Week of Dec. 1-5

Dear Parents,

We decided to have an Author Study about Kevin Henkes. If you have any books about this wonderful author please send them with your child to school. We will be reading some of his books and watching interesting videos about the way he creates his books.

Some of the books that we chose to read in class are the following:

Lilly loves everything about school, especially her cool teacher, Mr. Slinger. But when Lilly brings her purple plastic purse and its treasures to school and can't wait until sharing time, Mr. Slinger confiscates her prized possessions. Lilly's fury leads to revenge and then to remorse and she sets out to make amends.

Owen is a young mouse about to start school. Owen treats Fuzzy, his blanket, like it is his best friend. When Owen’s neighbor, Mrs. Tweezers, sees Owen playing with the blanket, she suggests ways for Owen’s parents to try to get Owen to get rid of Fuzzy before it’s time for him to start school. Owen is very upset. Everyone seems to be unhappy until Owen’s mother comes up with a solution that pleases everyone.

“There is no Jessica,” said Ruthie’s parents. But of course there was. She ate with Ruthie, played with Ruthie, and was sorry when Ruthie was bad. Nobody could see Jessica—except Ruthie. When it came time for Ruthie to go to school, Jessica went with her. Her parents hoped Ruthie would find a friend at school who would replace Jessica. They were in for a happy surprise!

This will also be a Review Week!!! We will be reviewing all the letters of the alphabet we have studied so far with the corresponding vocabulary words introduced for each letter.

We will be doing a sort of different activities to review syllable counting, beginning sounds and rhyming words.

We are going to be evaluating the 35 sight words we have worked with in the class. Please make sure your child recognize these words by sight. Practicing at home daily will be very beneficial for your kid and helpful for us. The sight words they should know by now are: the, I, and, a, to, in, is, you, that, it, he, was, for, on, are, as, with, his, they, of, at, be, this, have, see, or, one, had, by, can, but, not, like, my, we. It is very important for them to recognize all the words, since we are starting to do a lot of writing and reading activities. They are all very excited to know that they are starting to write and read on their own.

In Math, we will be reviewing numbers 0-20. The children should be able to recognize these numbers out of sequence, making sets to match each number and sequence the numbers in the correct order.

Please practice the following skills with your child at home:

Numbers and counting up to 20

D.2    Count dots - 0 to 20

D.3    Represent numbers - up to 20

We have a student that celebrates Hannukah. This week we are having a special guest in our classroom to talk to us about this celebration. The children will learn the meaning of it and we will have some decorations displayed in our classroom.

We will also decorate a Christmas tree. For this, we are asking the children to bring at least two ornaments from their house so we can decorate our tree. If you have any other decoration that we could use in our classroom please let us borrow it from you. If you have any books that are related to this holiday we would love to read them in class. Send them with your child and we will be displaying them in our book corner.

XMAS BASKETS - Christmas is the season to open our hearts and share with those around us that need it most. It has been a tradition at Discovery School for students to come together and contribute in assembling baskets of goods for our support personnel.  We are asking for your cooperation in sending the following:

Nursery/PKinder and 6th grade students       1 5-lb bag of beans

Kinder and 7th grade students                       1 5 lb bag of rice

1st grade and 8th grade students                   1 5-lb bag of sugar

2nd grade and 9th grade students                 1 bottle or 2 bags of oil, 2 boxes of                                                                                    margarine, OR 3 lbs of lard

3rd grade and 10th grade students                1 4lb-bag of MASECA

4th grade and 11th grade students                3 lbs of spaghetti (six packages) OR 1 bag                                                                       of coffee

5th grade and 12th grade students                4 packages of tomato paste

Please feel free to send any additional goodies that you want to share with our devoted staff, such as canned goods, instant soups, cookies and crackers, or anything else that does not require refrigeration.  Please send these items no later than Monday, December 15th. Your cooperation will be deeply appreciated.

