Week of 2-1-10

Wow! Already February! That is hard to believe! I hope you all had lots of fun in the beautiful snow! We took Eli out for his first real experience with snow.....he wasn't impressed! :) I think he wondered where his dirt, leaves, and sticks were, as well as the warmth!!

Here's our plans for this week:

Reading - Biographies and biography poster Skill - Cause and Effect We will add 6 new vocabulary words to our word wall as well. I'm so proud of what great readers your children are! We spend 2-20 minute sessions daily reading...1 with a book I choose focusing on a genre and doing reading response activities with it and 1 with a book they choose. The best way to become better readers is to simply READ. I highly recommend encouraging reading at home as well! I'm sure many of you do!

Math - We will finish up long division this week. We will also, as always, review previously learned concepts. I will throw in some geometry this week too!

Social Studies - We will begin learning about the Midwest region of our great country! We will start on Monday learning about the states that make the midwest up as well as important land features and products found there. On Tuesday, the children will begin an independent study of the midwest. They will read a variety of nonfiction books, articles, and passages about topics and people like skyscrapers, railroads, Henry Ford, Sitting Bull, and Laura Ingalls Wilder! They will view videos on Lewis and Clark and the Wright Brothers. This unit of study will last about 2 and half weeks with our locations and capitals tests falling at the end of that 2 and half weeks. I will send home a study guide this week sometime.

English - Pen pal letters and a review of previously learned concepts The pen pal letters will be to a 4th grade class at Adams Elementary. We will get to know each other over the next several months through letters and then in May, we will meet them for real at Leonardo's! Exciting!

Spelling - List 18 on spellingcity.com - soft and hard "c" and "g" words. List 18.5 is the enriched list.

Remember that Friday will be our Chinese New Year celebration. Don't forget to send the $2 in. It should be a fun day with our kindergarten buddies!

Space Habitats!

The children did wonderful constructing their space habitats! They worked well with their teammates and were great problem-solvers! Take a look at how this project began and how it looked when it was completed. They want to have a game and read and feed inside their habitats. They will have to work extra hard to earn that privilege! When they do, I will let you know. It will be a fun time and when it's over, I will draw a name from each group to win the habitat to take home!

These are the instructions they had to follow.

We will start geometry next week. Guess what we will be looking at to figure out faces, edges, and vertices of a cube!

Anyone's child missing jeans?

We have a pair of button up Abercrombie jeans size 8 in our classroom that no one wants to claim. They are cute, expensive looking jeans. If these jeans seem familiar to you, please email me. :)

Chinese New Year postponed!

So sorry! Due to an unforeseen circumstance, we have to postpone our Chinese New Year celebration until next Friday, February 5th. Sorry for any inconvenience this may have caused! We will send a new letter about the new date tomorrow. Hopefully, all of you that signed up to help, can help next Friday instead. :) We are still collecting the $2. You can send it anytime this week. Thanks for all you do!

Chinese New Year!

Each year we celebrate Chinese New Year with our kindergarten buddies! This year we are celebrating a little early. We will be doing activities and having a Chinese feast this Friday. I am sending home a note about it today. Please look for that note. I apologize for the short notice, but we were waiting on a parent in Miss Jenkins class regarding this celebration. New China will be catering our feast! Please send $2.00 to help cover the cost. Thank you! If you can come and help to serve and clean up, that would be awesome! Our feast will be at 2:00. Please come at 1:45 though to set up. It should be over around 2:30. Please let me know if you are planning on coming. Thanks again!

Week of January 25th

Hey families!

Announcements: The school geography bee is today. The children who chose to participate in our class bee were Austin, Cadyn, Holly, Kaylee, Beau, Clay, Nick, and Riley. Clay came in first, with Beau and Nick in a tie for second! These three will represent us in the school bee this afternoon. I am very proud of all eight of them!
Next week we will be making space habitats! This is a very fun project!! The project will involve math, science, and teamwork!! I will post pictures! We need to borrow fans. If you have a portable fan (preferably round), could we borrow it? We need 6 on Thursday of next week.
Haiti donations are due Monday. Thanks to all who have donated already!
Solar System Models are due Friday.
If anyone can copy for me next week, I would appreciate it! Just let me know by email.

Here's what's ahead for the week:

Reading - We will finish up our realistic fiction books. The kids will do a setting project with their story. We will continue to add new vocabulary words too.

Math - Long division

English - Adjective review, comparative adjectives

Science - Planet info, Earth specifics, Meteor experiment, Space habitats

Social Studies - Abe Lincoln, Pocahontas, Rosa Parks, SE history test on Tuesday - Notes went home yesterday for this test. :)

Spelling - spellings for "o" List 17 on spelling city. List 17.5 is the enriched list.

I'm SO PROUD of your children!

Your kids are pretty special! We received a letter yesterday requesting help with Haiti relief. I read the letter, but when I got to the part that said, "The class that brings the most items wins a cookie party.", the kids realized "on their own" that something was wrong with that! They, along with myself, feel like we should be helping out, but not because we are going to get something out of it. I am extremely proud of them for getting this concept on their own. It shows compassion, intrinsic motivation, and a generous spirit. Wow! Praise them! We thought it would be really cool if we tried to win this contest and then "pass" on the cookie party. So let's get collecting!! I will get my items this week! Please help if you can!

In other news, the enrichment words will be "u" words listed on spellingcity.com. We've already done r, s, and t words. My years tend to blend together. :)

Week of 1-19

Hey families! Here's the agenda:

Reading - skill focus: setting We will continue independent reading of our realistic fiction books. The children will do a comprehension paper, take an AR test, and do a project when done with the book.

Math - division

Spelling - plurals-list 16 is on spellingcity.com, enriched words-I think we are on the "r" words.

English - plural nouns, helping verbs

SS - SE partner project presentations, taking notes on important info, Pocahontas video and related work, Thurs. - location test, Fri. - capital test

Science - stars, meteors