When I came into my room this morning I found a HUGE box propped up in my rocking chair!  I couldn’t wait for the kids to see it.  As soon as they arrived we opened the box and out popped “Big Pete” with a note saying,

“Dear Mrs. Smith and Class,

Thank you for being the “biggest” Pete the Cat fans around!

Happy Holidays!

Love,

Pete the Cat”

WOW oh WOW!!!  We were all so surprised and excited!  We love our “Big Pete!”  We already have plans to write a story about him driving a bus and where the bus will take him.

Take a look…

We sure are busy in here!  We have been making several things (shhh-they don’t know it’s really math!).  We also made a December Book.  Please take some time to listen to your child read their book.  It has taken us over a week to complete the book.  They worked really hard on it and hope you enjoy it.

Yesterday we had a great experience with a friend of mine…Miss Sample.  Miss Sample is a retired Dearborn Schools’ Art Resource Teacher and an excellent teacher.  She brought in a brand new released book by John Agee-“Little Santa.”  It’s about Santa as a little boy.   The kids enjoyed the book.  Then we made faces with all kinds of decorations!  They had a  GREAT time.  Thanks Miss Sample!

I thought you’d enjoy a couple of pictures from yesterday and one from today (Isabella & Nour-my Elf Assistants).

We had great fun making and eating “ants” on a log!  Here are some pictures.  I thought I caught everyone but must have missed a few while I was watching the “construction zone!”

This morning we made a Rudolph with our shoe and hands.  then we wrote about the process.  This afternoon we made a recipe (to go with our Food Unit).  Guess who our snack turned out to be?  Bingo–if you guessed Rudolph!  Thanks to Mrs. Anderson for her assistance at the “Construction Site.”  Sorry no pictures…I was playing a math game with the class while small groups made their Rudolph.

Have a fun weekend.

Mrs. Smith

Now that winter snow has arrived, please make sure your child is wearing  boots  to school and has a pair of shoes in her/his backpack. (Good shoe tying opportunities for them)  That way no snow is tracked into the classroom and onto the rug on which they sit.

Thanks!

In Social studies we are learning about NEEDS AND WANTS.  We made a chart with the 4 Basic Needs-Air, Water, Food, Shelter on one side and things we might Want on the other side-toys, candy, money, TV.  they really understand the differences between needing something and wanting something.

READING AND WRITING-I read The Little Gingerbread Man  and The Gingerbread Girl.  We found several things that were the same and some things that were different in the stories.  (Compare and Contrast texts)

Next they made a Gingerbread Man.  Then they thought of to where their Gingerbread could be running and what he would do when he got there.  They did a prewrite yesterday.  I then conferenced with each student to revise and  edit their writing.  Today we are publishing their writing.  Lots of good ideas and sentences going on in here.  Continue to reinforce “stretching out” a word as they write.  Say the word slowly.  With reading, I tell them to “push though the word.  Thanks for your continued support at home.

Later today we will be writing to our Pencil Pals in a Woodhaven School.  The teacher’s class  and my class have been Pencil Pals for many years.  We write back and forth all year long and finally get to meet each other in June!

Thank you Kindergarteners for your generous donations last week!  We had 94 items donated.    Good Job!

This week…

Beginning Tuesday, our PTA will sponsor a Holiday Boutique this week.  All items are $2.00.  If you would like your child to purchase gifts for your family, please send in the appropriate amount of money in the envelop that was sent home last Friday.  You may want to list the names of those for whom your child is purchasing.  The students enjoy “shopping” all by themselves!

Tuesday-Since tomorrow is LATE START I will be taking lunch count today for tomorrow.  If your child is buying lunch tomorrow you may want to discuss lunch choices for our lunch count.

Wednesday-LATE START

READING-Our Unit is “What’s For Dinner?”

Word  “have”           Letter   “C  c”

The students are moving along nicely in Reading Groups.  We do so many “things” in groups.  I assess their Comprehension, their Accuracy when reading, their Retelling skills, their Fluency with reading a known text, etc. I also assess their use of different reading strategies when they read.

WRITING-We return to Narrative Writing.  They did well with Informational Writing, identifying the main idea and some details. ” Where can we find those details?  Pictures?  Text?”

MATH-Our District Math Assessment will be this week.  In our daily lessons we will be identifying different shapes, patterns with the shapes, counting to 50 with different starting numbers.  For example, “13, 14, 15, …..to 50”  or “32, 33, 34, …to 50.”

SCIENCE-We will continue with Magnets.

SOCIAL STUDIES-We will continue with NEEDS AND WANTS.

On a personal note…

I didn’t post last night because my daughter gave birth to a beautiful daughter!  We now have 3 granddaughters (7, 3, & newborn) and 1  grandson ( 3 years 0ld).  Life is wonderful!  🙂

Tomorrow will be our last day for Howard School to collect for Gleaners Food Drive.  As of today, our class has collected 80 cans.  The students are excited to see the total increase every morning.  Thank you for your generosity.

Today we worked with problem and solution.  Tonight when you are reading with your child have them identify the problem and solution of the stories.  Both problem and solution should each be stated in one sentence, not several sentences.  (We don’t a summary of the story…that’s next month!)

BUDDIES-Our third grade Buddies visited us today and helped us glue the links on our bell.  Lots of math went into the bell! Individual bell links, total class links, how many red strips, how many green strips, and we whisper counted from 11-20 while we held each glued strip.  That way we could practice counting through those “tricky teens.”  The first link comes off tonight.  Excitement is beginning to mount in here and the bell/links added to the day.  🙂

Teaching Number Awareness  Which number “tops” the other number?  Why?

“7 tops 4 because 7 is greater than 4.”

or

“7 tops 4 because 7 is bigger than 4.”

I pulled Jacks, Queens, Kings, and Aces so they had numbers 2-10.

I thought you’d be interested as to what went into yesterday’s little book.

The little book that came home yesterday (  I  Can) had several objectives in it.

1. an “n” word

2. a verb (action word)  Good descriptive words

3. good sentence structure (Capital letter, spaces between words, punctuation)

4. a picture to match the text

All that in one book!  And to think that we write books and sentences every day-WOW!