March 11, 2011

Dear Families,

Thank you for all of the cute cards, flowers, and gifts to help me celebrate my birthday this past Thursday. I am sad to have missed school. I actually went home Tuesday halfway through the day because I wasn’t feeling well and tried to make it through Wednesday. Unfortunately, I still felt sick and took off Thursday and missed out on the class photo too =( My first time in 9 years! I’m hoping to rest as much as possible this weekend.

Here are some highlights for the week:

• Star of the Week: Anthony – His information will be up soon!
(On our website under “Curriculum” and “Star of the Week.”)

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

• Story of the Week: What is the Sun?

• Math: In continuing our practice counting to 20, we learned a faster way to count this week, using a “ten-frame.” Instead of counting from 1, we learned that we can count on from 10, 11, 12, or even skip count by 5’s such as 5, 10, 15 and then count on to 16, 17, 18… We are learning tricks to help us notice patterns of 5 or 10 and help us count faster. We also worked on graphing this week and reviewed how to make a bar graph about our favorite sea animal. Finally, we talked about the difference between estimating (making a good guess such as 10, 20, 30..) vs. counting (exact number such as 13 or 22).

• Computer Lab: Our March poem of the month is called, “Plip! Plop! Raindrop.” Students have memorized the words to this poem and had to recite it back to me independently. During our computer lab, we used Kidpix to illustrate this poem by drawing an umbrella. Afterwards, we added a person and decorated the background with appropriate pictures for a rainy day. These pictures turned out great! You can see them in the “Classwork” section of our website.

• Science: This week we reviewed what a concrete poem is again. We remembered making a Valentine’s concrete poem in the shape of a heart. This week our theme has been rain, so we wrote a poem in the shape of rain. We started by reading several rain poems and short stories. Afterwards, we brainstormed our favorite words or phrases that reminded us of rain. We wrote these words down in our own rain poems and illustrated them.

• Social Studies: This week, we started talking about the difference between winter and our next season spring. We read some books about spring and then wrote a spring poem describing spring. We decorated and cut out our spring poems.

• Buddies: We saw our buddies on Thursday. We wrote a fiction story with our buddies about leprechauns and how we would catch them! We started reading about leprechauns and St. Patrick’s Day this week and we also made a shamrock during Friday centers.

• Music: On Tuesday, we saw Ms. Disney. We danced as she played a drum and froze when she stopped. We also learned new songs and games.

Remember to fill out the Eaton Survey by Monday! PTO is trying to get 100% participation at Eaton and that is why they are giving out pencils as an incentive for students to encourage their parents to complete the survey. Please print out the confirmation page at the end of the survey and make sure your child’s name is on it, in order to receive the pencil!

Nobuaki’s family will be moving and his last day with us is next week on Wednesday, March 16th. Please plan on saying goodbye to Nobuaki and his family, and your child can make a card or something special for Nobuaki!

Have a great weekend!