NPH GIVING TREE - Nuestro Pequeños Hermanos (NPH) is an international organization that takes in abandoned and orphaned children, providing a home, education, and love.  Here in Honduras, the NPH organization provides for over 500 children in at large ranch near La Venta and home in Tegucigalpa for severely handicapped children.   While many children at the ranch have aunts, uncles, or grandparents that come to visit them and can provide some Christmas gifts, some children at a ranch have no family to visit.  It is these children, whom we would like to provide for this Christmas.   On the second floor of the secondary building, a NPH Giving Tree will be set up.   If you wish to participate, choose a paper tree that has a child’s information about his/her size for shoes or socks.  Purchase the new item and return it to Mrs. Agurcia’s Room (Rm. 7) by Friday, December 5th, with the tree tag taped to it.  As well, there are tree tags for basic food items that will be donated to the orphanage.  Cash donations will also be accepted to provide shoes and socks for children whose tags were not selected.  Thank you for giving this Christmas!

If more information about NPH’s work in Honduras, please visit http://www.nph-honduras.org/   and watch the video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xYC2A5njQTk   

Week of Nov. 24-28

Dear Parents,

This is going to be a very short week. We are going to be mainly talking about Thanksgiving Celebration and the meaning of this holiday. We will list things that we should be thankful for. If you have any books that are related to this holiday, we will really appreciate if you let us borrow them from you.

For our Thanksgiving Celebration, we are requesting Lps. 100.00. We will be using this money to buy lunch the cafeteria is preparing especially for us. The children will have chicken nuggets, french fries, lemonade and dessert. Please send this money no later than Tuesday, November 25^th. Our lunch will be on Wednesday around 11:00 a.m. since this is a half day. Remember the children will be dismissed from school at 11:45 a.m. on this day.

In Math, we are going to be working with numbers 19 and 20. We are going to be doing a lot of sequencing activities, writing missing numbers from 0-20, and making sets with these two numbers.

Please take a moment every day to review with your child the sight words we are studying in class. We will continue working with but, not, like, my, we.

In Science we are going to be wrapping up our unit of PLANTS. Last week the children had the chance to plant some beans into cups. They are all very eager to see their plant grow and they are all recording the observations they see every day. Next week we are going to be introducing the Scientific Method.

MIDTERM REPORTS – Midterm reports were issued last Friday, November 21^st. These should be signed by parents and returned to the teacher as soon as possible. If you would like a conference and one was not requested by the teacher, please call the school to set up an appointment. 

Our annual Songfest will take place on Friday, December 12^th at 5:30 p.m. Please mark this date and time on your calendar. Take into consideration that this is the time where traffic gets a little bit hectic in this city. We would really like to see all the children in school at 5:00 p.m. so we can go over last details with them. They are all very excited practicing their song every day with a lot of enthusiasm. We also want to remind you that your child needs to come in dressed as the sea animal that was assigned to them.

Remember that there will be NO SCHOOL on Thursday, November 27^th and Friday, November 28^th. Happy Thanksgiving and stay safe!

DPTO FAMILY BINGO NIGHT – The DPTO will be hosting fun filled BINGO evening for Discovery families and friends on Friday, December 5. Incredible prizes (i.e. air tickets to Roatan and Miami, a family stay in a beach resort in El Salvador, paintings, and much more!) are in store for those who attend! Food and drinks will be available for purchase. Don’t miss out on this opportunity! Tickets are only L100!

BOOK DONATION - Amor Fe y Esperanza (AFE) is an organization located on the outskirts of Tegucigalpa that has been rescuing children from the garbage dump and breaking the cycle of poverty in their lives. AFE is in the process of furnishing its library. We are asking for any new or used Spanish books (children’s books, novels, nonfiction, encyclopedias etc.) you might have and that you would like to donate to the AFE library.  These books can be brought and given to your homeroom teacher.  If you would like more information about AFE, please visit their website atwww.afehonduras.org

Week of Nov. 17-21

Dear Parents,

This week we are going to be working with the letter Uu. The vocabulary words that we are going to be focusing on are the following: upstairs, underwear, umpire, umbrella, and under.

Some stories that we are going to be reading this week are:

  

Umbrella bird is very unhappy about his unusual feather until they save the day!

Bismark the Buffalo is grumpy and unlovable until his friends teach him how to laugh and show him that wearing colorful underwear can be great fun.

