicting and inferring.

• Writing: After wrapping up learning on narrative structure and how to use pictures and words to tell a story in order, students will follow the writing process to tell about their New Year’s resolutions!

• Social Studies: Students will use videos, pictures, books, and more to learn about important American symbols and historical figures like Martin Luther King, Jr.

• Math: Shapes will take center stage as students solidify their knowledge of 2D versus 3D, and learn to compose new shapes or structures using what they know!

• Science: One of the most exciting units is starting: living versus nonliving things. After spending time discovering what living things need, learning will culminate in a chick-hatching experiment (this will go through February)!

• Misc: We will celebrate our 100th day of school on the 20th in style. Students are free to dress up as if they are 100 years old!

Thank you for your continued support of your students in their academic journeys. If you’d like ideas for resources to use at home, please don’t hesitate to reach out to your child’s teacher(s).

Happy 2026! First Grade is excited for the second half of the school year!

Math: We will be exploring place value and double digit addition. We also will be celebrating the 100th day of school!

Science: We will finish exploring architecture and move on to earth materials. We will study dirt and rocks and how they are used.

Reading: We are diving deeper into characters and setting. We will identify not only who the characters are, but how they are feeling.

Social Studies: we are exploring National Holidays!

Writing: We are starting the new year by exploring new year’s resolutions! Using the writing process we will set our own goals for the year.

We have our first field trip coming up next month! Anyone who wants to chaperone must have completed our Volunteer Training!

Have a great start to your year First Grade!

Happy New Year! We hope you all had a fun and relaxing holiday season with your family. We’re back in action and gearing up for a great start to the new year! The third graders have come back strong after the break, and we’re excited to keep the momentum going. This week, we’re revisiting school and classroom expectations as a refresher after the long break, and we’d really appreciate it if you could also review these expectations with your child at home.

Now, onto academics: This month in reading, we’ll continue exploring media techniques, figurative language, and text structure. We’re also diving into homophones! The students have been doing well distinguishing between them, and we’ll be digging deeper into more challenging words, including comparing sets of three homophones instead of just two.

In writing, we’re wrapping up our letters to new friends and will soon focus on opinion writing to prepare for our district’s final writing assessment, which will also be an opinion piece.

For Social Studies, we’ll be learning about key inventions that have shaped our lives today. Students will research an inventor, create a presentation, and dress up as their inventor to share with the class.

In Math, we will focus on solving word problems using four operations.

In Science, we will review what we’ve learned about the Biosphere and take the district assessment, and then dive deeper into structures/functions of living creatures.

In Mandarin, we will start preparing a performance for the Chinese New Year celebration, as well as continue our Level Learning Curriculum study.

We’re excited to see all the students continue to grow and prepare for state testing in April. Let’s make this a fantastic semester!

Happy New Year! Hope everyone had a relaxing and restful Winter Break.

In Math, we are going to start Module 4 in which we will learn addition, subtraction, and multiplication in fractions. In Science, we will start a new unit on Water in which students can construct and support an evidence based argument about the availability of water and its impact on life. We will learn through hands-on activities and discussions. In Mandarin, students are expanding their vocabulary and practicing opinion writing in Mandarin.

In reading, we will be starting Module 5, which focuses on stories that explore different forms of art. Throughout this module, students will work on identifying the main idea and supporting details within a text. In writing, we are beginning our opinion writing unit. Students will learn what an opinion essay is, how to structure a five-paragraph essay, and how to strengthen their writing by adding clear details and explanations. In Social Studies, we will be wrapping up our Explorers unit. Students will complete an in-class project focused on one of the explorers we studied. More information about this project will be shared toward the end of the month.