Hello Hero Parents! 
Dear Parents, yes our class won the pizza party! Thank you to all of you who donated cans for
the Kids Can Food Drive. They will be providing our class with a pizza lunch in January. I haven’t
received the date of our party, but I will let you know just as soon as I am informed. I suggested the
party be held on a Friday during our lunch or at the end of the day. I should be hearing back from
them sometime this month.
We had a nice time and enjoyed delicious treats at our Fall Feast. The students made turkey
hats, worked on fall activities, and enjoyed talking to each other around our long feast table. I
enjoyed having parents join us for the feast and appreciated all of your help.
We will be having a class party on Wednesday, December 23rd from 10:30 - 11:30. The
students will be receiving their ice skates full of special treats and will decorate cookies to enjoy
during our party. I would like for students to still bring a lunch or buy a school lunch on that day,
because they will be eating dessert-like items, such as cookies and drinking milk or juice during
our party. I would appreciate donations, such as: sugar cookies to decorate (that are holiday
shaped), colored frosting, sprinkles of many shapes and colors, milk, juice boxes, and water bottles.
I would also appreciate donations for the ‘stocking ice skates’. Suggested items include: pencils,
pads of paper, erasers, small toys, stuffed animals, stickers, pens, markers, play dough, stamps, etc.
Any small toy would be appreciated! We do have a student who has an allergy to peanuts, so no
food snacks please!
Important: Our class is in need of 16 count boxes of crayola crayons! Please ask your child if
they still have all of their crayons or if they need a new box. Donations to our class for new crayons
would be greatly appreciated!
I will be scheduling progress report meetings next week. I will be writing a note in your child’s
agenda, if I need to schedule a meeting with you. I plan to schedule meetings on Thursday of next
week.
I wanted to let you know the importance of having your child read their decodable books every
night and practice their math facts. Students need that repeated practice in seeing and reading
learned spelling patterns within words to become fluent readers. We read our decodable books every
morning and read each book at least 3-4 times when they are introduced. So a big party of our day
focusing on building reading fluency, spelling, dictation, blending, and word building; all of which
help students to become better and more confident readers. Some students have been telling me
that they are not practicing nightly, so I have been having them stay in during recess. Generally,
students hole punch 2-4 books a week, so it is very important for them to practice. Our next review
book is Steve Sells Vans. I will be testing their reading fluency reading this book next week. Rocket
Math is 25% of their overall math grade. Please let me know if you need practice pages!
In terms of our academic week:
In Reading, we are currently learning and reading about Weather (OC, Unit 5). The students
having been learning and writing about Thunderstorms. This is structured writing using a color
coding system, but sentences are independently written. We have also been learning about time
order words; First, Then, Next, Last. We will continue our unit on Weather next week. We’ve
introduced all final e spellings and ee, ea spellings.
In Math, we started Chapter 5, working on geometry and fractions. We’ve been learning about
solid shapes, faces, corners, and edges. We have also been learning about tens/ones within Chapter
6. We are working on both units so that we can continue with addition and subtraction practice.
In Writing, we’ve been learning and writing about the Blue Whale - the Sea Giant! The students
did outstanding on their writing. I allowed for approximately 40 minutes to complete their writing
and they did an excellent job writing complete sentences. I was so proud of them. We completed a
Blue Whale project on Friday, as well.
In Social Studies, we’ve been working on our time capsule... we will get this project finished
soon!
In Science, we’ve finished our study of Changing Matter. We will start on the Weather unit next week!
We will make a prediction weather chart and keep a daily log of the local weather.
In PE, we’ve been practicing catching and throwing, as well as many other skills using bean bags.
I can be reached at: 916-683-7445 or at my email addresses: dahill@egusd.net and
luv4teachn@comcast.net. I can also be contacted through my website:
http://teacherweb.com/CA/JosephSimsElementary/dahill.