November 19, 2010

Upcoming Dates

Monday, November 22nd to Friday, November 26th: No School – Furlough Days
Enjoy your week of vacation! Happy Thanksgiving! I am thankful for time spent with my family!
Next Sharing: Something you are proud of

Monday, November 29th: December Scholastic Book Orders Due Online -
1) Please go to www.scholastic.com/bookclubs
2) Log in with your own username and password. If it is your first time, you need to enter our Class Activation Code: GQ68Q
3) Browse books online and pay with your own credit card!
4) Books will arrive at school 2 weeks from our due date and I will send them home!
Wednesday, December 1st: November Homework Due
I will send home the December monthly homework in the homework folder.

Friday, December 3rd: First Trimester Report Cards Go Home
Please return the report card manila envelope, but you can keep the report card papers at home.

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Dear Families,

November is a short month! I hope you were able to have a nice four-day weekend with your families last weekend. The Cupertino teachers took 5 furlough days for 2010-2011 in order to save 100+ teacher jobs, so that is why we don’t have any school next week (in a regular school year, we come on Monday and Tuesday). I hope you have something special planned! I will be spending time with my sister and her babies. She finally was discharged from the hospital on Wednesday of this week (after being there for almost one entire month), and she still has a central line that is connected to some different medications. Nevertheless, I am definitely thankful she is not in the hospital anymore! Thank you so much for thinking of her and asking about her these past few weeks. We have so much to be thankful for, and often we take for granted our health and ability to walk, run, move…

I have updated a few more things on our website. Be sure to check out the “Photos” section of our website to see our November classroom decorations, and check out our newest “Classwork” with our turkey computer lab pictures and the latest literacy center illustrations!

Here are some highlights for the week:
• Language Arts: We had our literacy centers on Tuesday last week and Wednesday this week, and our letter of the week was H and then V. You can see our computer center illustrations for the letter H and V in our website, under “Classwork.” The story of the week was called Lunch and this week we heard Turkey Trouble. This week we have been reading many stories about Thanksgiving and the meaning of giving thanks. We have been talking about what we are thankful for. We wrote in our journals this week about what we are thankful for in our lives.

• Social Studies: Congratulations to Clarissa, who was chosen as our tenth Star of the Week! Last week, Evelyn was chosen as our eleventh Star of the Week! You can read about them both in the “Classwork” section of our website, and click under “Star of the Week.” Also, we have continued to learn about the first Thanksgiving story. We learned about the Pilgrims and Native Americans, and about their first feast together. We learned about what it looks like to help others, to teach others, and to respect people who are different than us. We finished our Thanksgiving stories. Have your child teach you all about the very first Thanksgiving!

• Math: We are starting a new unit this week on more numbers to 10. We have been practicing writing, counting, and naming numbers. Keep practicing the numbers, especially on reversals! We are also working on more complicated pattern sequences.

• Computer Lab: We continued making our November illustrations that go along with our poem of the month called, “Here is a Turkey.” We are using Kidpix for this project, and this week we finished the background for our turkeys. The setting of our poem is on the farm, so we drew a barn and tried to draw many details in the background. You can look in our “Classwork” section of the website to see these pictures!

• Music: On Tuesday we saw Ms. Disney. We have been learning a lot of songs about specific animals. This week’s animal was the chicken. We heard an instrumental song that sounded like a chicken pecking and moving. We imitated the movements of chickens and also practiced walking to the beat of the song.

• Buddies: We saw our fourth grade buddies and they helped us to weave our Thanksgiving mats. This actually was quite challenging for many students (even 4th graders =) We learned to weave the color strips over and under, over and under, and we learned how to make pattern squares on our mats. This is a good skill to keep practicing at home too!

• Field Trip: Thank you for being flexible today with the arrival and dismissal time. We often run into traffic on the freeway, so it is better to have more time versus less. Thank you also to Evelyn’s mom, Teresa, for being our chaperone this time!

In today’s Friday Folder, you will find a Thanksgiving paper of all the things our class is thankful for. This is one of my favorite activities to keep because sometimes the things Kindergarteners think of are little reminders for us as adults to appreciate!

Enjoy reading and have a wonderful Thanksgiving week!