Last Week of 2012...

We will be having our Winter Party on Wednesday the 19th and Friday the 21st.  I have contacted families to bring in items.  If I contacted you, please send the items in on the assigned party day.  If I did not contact you, please do not send in any items.  This is so we are not wasteful.  In addition, we have several students with allergies and I want to make sure all children are safe and are able to enjoy all the items at the party.  I do appreciate your cooperation in this.  There will be other opportunities for you to contribute later in the year.

This will be our last week of school for 2012.  It is amazing how quickly the year has gone and how much the children have learned.  We will start Week 2 of Reading Street; however, we will continue this right when we return in January.  We will continue to work on the following sight words: she, me, with.  I have noticed many children starting to confuse: she, me, he, and we.  In addition, I would encourage you to work on the word and.  We see this word a lot in our stories.  I encourage you to still take time to read to your child and continue to work on letter sounds and simple 3 letter words over the holiday break.  This is important as we will be having our DIBELS assessment when we return from break.  In addition, the children will be bringing home a journal to be able to write in during their time off.  We encourage the children to draw a picture and write a simple sentence.  When writing the sentence we like the children to listen to the sounds of words and write what they hear.  The children can return these to school on January 2nd or 3rd.  I will read them and allow the children to read them to the class.  (Please note I do not expect words to be written correctly.  I encourage the children to segment the word and write the sounds they hear.  For example, if your child was trying to write "pick," I would expect to see the word "pik" or "pic."  If your child was trying to write "present," I would probably see "prznt" or "prezt" or "pezt)

In addition, I have completed the first round of math assessments.  Some children are having difficulty with counting to 50.  Many children are able to count to 39 and then skip to 50 or they make it to 49 and skip to 60.  The second quarter requires children to be able to count to 50 to be considered "Making Progress."  We will also be taking the addition assessment when we return from break.  The children have to be able to understand addition is to put things together and figure out that 3 and 2 more is 5.

I hope you all have a great holiday break!  I look forward to seeing everyone back at school on January 2nd for the A class and January 3rd for the B class!