February news

 It's hard to believe the month of February is over!  We have been so busy, from Groundhog Day to Valentine's Day to the 100th Day! 

We made predictions about whether or not the groundhog would see its shadow...here are our results!

We had a fabulous Valentine's Day party, the kids had fun with the crafts, decorating the boxes, making the frames and the activity booklets!  Mrs. Burek, Mrs. Rahley, Mrs. Joseph, and Mrs. O'Brien did a great job!  The beautiful bouquet of flowers is still on my dining room table, what a gorgeous arrangement and thoughtful gesture.  Many thanks to you all!! 

The 100th day collections were all great!  Thanks for helping your child with his/her project.  So many great ideas...shirts, posters, and collections.  We had a lot of fun looking at all of them!

March will be filled with "lion and lamb" days, we are decorating our class bulletin board with them and will be keeping track of the weather!  I'm sure a sneaky leprechaun will some how find his way into our class too!

March conference sign ups will be sent home soon.  We are waiting to see if they will be in person or virtual, as soon as we are told I will send out a google doc.

Only 20 more days until spring!!!!

Beebots!

 A big thank you to Mrs. Farrahar and Mrs. Foley for talking to us about the importance of taking a break ("pausing") from technology!  We also got a chance to do some coding with the Beebots!  Working in groups we programmed our Beebots to travel around a map.  It was a lot of fun!

The kids have been working hard on subtraction (it's kind of a big shift for some to remember to "take away"), we finished our first "How to" book together, we worked in small groups and wrote out the steps of "How to brush your teeth".   We're also focusing on the writing conventions (uppercase letter at the beg, lowercase letters for the rest of the words, spaces and a period).  They are doing a great job!

  

During "fun Friday" we watched a video about a super builder who who was an architect.  She created food, buildings and even Star Wars creations with Legos!  We created our own towers and talked about what we need to make them stand up.  Here are some creations...

February will be a busy month!  Our 100th day is approaching!  If we don't have any snow days it will be February 11th!  Be on the lookout for information about a 100th day project!

I will also be sending home the class list for Valentine's cards this week.  Please make sure your child brings a card in for each student.  If you'd like to address the card with names you may or if you prefer to have your child just sign the card you can.  Our party will be on  February 14th (this is also an early release day) 11:40 dismissal.  Please remember to send a "party in a bag" for child's snack.

January

 Happy New Year!!  It's great being back with the kids!  It sounds like everyone had a wonderful vacation and time off!  Here are some pictures from our winter party.  Many thanks to our helpers Mrs. Bricker, Mrs. Burek, Mrs. O'Brien and Mrs. Morray.  The kids had a fun time!  Thanks again for the class gifts and the many other gifts!  So appreciated!

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We have been working on CVC (consonant, vowel, consonant) words such as hat, pig, wet etc.  I showed them a strategy to help them sound out the words using their arm tapping each sound.  Ask your child to show you how tap out some words.  

This week we will be working on a new genre of writing!  We will begin informational writing (or "how to" writing).  This is my favorite type of writing to do with the kids.  When writing these, we will be using 4 important words... first, next, then, and last.   One of our books will be "How to get dressed for the snow" (hopefully this will help you at home and me at school!)   :-)

We continue to work on addition and making combinations of numbers.

December

The months are going by fast, 2022 will soon be here!  As the weather gets colder please remember to send warm (labeled) outer wear for you child.

We are rolling along with our letters and sight words, the kids continue to amaze me with all they are taking in!   Here we are doing a "turn and talk" reading our writer's workshop stories!  We talk about using finger spaces, an uppercase letter at the beginning, and a period at the end.  

This week we have been comparing and contrasting different versions of the Gingerbread Man so many great stories!  We've talked about how the "characters" are the same/different, how the "setting" is the same/different and how the ending is the same or different as other ones.  It has been a lot of fun!

Pajama Day is this Friday, the 17th.  We will also be having our class winter party on the 23rd (half day).  Please send your child to school with a "party in a bag" for snack (the bag can be decorated with some treats inside).

For those who celebrate, have a wonderful holiday!  I hope you enjoy some down time, get to relax and spend some quality time with your family doing the things you love!

Thank you for all you do!  I appreciate all your support!  

November news

 Starting out the month of November with "Fun Friday"!

In addition to reading How Full is Your Bucket we read Have you Filled a Bucket Today?  We've been talking a lot about how we can fill others' buckets and how we feel when our own bucket is full or empty.  Hopefully you'll be noticing some bucket filling at home.  I'll be on the lookout at school!!