Almost Thanksgiving!

Upcoming Dates

* Monday, November 19th: Natural Bridges Field Trip
We will be taking the bus with Mrs. Okuno’s class and Mrs. Nieveen’s class to Natural Bridges in Santa Cruz to see the monarch butterflies! Please make sure your child dresses warm and send a PAPER BAG lunch that can be thrown away. If you have not turned in your permission slip yet, please do so MONDAY or your child will not be able to come with us! Thank you to Mrs. Okubo who has volunteered to chaperone.

* Tuesday, November 20th: Scholastic Book Orders Due!
I am sending home the last book order forms for 2007. It will have November and December selections. Please make ONE check payable to Scholastic Book Clubs if you are interested in purchasing any books.

* Wednesday, November 21st to Friday, November 23rd – NO SCHOOL
Happy Thanksgiving break!

* Thursday, November 29th: Cupertino Library Field Trip
This will be our last visit to the Cupertino Library for 2007! Please remember to bring your blue library cards to school and practice memorizing your 4-digit PIN number! Please return the books at your own convenience (not at Eaton).

* Monday, December 3rd: Elves & The Shoemaker Play Field Trip
Please return the permission slip if you haven’t already. Thank you to Mrs. Yang who will be our chaperone for this trip.

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Dear Families,

Hope you had a nice long weekend. This was a short week but it felt long! Many people are starting to get sick (including myself) so please take care! On Tuesday, we had a power outage from the beginning of school until about 11:30am. We opened the doors and windows, so were still able to work, but it was a different experience! We couldn’t do centers that morning because the computers and tape players couldn’t work! We made up the centers on Wednesday instead. Today was the last day of the first trimester. Report cards will be going home the second week in December. Here are some highlights from the week:
Poem of the Week: Here is a Turkey
Song of the Week: Skip Counting
Story of the Week: The Best of Friends
Kindness is … giving thanks.
Vocabulary of the Week: People 3
Next Week’s Sharing: NO SHARING – short week!

• Language Arts:
o Theme 2: Surprise! - Week 3
o Story Selection: A Hut for Zig Bug and The Rope Tug
o Strategy and Skill Focus: Summarize and Story Structure
o High Frequency Words: are, away, does, he, live, pull, they, where
o Word Families: -ug, -ut
o Phonemic Awareness: blending
o Sounds: q, j, z, and short u
o Grammar: Action Words

• Math: We have been practicing our numbers to 100 and skip counting by 2’s, 5’s, and 10’s. This week we also talked about finding numbers 1 more, 1 less, 10 more, or 10 less. Finally, we learned ordinal numbers such as first, second, third, etc. instead of one, two, three.

• Computer Lab: There was no computer lab this week because of Veterans Day and we will also have to skip computer lab next week because of our field trip.

• Social Studies: We talked about Thanksgiving this week and what things we were thankful for. We also made a Thanksgiving pattern book and learned about Pilgrims, Indians, and Thanksgiving dinner.

• PE: This week we were with Mrs. Nieveen. She taught us jump ropes and we practiced jump rope skills.

• Assembly: This week we watched Hawaiian dancers perform hula dancing! It was called “Halau’o Keikiali” and it was lots of fun!

• Buddies: We saw our buddies this week and did an activity with our hands. We traced our hands and wrote down some of our favorite things. Then we thought about ways our hands help others.

• Star of the Week: We will be starting this the week after Thanksgiving. When your child is selected, he/she will bring home a poster on Monday. Please decorate the poster and return it on Friday, ready to share with the class. Then your child will bring Beebear home for the weekend and your child can write and draw what he/she did with Beebear. Please return Beebear on Monday after the weekend. This is a fun and exciting activity for the students!

Some parents have expressed interest in having a class distribution list so that your families can contact each other. I am attaching a page that asks for your permission to share your phone number, address, or email address with other parents in Room 8. Please fill it out and return to school by Tuesday, November 20th if you are interested in participating. Thank you! Next week you will not be receiving Friday folders or homework folders because it is a short week. Have a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday