February 5, 2010

Upcoming Dates

* Monday, February 8th: Happy Hollow In-House Field Trip – ALL KIDS ATTEND AM!
All Kinders come from 9:00am – 12:20pm! Please arrange to pick up your child on time after school! For this in-house field trip, we don’t have to go anywhere! Happy Hollow will come to Eaton and do a presentation to our class, where they bring animals for us! Therefore, we won’t need any chaperones and kids won’t need to wear their red shirts. Please still bring your backpacks, snacks, and sharing as usual.

* Thursday, February 11th: Scholastic Book Orders Due (attached to today’s newsletter)
Please try to order your books online. Our class earns free books with online purchases. Thank you!
1. Go to: www.scholastic.com/bookclubs
2. Class User Name: Beebear
3. Password: MrsYu (no spaces or periods)
4. Browse books and place order using your credit card (no need to send money to school)
5. About 2 weeks after I receive all the orders, your books will be delivered to school!
If you prefer not to order online, you can return the order form directly to me with ONE check payable to Scholastic Book Clubs. Please hand it to me by Friday, February 12th.

* Friday, February 12th: Valentine’s Day Party
We will be celebrating Valentine’s Day by exchanging cards. Every child must prepare Valentine cards for every student and bring them to school on Friday in a bag. They can be homemade or store-bought cards. Here is a list of all the students' names in our class. Please have your child write: To: (student name) and From: (your child’s name) on each envelope and prepare 28 cards (29 if they want one for themselves). Here are the students’ names in our class:
Aditi Aditya Caroline Chris Colleen Connor
Daniel David Edison Grace Jennifer Jewel
Kavya Keona Kristina Kumiko Lauren Leah
Matthew C. Matthew N. Michael Raphael Sara Sean
Shaunak Tanisha Woojin Yash Yuma

* Monday, February 15th to Friday, February 22nd: No School – Mid-Year Recess
Enjoy your week of vacation!

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Dear Families,

Thank you so much for a wonderful Teacher Appreciation week! It was such a nice week filled with flowers, supplies, cards, books, games, and treats. I am also so thankful for the class gift cards to Lakeshore and Target. These gift cards help to buy larger items for the classroom! Thank you also to those of you who helped to take our recess duties during the week, or helped to provide the recess treats or food for the luncheon. We appreciate all of your support and for taking the time to make the staff at Eaton feel special. We are thankful for you!

Here are some highlights for the week:
• Star of the Week: Chris
(On our website under “Curriculum” and “Star of the Week.”)

• Letter of the Week: L
(You can see our computer center drawings in the “Classwork” section of our website.)

• Story of the Week: The 100th Day of School

• Language Arts: We talked a lot about the 100th Day of School. We read poems, stories, and completed projects to celebrate the 100th Day!

• Math: We used the 100th day of school to complete several math projects this week. One project was our 100 bead necklace that students made on Monday. Students had to make an ABCD pattern using the beads. This was also great practice for their fine motor skills. Also, we practiced skip counting by 10’s to 100 and made a book with stickers, stamps, or illustrations to count to 100.

• Computer Lab: Following the theme of the week, we made a 100 project in Kidpix this week. We chose 10 different stamps and showed that 10 groups of 10 equal 100. We also finished our Seasons pictures from last week. You can see both of these projects on our website.

• Science: We continued to learn a little bit more about penguins this week. On Thursday, we practiced our sequencing skills. Students had to put together the life cycle of the Emperor penguin by matching the pictures in the correct order.

• Social Studies: On Tuesday, we learned about Groundhog’s Day. We read some stories about groundhogs and talked about what shadows are. We made a project that shows what happens if the groundhog sees his shadow! Make sure to ask your child what happens to check their understanding of the lesson! If the groundhog sees his shadow (on a sunny day), then he gets scared and jumps back into his burrow to sleep for 6 more weeks (which means winter continues). If the groundhog does not see his shadow (on a cloudy day), then he stays outside and that means spring is coming soon! In addition to learning about Groundhog’s Day, we talked about Chinese New Year as well, which is on Valentine’s Day this year. We read some stories and learned that it will be the year of the Tiger. We made a lantern as well as a red envelope to share in some of the Chinese New Year customs.

• Assembly: This week we had an assembly by the Roots Review. Ask your child to tell you what it was about.

Thank you again to all the parents who went last Friday to the Children’s Discovery Museum. At the last moment, we ended up having nine chaperones (plus a few more offers!), which helped to keep our groups to three children each. It was perfect! We had a great time exploring the museum with our classmates! Some of the exhibits included: face-painting, making cornhusk dolls, serving pizza, shopping at the market, dancing in the theater, forming bubbles, and exploring water ways! It was a successful field trip!

The Eaton student council has started a fundraiser for the earthquake victims in Haiti. From now until Friday, February 26th, you can send in “Coins for Haiti.” There is a collection box in our room, similar to a piggy bank, where students have been adding our donations. You can also write a check payable to Red Cross. Thank you to those families that have already donated coins for this fundraiser. The students have gotten really excited to share coins for this wonderful cause!