Happy Holidays...

I hope you all are having a great holiday season...Here are a few pictures from our Winter Celebration!  I am looking forward to seeing the children in about a week in a half.

Number Bracelets...

In math we are working on decomposing various numbers.  We worked with the number 5 and came up with all the various possibilities to make 5.  We made a number bracelet to help us!  The children did great.

Last Week of School for 2013...

We will be having our Winter Party on Wednesday the 18th and Friday the 20th.  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 2013.  It is amazing how quickly the year has gone and how much the children have learned.  We will start Week 2 of Reading Street for the 3rd Unit.  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 6th or 7th.  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 listened to all the children count.  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 6th or 7th! 

December Fun...

This coming week we are going into Unit 3 of Reading Street and will be reading "Little Panda."  We will be working on two letters and their associated sounds: Nn and Bb.  The letter Bb is a short sound; therefore, please do not have your children add the "uh" sound.  In addition, we will have three new sight words: she, me, with.  We will also be continuing to work with our other sight words and using them in writing sentences.  Please encourage your child to be writing at home on their days off.  We love to see what your child does on their day off and they can bring their writing into class and share.

In math, we are continuing to to work with addition.  The children are being introduced to number sentences.  It is important when working on number sentences to show the equation like: 2 + 4 = 6 AND 6 = 2 + 4.  The children must be able to recognize these are the same.  This can be tricky for the children.  We are working on this every day and the homework packet should work on the skill too.  The children are allowed to use counters to help them figure out the answer; however, children must be fluent in their addition facts by the end of the year.  This means children should automatically know 2+3=5, 1+3=4, etc.

Finally, we are planning the "Winter Celebration" for the children.  The celebration will be held on Wednesday the 18th and Friday the 20th.  We are asking families not to send in items unless asked too.  This is important as we do have allergies in the classroom and we want to make sure we are able to include everyone and not to exclude them.  In addition, we do not want to be wasteful with our food.  We would hate to have 3 people send in cupcakes and not be able to use all of them.  We will be sending out more information in the coming week!  We appreciate your patience and your help as we plan a great celebration for the children.

News...

This week, we will continue our work with the letter Ii. The children did very well with the short Ii sound last week and we are looking forward to creating more words to blend with the letters we have learned. Our sight words/popcorn words will remain the same this week, “for” and “he”. Please practice these words, and previously learned sight words/popcorn words, with your children at home! It should take them no more than 3 seconds to identify the words.

We will be extending our work with segmentation this week and continuing to bridge this into our writing. Last week, we saw some amazing writing during our writing time. The students are beginning to segment the words and write the sounds that they hear. Please remember when you are looking at their work, it is developmentally appropriate for children to only hear the first and/or last sound of a word. Some children may be able to hear and write the middle sound too, but remember this is the last sound the children hear!

In math we will begin Chapter 5.  Chapter 5 homework is being sent home on Tuesday and Wednesday.  The homework should not be overwhelming for the children and is suppose to review what is happening in class in a way they can complete independently.  This chapter delves into addition.  We will work with the addition symbol and the equals sign.  Our program also teaches the number sentence to look like the following: 2 + 3 = 5 and 5 = 3 + 2.  I think the children will be successful with addition.  One great way to practice is with pennies.  As a class, we will also continue counting to 50. Counting will be done daily, as children need to be able to count to 50 by the end of the second quarter. Please encourage your child to count at home! The more practice they have, the better counters they will become!