Week of Dec. 12-16th

Wow!  How can it be December already??  Time sure is flying by and I’m seeing SO much growth with your kiddos!  This month has been SO much fun!  Hearing the Elf on the Shelf stories has been priceless!  We’ve read every version of the Gingerbread Man I can find, including the Gingerbread Girl, the Gingerbread Cowboy, and the Gingerbread Kid.  I even heard some talk of some of the kids writing the Gingerbread Mrs. Bettis book over break.  I can’t wait to read that one!  Speaking of, I made an off-hand comment one day about how one day I’ll probably read a book to a Kindergarten class that has one of the kids as the author.  Since then, I’ve had two kids bring in their own books they’ve written.  I’ve really encouraged the kids to write over break and if they write stories at home, send them in!  We are really going to bump up the writing next year.  I gave all the kids cereal box journals that I hope will inspire them to write at home over break.  Please keep encouraging them to write!

Everyone has several new books in their reading folders to read over break.  I did tell them that they are “school’s” books, so they need to be careful and not lose them.  They’ve made such progress and I’d love to see them keep reading!  I think a lot of you will be surprised how fast their progress goes from here.  It always seems that around Dec., the “switch” goes on for a lot of kids and they just get it.  Such a fun thing to watch!

Keep working on those numbers 0-20.  We’ve written number sentences up to 10 and will do the teen numbers after break.  Some kids are still have trouble with the teen numbers, so reviewing would be great.

Thank you all again for the wonderful parties and donations for our cookie decorating today.  The kids really enjoyed it all.  Thank you also for my wonderful gifts.  I appreciate your generosity more than you know.  I absolutely LOVE my job and these kids and appreciate you letting me be a part of their lives.  I hope you all have a wonderful, and restful break, and safe travels if you are traveling.  We’re headed to Dallas for a few days next week to see my husband’s Dad.  Between now and then I guess I have to find time to wrap presents!!  I suggested that we not wrap any this year, but suprisingly my kids wouldn’t go for that! 🙂

Enjoy your break and I’ll see you next year!

Happy Holidays!  Lori

Week of Nov. 28-Dec. 2

The kids have done a good job of settling back into school mode after the Thanksgiving break.  I hope you all enjoyed the break, I know I did.  Here’s what’s coming up next week:

Reading and Writing:  We meet in small groups daily and work on our reading skills and strategies.  New books went home today in their reading folders.  Please remember to keep those in their backpacks so they have them when I have time to get them new books.  I will try and send a couple home with everyone over the break.  This next week, we will add the words chimp, you, boat, goat, toad, road, have, and rope.  We will do long o as well.  We read several versions of the gingerbread man and will read a couple next week.  Most of the kids LOVED the gingerbread cake!  Have them retell you the story.  We are talking about retelling, predicting, and writing in our journals.  November journals came home with extra paper and the kids were shocked when I told them they could write in them at home! 🙂  The more they write, the better!!

Math:  We made it through addition and subtraction and did they teach you our big new phrase, “zero property of addition?”  Next week, we will work on different ways to make number sentences.  For example, 2 + 2=4 and 3 + 1=4 and 4 +0=4.  I still have a few kiddos having trouble with the teen numbers.  Please keep practicing these at home.

Second Step:  Next week we will talk about accidents.  Sometimes we really don’t mean to do something to someone, but an accident occurs.  We will learn how to apologize when that happens.  I continue to work on “focusing attention” and listening skills.  We work on manners as well.  The kids always have to tell me yes please or no thank you.  I hope you’re seeing some of this at home as well.

We will continue to talk about the different holidays coming up and reading lots of books to go with that as well.    Class books continue to come home.  Thanks for returning them the next day so everyone can have a turn to read them.  I hope you enjoy them.  The kids are really making progress and are taking it seriously that everyone will read their book page.

Bella and Clara will have traveled to everyone’s house after this weekend.  The kids voted to switch, so after the holiday, Bella will go home with the afternoon kids and Clara will go home with the morning kids.  I do have some kids that are not happy with this, but we went with the majority vote.  We will not have another about me poster, but I’ll come up with something else that they can do.

Have a great weekend!