December 12, 2008

Upcoming Dates

Monday, December 15th: Natural Bridges Butterfly Field Trip
Thank you to Mrs. Ogata, Mrs. Rueth, Mrs. Sakanaka, and Mrs. Yoon for coming with us on this field trip. We will be going to Santa Cruz to see the natural butterfly habitat. This will be an all day field trip, so you will need to send a BAG lunch with your child’s name on it and make sure to dress in layers!

Monday, December 15th to Friday, December 19th: No Spelling/Vocabulary
There will be no tests this week. However, please continue to prepare your child’s sharing, complete the homework packet, and read 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 19th. Thank you!***

Friday, December 19th: Polar Express Day – Pajamas Everyone!
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 22nd to January 2nd: NO SCHOOL – Winter Recess
School will resume on Monday, January 5th. Have safe travels and a wonderful holiday!

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Dear Families,

On Monday, we went to go watch the Elves and the Shoemaker play at Fremont High School! Thank you to Mrs. Kung for coming with us as our chaperone. We enjoyed the story and learned that we should do good deeds for other people, just like the elves did! Starting last week, we began writing praise notes to our classmates. I am encouraging students to compliment and praise other people. Children can often be “me” centered, so I am teaching the children to think of others and notice special things about other people.

Here are some highlights for the week:
• Language Arts:
Star of the Week: Kayleigh
Poem of the Week: Hanukkah Rainbow
Song of the Week: Skip Counting
Kindness is: learning about holidays around the world
Word Wall: also, blue, brown, color, funny, green, like, many, some
Story of the Week: Jessie Bear, What Will You Wear?
Word Families: -ick, -ill
Sounds: clusters with r, contractions with ‘s
Strategy and Skill Focus: Question, Categorize/Classify
Grammar: Action Part of a Sentence

• Math: We finished our chapter on place value and began our sixth chapter on addition and subtraction facts again. We have been practicing word problems with too much information and using tables to help us solve questions. Also, we are learning to add three numbers and find missing addends.

• Social Studies: On Monday, we had a special surprise in our Holland wooden shoes! Sinterklaas brought candy canes for all the kids on the eve of December 5th! On Tuesday, we went to Mrs. Nieveen’s class and learned about Diwali. We made rangoli’s using glue and sand art. We have also been working on a project to learn about the different months, seasons, and important holidays around the year.

• Computer Lab: We added more pictures to our kindness journals this week using Kidpix. Students were asked to draw one or two new pictures to add to their journal. You can see these in the Classwork section of our website or directly on: kindness.pbwiki.com

• Music: We saw Miss Rachel this week and we sang holiday songs. We are remembering to listen carefully and follow directions!

• Art: We also saw Mrs. Abada this week! She taught us about Katsushika Hokusai- a Japanese printmaker in the 1800s. We tried printmaking on Styrofoam plates.

Please remember to dress appropriately on Monday for our field trip. It may be raining and if so, we are not bringing umbrellas with us. Please make sure to dress in a rain jacket or poncho instead. Also, don’t forget to label your child’s lunch – everything will be thrown away!

Thank you for those of you who donated canned foods to the Second Harvest Food Bank. We are always talking about how fortunate our lives are, and that many people do not have what we have. Please continue teaching your children about sharing and giving to the poor or unfortunate.

Maybe because of the holidays and the upcoming vacation, many students have
had a hard time following the rules and finishing their work. Please continue to remind them to try their best to finish their projects and to keep conversations for recess or lunchtime, not during class. Please help me to speak to your children about getting green super stars!

Next Friday will be Emily’s last day with us. Her family is moving to Portland, Oregon over the winter vacation and we will be saying goodbye to her. We will miss her very much!