Weeks of Dec. 12th-20th

We had a lot of fun with our gingerbread unit and really worked on diving into the books, characters, problems and solutions.  Last week, we decided we needed to find out why the gingerbread man kept getting on the fox’s nose instead of swimming across on his own.  We did an experiment, made a prediction and figured out that he would be one crumbled cookie.  So then we did another experiment that we decided to help him out.  The job was to get him from one end of the river to the other without him getting wet.  They were set free to build whatever would work.  I never said the words boat or bridge.  It was fun to see what they came up with and some of their ideas worked!

We also enjoyed having Buddy in our classroom and his journal is coming home today so that you can see all that he did.  He flew back to the North Pole today and left elf kisses for everyone!

In math, we continued practice with addition and subtraction and yesterday even did some marshmallow math!  When we return, we’ll be writing number sentences in different ways: for example 1 +3 =4 and 2+2 =4.  I think they’ll get it pretty quickly as they’ve done a good job so far.  I had extra copies of the sleigh ride game and they all wanted one so I sent that home today as well.  We will also start working on teen numbers and counting to 100!

Homework packets came home early this week and are worth gotchas upon return from break.  They were also given a cereal journal that they can write in about their time over break.  Please encourage capital letters at the beginning, spaces between words, and a period at the end.  Please make sure that they are reading daily!  I love to come back from break, as many kids have that reading “ah ha!” kick in!

We will have library the day we return, so please remember to return their books then so they can check out new ones.

Grandma Sandy wanted me to pass along a thank you for the Dean and Deluca mug and coffee and for including her!  Thank you all for the hard work put into the parties!  The kids really had fun and I appreciate it all being so organized!  Thank you for my gifts as well!  I always have things in my cart from Amazon!!

I hope you all have a wonderful break!  We are staying in town and looking forward to some rest, good books, and time together.  And I’m going to make the kids clean their closets!  I’m sure they’ll love that!

Have a Merry Christmas and I’ll see you next year!

Week of Dec. 5th-9th

It was a cold week full of gingerbread stories and our fireplace going…huh?!  I found a video that loops of a fireplace, so we’ve been cozy by the fire while it’s cold outside!

We started our gingerbread journals and are working on story characters, endings, and refrains.  We added the letter and sound for Uu and have worked on writing letters correctly.   We added the sight words what and is this week.  Every morning when they come in, they find Buddy the elf and then write in their journal about what he’s doing.  I’ve also been testing so their center time is longer and that’s why they’ve had lots of books coming home in their book bags.  Normally they won’t get switched out that quickly.

Please make sure all book bags are returned by Wed. of next week and then I will hang on to them over break.  If you return them on Monday, I’ll put new books in that they can read until Wed.

Did you hear how awesome coding is??  The kids really do love it!  If you go to studio.code.org and click on course 1 and then drop down to stage 3 and let them get going.  Most of them got through several stages, but they can do them again.  When they hit a new stage, there’s a short video to explain the next sequence.  When they finish ALL of them, have them print the certificate and bring it in for a prize!  It’s a great skill to practice and the kids sat and did it on Thursday for an hour!  It was fun to have the high school kids here from the Olathe South computer class to help as well!  I promised them I would share the log in info., so there you go!  Get to coding!

We have a week and two days left of school.  I will be sending home a bunch of stuff on either Mon or Tues of the last week.  If you will not be here, please let me know so that I can get it all home!

I think that’s the short and sweet version for today!  Have a great weekend!

Week of Nov. 28th-Dec. 2nd

I hope everyone had a nice Thanksgiving break.  It was nice to have a little time off!  Now we are in the full swing of the holidays!  This week we read Moosestache and Mooseltoe and compared the characters and their problem/solution.  We then made him and they’re pretty funny!  We read Big Hungry Bear and Merry Christmas Big Hungry Bear and did some predicting with what we thought Little Mouse’s present is.  We also talked about needs and wants and sorted cards into categories.  We worked on rhyming and beginning and ending sounds in words.  We read the story of the Nutcracker, made nutcracker soldiers, and watched parts of the ballet.  I love to do this every year, the kids were fascinated, even the boys!!  We read Imogene’s Antlers and some expository books about reindeer.  They sorted reindeer fact/opinion cards and made handprint reindeer.  In math, we learned a new game called Sleigh Ride.  I’ll send a copy home soon.  They really liked it!

Thanks for remembering to read the reading books in the new book baggies and sending them back after a night or two.  Remember, they most likely have read them several times with me, so it’s okay if they’re too easy.  Make sure they’re really practicing pointing to the words and looking at them.  Keep working on the sight words too!

And….I’m sure you heard…Buddy the elf showed up today in a freezing cold box from the North Pole!  We made a big chart of all the good elf behavior that we are sure that Buddy is watching for!  We had a long talk about not touching him or his magic goes away.  I was able to touch him to get him out of the box and he sat on the easel.  During recess, he used his magic and moved to my desk!  They couldn’t believe it!  ( A little more inaccessible to fingers 🙂  Buddy brought everyone an elf pencil and a new journal.  Everyday, they will look to see where Buddy is and what he’s doing and write about it in their journal.  We are working on writing good sentences with a capital letter at the beginning, spaces between words, and a period at the end and then our illustration has to match our words!

Next week we will start the gingerbread fun!  Speaking of, we had a whole bag of holiday foam shapes at art center to use and they disappeared yesterday when I was gone.  (I ended up having a science training plan time).  Would you check and make sure that your child didn’t think it’d be fun to take home.  If so, just return them, no big deal.  They could be around here somewhere, but we looked everywhere and cannot find them!

Congrats to Lillian who got the Second Step award for having control of her emotions and being able to calm down and use our breathing strategies when needed.  She got her award at the assembly today!

Hope you have a great weekend.  I plan to try and figure out what online shopping I still need to do and get some Christmas organizing done.  Happy December!