January 14, 2011

Dear Families,

Since there is no school on Monday, we will not be visiting the Eaton library and checking out a book that day. Therefore, your child will not be bringing home the large manila homework envelope next week. Homework will be separate and will go home on Tuesday in their daily folders. Also, there is no sharing next week since it is a short week.

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

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

• Story of the Week: The Hat

• Language Arts: This week we read many snowman books and talked about how to make a snowman. On Tuesday, your child brought home a snowman sequencing activity to tell a story about a boy and his snowman. Some students had difficulty with this activity. Take a look at their project to see if they understood sequencing correctly!

• Science: We have been talking about the season of Winter. We describe how Winter is different from all the other seasons. We made Snowman glyphs this week. A glyph is a project that has specific clothing and items that tell details about the person who is making it. Each snowman then becomes unique! Also on Friday, we made another snowman out of cotton balls. In addition, we used yarn, buttons, pipe cleaners, and glitter, to decorate them!

• Writing: Our journal entry on Monday was to write about things we see in Winter. We started with the sentence, In winter, I see ____ and students wrote about different winter objects. They illustrated their picture. In our homework packets, please continue to work on writing the alphabet letters and the numbers with proper handwriting. It is important that students continue to try their best to write neatly on all their work, and not rush or be messy. This applies to writing as well as everything else we do, such as coloring, cutting, or gluing.

• Math: We focused on telling subtraction stories and sentences this week. I taught the children how to show their math sentences using counters and using drawings. Remember, students need to practice explaining their logic and thinking, not just computing answers from math problems. Here is an example of a subtraction sentence and what I expect the students to be able to verbalize, and show in pictures and numbers.

There are 8 ducks in the pond. (Students draw 8 circles).
5 ducks swim away. (Students cross out 5 circles).
How many ducks are left? (Students write the math sentence 8-5= and
complete the answer by counting how many circles are remaining).
There are 3 ducks left. (Students answer 8-5=3)

• Computer Lab: This week, we finished our projects from last week and from before vacation. We illustrated our January poem, The Snowman, as well as our December Poem, “First Day of Winter.” Take a look at our drawings on the “Classwork” section of our website.

• Art: We saw Mrs. Abada on Thursday and we worked with clay! We shaped clay into a nest and we learned how to make a bird as well as some eggs to put in our nest. Mrs. Abada will put our clay projects into the kiln to harden them and next time we will paint glaze on them!

We are doing a much better job trying to focus on assignments and finish our work on time. Continue to monitor your child at home and give him/her time limits to work independently. We are still reinforcing all of the classroom rules and how to be a Peacebuilder to others. This week, we talked about following the rules and being nice to others, even when no one is looking. For example, many students are able to follow directions when I am standing in front of them, however, if I turn around, they start breaking the rules. We talked about why we want to make the right choices, and how we can control ourselves from following others who are not doing the right thing.

Have a great three-day weekend!