December is here!

Upcoming Dates

* Friday, December 14th: Canned Food Drive
Today your child will be bringing home a brown bag with his or her name on it. This bag describes the different types of food you can donate for the canned food drive. Also, there will be a paper attached to it. Please fill it out and return by next Friday. Bring your bags back with canned foods to donate! Thank you!

* Monday, December 17th – Friday, December 21st: No homework packets
I will not be sending home homework packets the week before Winter Recess, so there will be no spelling or vocabulary test because of the holidays. However, please continue to prepare your child’s sharing and continue reading daily for 15 minutes for the Book-It! Reading Log. Remember the reading logs are due when we come back after Winter Recess. *** Friday parent volunteers: You do not need to come help on Friday, December 21st. Thank you!***

* Friday, December 21st: Polar Express Party
This will be a special day to celebrate the holidays! We will be doing activities and games based off of the story, The Polar Express, by Chris Van Allsburg. It will also be a pajama day (because we are pretending to be the children in the train)! Please send your child to school in their favorite pajamas and they can also bring one stuffed animal or pillow too.

* Monday, December 24th to January 4th: NO SCHOOL – Winter Recess
School will resume on Monday, January 7th.

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Dear Families,

On Monday, we went to Fremont High School and watched the play, The Elves and the Shoemaker. It was about a Shoemaker who did a kind act and freed an elf from an evil man. In return, the elves visited the Shoemaker each night and helped him make many shoes for his business. We learned that when you do nice things for others, others will do nice things for you. It was funny and entertaining to watch. Thank you to Mrs. Yang for coming with us on this field trip!

Here are some highlights from the week:
Star of the Week: Kota
Poem of the Week: I Heard a Bird Sing
Song of the Week: Four Seasons
Story of the Week: A Bird Can Fly
Kindness is … seeking wise people.
Vocabulary of the Week: People 5
Next Week’s Sharing: Riddle – your favorite holiday
(4 clues with object/picture hidden in a bag)

• Language Arts:
o Theme 2: Let’s Look Around - Week 2
o Story Selection: Mr. C’s Dinner
o Strategy and Skill Focus: Making Predictions and Inferences
o High Frequency Words: all, call, eat, every, first, never, paper, shall, why
o Word Families: -ip, -in
o Phonemic Awareness: blending and segmenting
o Sounds: verb endings –s, -ed, -ing, short I, possessives with ‘s
o Grammar: Naming Part of a Sentence

• Math: This week we worked on word problems and reading carefully for too much information. It is important students really understand what is being asked in the questions and not just adding or subtracting numbers. We finished this chapter on number patterns to 100 and took our test yesterday. Please review the the mistakes on your child’s test.

• Writing: Today we wrote letters to Santa about why we have been good this year. Next week we will illustrate our letters!

• Computer Lab: On Monday we started working with a new program called Kidspiration. Kidspiration is a software tool to help with brainstorming and outlining ideas. This week we made an All About Me outline. We chose our favorite colors, animals, shapes, and foods and made a brainstorming map using words and pictures.

• Social Studies: We continued our Holidays Around the World circuit with Holland, Kwanzaa, and Divali. First we learned that kids in Holland place wooden shoes with carrots and hay in their windows for Sinterklaas. Then we went to Mrs. Nieveen’s class to learn about Kwanzaa and made mkeka’s or straw mats. Finally this week, we went to Mrs. Tambe’s class to learn about Divali and holidays in India.

• PE: This week we went with Mrs. Barelli to play cardio games including one called Octopus.

• Library: Our regular Eaton library visit on Friday morning is cancelled because of the book fair. Our next visit will be on Friday, December 14th.

• Assembly: Today we had an assembly called “Light up The Lights.” It was filled with multicultural winter songs from around the world! The singer was Gary Lapow and he was really good at involving the kids.

• Art: Students brought home two of their art projects this week. One was the clay discs that students molded and painted. Another was a lesson on lines and different designs. In our class we have been starting several art projects for the holidays including an ornament and a picture frame. They will bring these home in the last week.

• Book It! Reading Logs: Thank you for reading with your child and completing the Book It! Program each month. Remember that summarizing a story in writing must have the following:
o Who are the characters and where is the setting?
o What happened in the beginning?
o What is the problem in the middle?
o What is the solution at the end?
o Conclusion – This story was great. I liked the part when _____.
A summary can be about 5 sentences.

A retell is similar, however, it is done verbally and more details have to be included in the beginning, middle, and end. A retell means to share the whole story as if you are a storyteller. Please keep practicing!

Report cards are coming out today. Remember that the grades are from August to November 16th. Please keep the report card at home, but return the yellow envelope on Monday. Thanks! Good job so far everyone!