December 15-18, 2014

This week we will wrap up our first semester.  We have had 76 days of great learning in our classroom and I am so proud of my students hard work! Our homeroom moms have been hard at work planning for the winter party.  Thanks to all of you who signed up to bring items for the party.  I am sure the children will have a great and memorable time. Hope to see you all on Thursday!

READING

This week we will read our favorite holiday books including the Polar Express.  We will work on comprehension strategies such as identifying the plot (series of events that happen in order in the story), main characters, problem and solution.  We will also practice retelling, and summarizing the stories in our own words.


WRITING
This week we will learn and practice writing letters. We will learn that people write letters for different purposes.  Sometimes we want to express ourselves, or to tell some people about our feelings, our needs and etc. Other times we write letters to say "thank you", or make someone's day.  We will write short letters and put our ideas in logical sequence.  We will also learn about the conventions of letter writing such as date, salutation, body (text), and closing. 

MATH
This week we will work on making graphs and reading graphs.  Graphs allow us to put our information/data in an organized form and make it easier for us to understand the data. We will have some fun holiday related graphs such as gingerbread, reindeer, and snowman survey.

SOCIAL STUDIES
We will travel around the world and learn about customs, holidays, and celebrations. We will learn about the importance of various beliefs, customs, language, and traditions of communities and how communities celebrate their heritage. Our elf has been so busy traveling around the world.  .

HABIT #6:  SYNERGY:  I value other people’s strengths and learn from them.  I seek out other people’s ideas because I know that by learning with others we can create better solutions than anyone of us can alone.

THANK YOU!

Thank you, Angel Miller, for stuffing the folders.  Thank you also to everyone who is volunteering to help with our Holiday Party!  Your helping hands and hearts are greatly appreciated!

REMINDERS:
*Specials- A Group:  PE on Monday, Wednesday and Friday
                   B Group:  PE on Tuesday, Thursday and Friday
**Wear tennis shoes for sure on these days!!!!
*Library- Tuesday 11-11:30
*Send orange folders back every day.
*Send a healthy snack with your child every day.  We will eat snack at 10:30

DATES to REMEMBER:

December 17:  Polar Express Day (wear pajamas to school)

December 18:  Holiday Party @ 1:30-2:30

December 19:  No School/Winter Break begins

December 19-January 5:  Winter Break

January 6:  2^nd Semester begins

December 8-12, 2014

Can you believe we have only two more weeks left before the winter break! They say time flies when you're having fun, but it sure is going at a lightening speed for us! 
Here is what we will be doing this week:

BOOK FAIR
There will be book fair at our library DEC 8 through 12.  The library books are not due this week. Please feel free to come by and visit the book fair.  The library is open after school.  

READING

This week we will explore a new genre in fiction: The Folk Tales.  We will learn about the elements of Folk Tales.  Folk Tales have animals with human characteristics as the main characters, and there is usually a lesson to be learned at the end of the story.While we read some of the most beloved children's stories such as the Three Little Pigs, The Three Billy Goats Gruff, and The Little Red Hen, we will work on many comprehension strategies such as retelling the story (telling the events in logical order), and summarizing the story which is telling the important events in the story from the beginning to the end.  When we summarize we tell the important events in a short paragraph. We will also review main characters, setting and the problem and solution in the story.

WRITING
In writing we will continue writing facts about traditions and celebrations around the world. As our elf is traveling around the world, we will learn about many new traditions. 
Lat week we learned about traditions in United States, Israel, and India.  This week we will learn about Mexico and England.  We will also write a expository writing about the traditions and celebrations in our own family.

MATH
This week we will continue working on subtraction.  Last week, we practiced on many math problems that involved "taking away, separating from a set, taking a part away from a whole".  This week, we will focus on subtraction as a way to find the difference between two quantities, or a way of comparing two different quantities.  If team A scored 12 goals and team B scored 9 goals, how many more goals did team A score than team B? At the beginning of the year, the children learned to solve these kinds of problem by thinking addition: 9+ ?=12.  Now, they are learning that they can actually use subtraction to solve these kinds of problem: 12-9=3.

SOCIAL STUDIES
We will travel around the world and learn about customs, holidays, and celebrations. We will learn about the importance of various beliefs, customs, language, and traditions of communities and how communities celebrate their heritage.

HABIT #6:  SYNERGY:  I value other people’s strengths and learn from them.  I seek out other people’s ideas because I know that by learning with others we can create better solutions than anyone of us can alone.

THANK YOU!

Thank you, Angel Miller, for stuffing the folders.  Thank you also to everyone who is volunteering to help with our Holiday Party!  Your helping hands and hearts are greatly appreciated!

REMINDERS:
*Specials- A Group:  PE on Monday, Wednesday and Friday
                   B Group:  PE on Tuesday, Thursday and Friday
**Wear tennis shoes for sure on these days!!!!
*Library- Tuesday 11-11:30
*Send orange folders back every day.
*Send a healthy snack with your child every day.  We will eat snack at 10:30

DATES to REMEMBER:

December 8-12:  Book Fair

December 18:  Polar Express Day (wear pajamas to school)

                       Holiday Party @ 1:30-2:30

December 19:  No School/Winter Break begins

December 19-January 5:  Winter Break

January 6:  2^nd Semester begins

December 1-5, 2014

Early Release Day
Wednesday, Dec 3rd is an Early Release Day.  Dismissal is at 12:45
PTA Spirit Night at Newks starting at 5:00 p.m.

Here is what we will be doing this week:

READING and WRITING
With the holidays approaching, for the next several weeks we will be learning about many different winter celebrations around the world. We will read about the customs and traditions in different countries and record some facts about their traditions. This week, we will learn about celebrations in the Israel, USA and India.

MATH
We will continue our double addition strategies and move on to subtraction. Subtraction names a missing part by taking away, removing or comparing to find a difference. We will use concrete and pictorial models including ten-frames, math racks, Base Ten blocks ad other manipulatives to represent word problem situations involving separating or comparing sets of whole numbers up to 20 where the unknown may be start, change, or result for joining and separating problems.

SCIENCE
This week in science we will learn about force and movement.  Energy causes force and force causes motion/movement.  Force can be defined as a "push" or a "pull" which causes objects to move in different ways such as straight line, zigzag, up and down, side to side, round and round and slow.  We will also explore magnets.  Magnets can pull or push certain objects.  The push and pull caused by magnets is also a force.

THANK YOU!

Thank you, Shari Ochs, for stuffing the folders.  Thank you also to everyone who is volunteering to help with our Holiday Party!  Your helping hands and hearts are greatly appreciated!

REMINDERS:
*Specials- A Group:  PE on Monday, Wednesday and Friday
                   B Group:  PE on Tuesday, Thursday and Friday
**Wear tennis shoes for sure on these days!!!!
*Library- Tuesday 11-11:30
*Send orange folders back every day.
*Send a healthy snack with your child every day.  We will eat snack at 10:30

DATES to REMEMBER:

December 3:  Early Release Day dismissal @12:45

December 8-12:  Book Fair

December 18:  Polar Express Day (wear pajamas to school)

                       Holiday Party @ 1:30-2:30

December 19:  No School/Winter Break begins

December 19-January 5:  Winter Break

January 6:  2^nd Semester begins