February 13, 2009

Upcoming Dates

* Monday, February 16th – Friday, February 21nd: Winter Recess
There will be no school this week. Have a great vacation!

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Dear Families,
Happy Valentine’s Day everyone! I hope you have a nice weekend and a wonderful winter recess. Thank you for preparing the Valentine cards for the class. It is always fun to share special cards and treats for each other.

Here are some highlights from the week:
Star of the Week: Terrence
Poem of the Week: Dear Valentine
Song of the Week: Five Senses
Kindness is … showing others you care.
Story of the Week: The Emperor’s Egg
Vocabulary of the Week: Body 4
Word Wall: by, climb, found, morning, out, shout, show
Next Week’s Sharing: Riddle – something healthy
(at least 4 clues memorized and hide object/picture)

• Language Arts: Theme 6: Animal Adventures – Week 1
• Stories: The Sleeping Pig
• Strategy and Skill Focus: Summarize/ Story Structure
• Word Families: -oke
• Sounds: long o, final clusters ft, lk, and nt
• Grammar: Naming words for animals and people

• Math: I just realized that a few weeks ago, the wrong Chapter Review was in your child’s homework! You were supposed to have gotten the money Chapter Review page, but instead you received our current chapter’s review on fractions and geometry! I suppose it ended up as a “preview” to our next chapter, instead of “reviewing” our old chapter! Sorry about the confusion. This week we reviewed plane shapes such as squares, circles, rectangles, and triangles. We talked about how many corners and sides they had. Then we learned about solid shapes including spheres, cubes, cylinders, cones, rectangular prisms, and pyramids. The students need to be able to name and identify different objects by the end of the chapter. We started learning about symmetry as well this week.

• Science: We had a Penguin learning center on Monday afternoon. We rotated through five centers to learn something about penguins. One center showed us the pictures and names of the seventeen different penguins. Next, we listened to a story on Emperor Penguins. Also, we drew and found facts about Emperor Penguins, African Penguins, and Rockhopper Penguins. These penguin fact folders are coming home in today’s Friday Folder.

• Social Studies: This week in circuits, we went to Mrs. Nieveen’s class. She talked more about Martin Luther King Jr. and we made a poster drawing ourselves with a speech bubble. We wrote what we wished for in the world and learned about Peace and Love. Also, in class we talked about President’s Day. We learned a little about George Washington and Abraham Lincoln. We also did an activity to celebrate Valentine’s Day. We wrote a concrete poem on a heart and decorated with ripped paper.

• Writing: Our Mitten stories are still in progress. Some students have finished the final edits and are starting to illustrate the pages. This is an independent activity, so it really is up to each child to work hard and finish their stories.

• Computer: Now that we have been in school over 100 days, we completed a Kidpix activity using 100 stamps. We counted by 2’s, 5’s, or 10’s to get to 100.

• Assembly: Since February is Black History Month, we had a storyteller named, Mary Kelly. She told stories about slavery, while singing songs and changing outfits.

Next week I am excited because I will be going to Vancouver and Whistler, Canada! My husband and I love to go snowboarding, so we decided this would be a good time to travel a bit! Hope you have a great week!