December 10, 2010

Dear Families,

Our classroom is decorated with different holiday projects! If you haven’t already, you can see photos of our December decorations in the “Photos” section of our website! We have lots of work from different holidays around the world! Plus, I always love to decorate the classroom during this time of the year to make it festive! Enjoy!

Remember to check the “Classwork” section of our website and click on the “Dear Santa” picture! Each child shared 3 reasons why they think they were good this year, and then they wrote down what they wish to get this year. Take a look at their letters!

Your family turkey feather is also coming home today. Everyone did such a beautiful job on their feathers, and they were so creative. Thank you for spending time together as a family to make them so special. Here are some highlights for the week:

• Language Arts: This week we started reading some Gingerbread Man stories. There are a lot of variations of the story, but we read the Gingerbread Man, Gingerbread Pirates, Gingerbread Baby, and Gingerbread Friends. During our Friday centers, we made our own gingerbread men using white paint and brown paper. We also made a mini book about eating different body parts of the gingerbread man!

• Social Studies: We are continuing our 3-week Social Studies project on the holidays, seasons, and months. Also, almost all of us have some sight words memorized such as the, month, for, and is! It is really important that at this time of the year, the children begin mastering their handwriting of little and big letters. We have been reading stories about different holidays around the world. We continued learning about Kwanzaa, Hanukkah, and we also learned about Mexico and the special meaning of poinsettias.

• Writing: In our journals this week, we wrote a sentence about what we think of when we hear “December.” We illustrated our pictures and checked our handwriting. We are trying to get into the habit of using capitals, spaces, and periods! It is still hard for some students to remember to check their work.

• Math: This week we continued reviewing our numbers and worked on 8, 9, and 10. We are practicing to identify 10 quickly by using a ten-frame. We are also continuing to write math sentences using the plus and equals sign. Another vocabulary word we use often is “in all.” One area that is difficult for students is to answer “How many more?” in word problems using illustrations. An example is (and I would read this orally): There are 3 soccer players. 10 players are needed to play a game. How many more players do they need? We practiced this type of word problem this week. The math sentence would be 3 + 7 = 10. They need to be able to solve the problem using numbers, words, and pictures. In pictures, we show how to solve the problem by first counting the 3 players, and then we draw circles and continue counting from 4 until 10 to show the remaining players. Please practice at home!

• Music: We saw Ms. Disney this week and we sang some holiday songs! We sang Jingle Bells and used sticks as well as bells to accompany the song. We also walked and galloped like the horses on Santa’s sleigh! Another song we learned was about Hanukkah. We learned about a game they play using a dreidel and we learned some Hebrew words! Finally, we learned movements to a song about a bunny eating a snowman’s carrot nose!

• Computer Lab: This week we used Kidspiration to work on a Social Studies picture about the seasons and months of the year. For our lesson, we chose pictures to match the different months of the year. We had to think about different special days throughout the year and make sure our pictures fit the season or month. This lesson will continue next week.

• Assembly: Today we had a special assembly called Earth Dome. It taught us facts about our Earth and geography. They even brought in a 12 foot dome for us to see and learn about the Earth.

Now that the rain has started, we have a few extra rainy day procedures in place. When you arrive at school and it is little to no rain, then please line up in our regular spot. If it is raining, then:

* Morning Class Drop-Off: If the doors are open, you can drop your child off. If the door is closed, that means I might be in a meeting or I am not in the classroom. You can then line up in the lunch table area that has an overhang directly across from our classroom door (where you pick up your child after school). Please stand in line behind the blue pole facing my door.

* Afternoon Class Drop-Off: If it is raining, you can wait in the hallway door entrance until 10:55am (or 10:35am on Tuesdays). Please wait in line with your child in the hallway until I open the door. Please make sure they are quiet, especially Tuesdays.

* Pick-Up for Morning and Afternoon Classes: Wait in our regular spot by the lunch tables unless it is raining hard. If it is windy and raining hard, I will dismiss the kids from the door leading to the hallway.

Remember that Nanaka’s last day with us is on Friday, so if your child would like to make or give Nanaka a goodbye card/present, you are welcome to do so! Have a wonderful weekend!