Carlos walks into the cloud forest with his green umbrella, where the only sound is the steady, drip, drip, drip of drops falling from the trees.  Carlos is sure that he will see lots of animals--perhaps a toucan, a tapir, maybe the monkey, and if he is lucky, the exotic quetzal bird.  He leaves his umbrella at the foot of a giant fig tree and climbs up for a better look.  Perhaps Carlos should have stayed below, where; first a mischievous tree frog hops into the umbrella, followed by one animal after another, each one larger than the last!

We are going to continue with our theme on Plants. The kids know the parts of the plant and they also know what a plant needs to survive. The children will be planting beans. Every day we are going to be observing our plant and recording any changes it may have. Ask our little scientists what they know about Plants and you will be surprise to see all the wonderful things they know about it.

In Math, we are going to be introducing number 18. The children will make sets with this number. We are also going to be constructing pictographs. Each child will have the chance to create their own graph.

 Please practice the following skills: 

Numbers and counting up to 10

C.16 complete a sequence– up to 10

Numbers and counting up to 20

D.1    Count to 20

The sight words we are going to be studying for the next couple of weeks are:  but, not, like, my, we. Click on the following link to find a great game you may want to try with your child at home.  http://www.starfall.com/n/matching/sight-words/play.htm?f

 A big thank you goes to Felipe Funez and Lucia Torres for bringing the ingredients for Kinder Kafe last week. The children enjoyed making a lizard out of strawberries and bananas. The children in charge for donating the ingredients for Kindergarten Kafe this Friday are Mateo Jacome and Nicolas Martin. Thanks in advance.

 We would like to remind you that this coming Wednesday, Thursday and Friday the children will be going to the Villa Olimpica for the friendly athletic competition. Please make sure your child eats enough for breakfast since we will be skipping snack. It would be very helpful if you can put on sunscreen to your child at home. If you have a hat, or a cap send it with your child also.

 Our Songfest is around the corner.

Kindergarten will be performing the song Under the Sea. The children are all very excited to represent one sea animal. Last week we made a raffle in which they had to take a paper from a bowl to find out which was the animal that they will be representing. Please help your child come in dressed as the following:

ALEJANDRO RIVAS            FISH (like Nemo)

SEBASTIAN AGURCIA          CRAB

EMILIO GUTIERREZ        SEA TURTLE

EMMA RAPALO               STARFISH

ETHAN PAREDES             SHARK

FELIPE FUNEZ                ARIEL´S FATHER (King Triton)

LUCIA TORRES               SEA TURTLE

MATEO JACOME                SHARK

NICOLAS MARTIN           OCTOPUS

RODRIGO AGUILAR          STARFISH

RODRIGO GALLEGO         OCTOPUS

SEBASTIAN ORTEZ         FISH (like Nemo)

TAMMY RODRIGUEZ            CRAB

VILMA BERTRAND           ARIEL (The Little Mermaid)

SONG FEST – Please mark your calendars for this year’s Song Fest. There has a been a change in time! The performances will begin at 5:30 p.m.

Christmas Bazaar:  Don’t forget to invite family and friends to come shopping this Saturday,  November 22. 

Donations!  We kindly ask your cooperation with the following donations:

•      FUNDACION ABRIGO – Once again, Discovery School support Fundación Abrigo in their mission to lodge families from the rural areas who come to Hospital Escuela. WE are asking our school families to send 1 gallon of in the disinfectant per family, and to send it in by Friday, November 21. What a wonderful way to show our gratitude for what we have – to share what we have with those in need!
•    BOOK DONATION FOR AMOR, FE Y ESPERANZA (AFE) - AFE is an organization located on the outskirts of Tegucigalpa that has been rescuing children from the garbage dump and breaking the cycle of poverty in their lives. AFE is in the process of furnishing its library. We are asking for any new or used Spanish books (children’s books, novels, nonfiction, encyclopedias etc.) you might have and that you would like to donate to the AFE library.  These books can be brought and given to your homeroom teacher.  If you would like more information about AFE, please visit their website at www.afehonduras.org  

DPTO Bingo:  The DPTO will be hosting fun filled BINGO evening for Discovery families and friends on Friday, December 5. Incredible prizes are in store for those who attend! Food and drinks will be available for purchase. Don’t miss out on this opportunity! Tickets are only L100!