Week of Dec. 14th

Wow! One week before Christmas Break! This week will be a fun week with many things to look forward to. We have Polar PJ Day, a Christmas party, a kindergarten program, kindergarten partners, and the Glenwood Christmas Sing-a-long to name a few! Christmas is such a special time of year, especially in the lives of children. Hopefully, 4th grade will be a year of special memories! We will be finishing up our study of animals this week in science. We have also been working on map skills and will continue with that this week as well. Math will be review and we will be reading a lot! The spelling list will be Christmas words. I will add them to spellingcity.com on Monday. Your children have been great fun and such sweeties. They have been so kind to each other and have been doing wonderful acts of random kindness! We talked about anonymous giving being the best kind of giving. They are doing a good job with that! Praise them at home! Enjoy the pictures!


Gingerbread Houses! This was crazy fun.......when I say crazy fun, I mean the kids were crazy having fun! They settled down nicely once we got nestled into a little nap time in the room! :)

Thanks moms for helping with this special day! You're the best!

The children did superb with this tedious, yet beautiful Christmas tree project!

Edible animal cells! Yum! Yum!

Special Day info!

Gingerbread houses are coming up this Friday! If you posted on the blog, emailed, or told me that you could come, please be here at 1:40 to help distribute supplies. Thanks so very much! I greatly appreciate it!

Polar PJ day is next Friday! It will be a very fun day too! If you volunteered for this day, please be here that morning by 8:15. If you want to join in on the spirit of the occasion, wear your pj's! :) Once again thanks for giving up your time to help! I couldn't pull off days like this without you!

Week of December 7th

What a wonderful time of year! The children and I are having so much fun getting into the Christmas spirit! I am SO enjoying your precious babies! They are so much fun and hard workers. I also love their excitement about learning too! Here is what is happening next week:

Reading - Literature circles - The kids are doing great with this! I'm hearing some great discussions about what they are reading as well as hearing good predictions! Predicting is an important reading skill and book discussions help the children learn keys to comprehension from each other.

Math - We've been doing a lot of estimating products. We also practiced multiplying 2 digit by 1 digit numbers on the smart board. Next week, we will spend the whole week multiplying 2 and 3 digit by 1 digit numbers. Please keep practicing the times tables with your child if he/she doesn't know them. When we get back from Christmas break, we will be multiplying 2 and 3 digit numbers by 2 digit numbers.

Science - Animals We had fun this week making "edible animal cells"! I will post some pics soon of the kids! We have also been working on animal reports. These reports and pictures are due next Wednesday. The children KNOW this. We've talked a lot about it in class and I've given them 2 times in class to work on the research part. Most are done with the research and just need to write their report out neatly or type and print it at home. You may help your child with the typing part if they choose to type it. I sent a hard copy of the directions home on Tuesday for this project.

Spelling - Suffixes List 14 on spellingcity.com Enriched words are the "o" list.

English - Possessive pronouns, also daily English review

Spanish - We will have a Spanish quiz on Friday over family member names like abuela, tio, etc. I will send home a study guide on Monday.

Our class won the Box Tops Contest! Yeah! We will be having a pizza - movie party as a reward! We will be watching a movie that relates to the spirit of Christmas and what I want your children to be doing, always of course, but especially this month! ARK- Acts of Random Kindness The children will be drawing names and doing anonymous kind acts for this person. Help your child think of things they can do for his/her person. They are excited about this project!

Don't forget the 3 exciting days ahead..............Gingerbread Houses on Dec. 11th and Polar PJ Day on Dec. 18th. The Christmas party is Dec. 17th at 2:00! Fun times!

Week of Nov. 30th

Already going to be December......wow! Time sure flies........too fast!

Reading: Literature circles! Fun! The children will be reading books in groups on their individual reading level. They will be completing comprehension work along the way. I will be visiting groups discussing the books.

Math: 2 and 3 digit by 1 digit multiplication, mental math, daily math review

English: Adverbs, animal report

Spelling: Words with suffixes Check spellingcity.com for list 13. I will get the list added on Monday and also tell the kids which enrichment list to use.

Science: Animals We will be learning about animal cells and characteristics of various animals, as well as researching an animal of their choice.

