**We had a productive and calm classroom this week as we headed into the last week of classes before break. The students reflected on the year 2015 and created a Compliment Card board where they posted written compliments about fellow classmates. The students worked on creating friendship chains and decorated the classroom and our Secret Snowflake classroom.
**Our Winter Concert was fabulous! Our get together afterwards gave the students a chance to showcase some of the work they had done as well as share some treats! Thanks to all who helped out. The students were delighted to see parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles brothers and sisters at their concert.
**Our End of the Year Book Buddy get together was awesome! The students shared treats and worked on a getting to know you movie trailer using iMovie. Some of the movies are still being sent to me and hopefully I will share them with you.
**Classes resume on Monday, January 4th.
**Reading Grandma Mary will be returning for her 9th year of hearing our budding readers! She will join our class one morning a week and will work one on one with each student on fluency and comprehension.
** Our other wonderful grandma, Mrs. D. will also be returning on Tuesdays to volunteer at literacy workstations.
**Route to Reading Rotation 4 will begin on January 4th. You will receive notification of the skill your child will be working on.
**Mid Year DIBELS screening for phonemic awareness and Mid Year AIMSWEB screening for math will begin the week of January 11th.
**Vision Screening for Kindergarten students will be held Friday, January 8th in the morning.
**No School on Friday, January 15th--Teacher's Institute Day.
**No School on Monday, January 18th--observance of Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday.
**Swap, Shop and Read Book Exchange will be held on January 21st from 6-7:30 pm. A flyer was in your child's homework folder.
**Hearing Screening for Kindergarten will be held on Friday, February 5th in the morning.
**Our 100th Day of School is Wednesday, February 10th. I need lots of parent help for the activities and festivities. Stay tuned!
**Mid Year Parent Teacher Conferences will be held on Monday, February 8th, Tuesday, February 9th and Wednesday, February 10th. Thursday and Friday (February 11th and 12th) dismissal is at 11:00 am. There is no afternoon session.
**The Fun Fair is Coming!!!! It's Saturday, February 20th from 11-3 pm. Stay tuned!
** Start saving those GIANT BOXES (the kind you can climb in) and other cool stuff for our space station design and construction in APRIL. I cannot store anything now. I will have you start bringing it in after spring break.
LOOKING AHEAD IN 2016-----Assuming we WILL HAVE cold weather and snow......Please send your child with appropriate dress. Boots and snow pants are a must for playing on the snow hills that will form as part of plowing the playground. I will have extra mittens and a few pair of snow pants in the room if you forget. We will begin our next cross curricular theme-WINTER. We will continue to introduce Next Generation Science strands within our district science model. We will begin our first formal science unit--Investigating Water. In the area of reading, the students will continue to focus on sound foundation, sound blending and segmenting/adding/deleting phonemes in 3,4,5, and even 6 phoneme words. We will also work on oral and written comprehension, sequencing events in a story, gathering supporting details in a text, stating an opinion with a supporting reasons, naming the main topic and using text features-like photos/illustrations to help understand the author's message. The students will work on their Blueprint Workmats in these areas. Our BUSY READER CLUB will begin. I will be sending out information about this the first week of school. In the area of writing, the students will begin formal training in forming lowercase letters. Students will continue to work on sentence structure, inventive spelling, grammar and punctuation and expanding sentence length to include adjectives. In the area of math, the students will continue to work on rote counting to 100 by 1's, 10's and beyond, writing numbers, demonstrating knowledge of numbers that are greater than or less than, representing addition and subtraction with objects and mental images, solving story problems using drawing and number work, number bonding to 10, working on teen numbers and fluent addition and subtraction to 5. Socially, the students will continue to work on becoming more responsible and independent learners and thinkers and continue to develop positive relationships with their peers and teachers. In the area of technology, the students will continue to use the iPad and internet resources to enhance all areas of the curriculum. WOW!! We will be very busy!
Reading/Language Arts: The students continue to work on Unit 4 Food in our Treasures Reading series. The discussion this week centered on types of food you would have for dinner and if you ever helped make dinner. The students accessed prior knowledge about a meal they helped prepare. They shared information about special foods they may eat during the holidays. The students designed their own workstations this week. They included using the app Montessori Crosswords in the crossword puzzle form to segment and blend 3-4 sound words, writing about their favorite meal and why they liked it, using the foam gingerbread stickers as the characters, they draw the setting and create the events to form their own story, write and illustrate in their own words how they get ready for school each morning and walk their words.
Math: The students worked on a variety of counting and problem solving activities--creating snowflakes--counting the folds to make and where to cut, making Rudolph the Red Nose reindeer by listening to the directions, cutting and figuring where to place the pieces in order to make his face, playing the Dreidel Game and creating a tree using triangles and one rectangle. Some pretty cool thinking going on!
Writing: The students finished up work on uppercase letter formation. They worked on a writing project where they first created a gingerbread person of their choice and then wrote 2-4 sentences to describe them. They continue to work on reading their own writing and are beginning to make their own corrections. They are working on placement of letters on a given line--where do lowercase letters go....uppercase letters....tall lowercase....underground letters???? The students wrote to compliment a classmate on just about anything, Super cute and caring!!
Character Education: The students worked on Growth Mindset/Fixed Mindset thinking and problem and solution while listening to the Rudolph stories--learning from mistakes, keep trying, don't give up, when others do well, I am inspired. Lots of great discussions.
Technology: One new app--Number Find was introduced. This app helps students looked for number patterns in order to find a given number. A blank grid is given. A number is given. What is the quickest way to find that number? Where would you put it on the grid?
Literature: "Rudolph, the Red Nose Reindeer," "Rudolph Shines Again," "There Was An Old Lady Who Swallowed a Bell," "Jingle Bells, Homework Smells," "How Do Dinosaurs Say Merry Christmas?" "Merry Christmas, Hungry Bear," "K is for Kwanzaa," "A Hanukkah Counting Book," "Mooseltoe," "Gingerbread Bear," "Gingerbread Friends," "The Night Before Christmas."
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