Social Studies: Indian Regions....if we get to it this week. That is the only social studies we will do in December. We need to concentrate our time more on science this month. In January, we will learn about the SE region of the USA.

December will be a very busy month! We will be doing a few cool projects and have 2 very special days. Thanks so much to those that could volunteer! I couldn't do it without you! I will be sending home a letter about supplies needed for gingerbread houses. If anyone wants to donate a bar or 2 of Ivory soap, I would greatly appreciate it! We need the soap for Polar PJ day. I will also be sending home book orders for December. If anyone wants to order Christmas presents out of the order, either send the order in a sealed envelope or send it through the office indicating that it is for Christmas. When the order comes in, I will email or call you.

I wanted to say thank you to those that sent red or orange snacks to school for our Bedlam Read and Feed! It was a blast! The kids ate until they were miserable! :)

Pictures!

My, oh my! What creative kids and families we have! I have laughed so hard at all these adorable creations! All the turkeys turned out so cute! We have received a lot of compliments on them too!

Take a look at owl pellet disection! It was so cool!

FYI and next week!

First of all, I want to say that I am very proud of your children. They are precious! The class as a whole, is making great choices. They are sweet and kind and appreciative! Today was a great day with owl pellets. It was an exciting lesson, but they showed self control and did wonderfully. What impressed me the most is the fact that they thanked me for doing the project! Wow! That says a lot about you all as parents. Thanks for sharing these sweetie pies with me! I will post pictures in the next few days.

A handful of children struggled with the NE region state location test. Of all the regions, this one is the hardest to memorize, simply because it consists of all those tiny New England states. :o I will give a retake on Friday, if your child would like to retake it. We talked about this in class today, so the children know.

Next week is Thanksgiving Break. Wow! Already? It will be a fun 2 day school week. On Monday, we will do Thanksgiving related work and on Tuesday, we will have a Bedlam Read and Feed. Encourage your child to wear RED or orange to celebrate the OU/osu bedlam game on the following Saturday. I told the children even if they are not OU or osu fans, to choose one of those colors to wear anyway. :) In the past, parents have sent RED or orange snacks for the class. If you would like to do that, we would enjoy it! Drinks/candy can be included. The children can bring comforts from home as well, such as a pillow, blanket, and stuffed animal.

That's all for now! :)

More info!

I've had several moms say they could help with special days in the classroom! YEAH! That is wonderful! I wanted to give you plenty of notice about a very special day coming up next month. We will be having Polar Pajama Day! That is, if we continue on the upward path to good leadership and self control! :) I have faith! We will tentatively have it on Friday, December 18th. I will find out soon if there will be a scheduling conflict and let you know ASAP if the date changes. I will need several volunteers to lead learning stations set up in the room. The stations will include crafts, a science experiment, math, etc.. We will also be watching The Polar Express while eating s'mores and drinking hot cocoa! Fun, fun! I need help from 8:00 until about 11:30. I do have one other special day planned for Friday, December 11th. We will be making gingerbread houses! We will do the project starting between 1:30 and 1:45, depending on when the lunch ladies are done in the cafeteria. I need help with mixing and making candy bags. I also will need help with getting things passed out and clean up. Let me know if you can help with either day. You can post a comment or email me. I SO appreciate it!

I wanted to say the children did FABULOUS on their American History test over the NE!!!! I am sooooooo proud of them! WOW! They know their history!!!!!

I wanted to also let you know that 4 tests and a project all in one week is NOT the norm! :0 Next week is full, I know, but things just happened to fall that way this time. Let's take a look at it:

NE State Location test - Tuesday
NE Capital test - Thursday Hopefully, since I sent the study guide home so early, the kids are already getting familiar with those states. For the location test, the states will be provided. They will just have to match the state with its spot on the map. The capital test is matching as well.

Spelling test - Thursday, Friday is always a second chance test. :)

Owl test - Friday This test is fairly easy if the children pay attention in class. It is "fill in the blank" over 10 facts.

Turkey disguise project - Wednesday Make this a fun and special family project!

Let me know if you have any questions. If you haven't read the blog in several days, you might want to read the posts below this one.