December Newsletter
The holidays are upon us! In addition to reading books by Tomie DePaolo, we
have started enjoying stories of the season. We’re exploring light as a
universal symbol of celebration as we study holiday traditions of Hanukah,
Christmas, and Kwanza. The children have been writing about what they do
to “brighten” the holidays as well as their own family traditions.
In Language Arts we have been continuing to build our word wall and add to
our poetry journals. The students read in their small groups and work in
centers. Our phonics program has introduced the digraphs sh, th, wh and ch.
We’ve also been learning about the sound of “ar” as well as “er”, “ir”,
and “ur”. Just this week we’ve started studying the long vowels, emphasizing
silent e at the end of a word.
We’re well into the 4th chapter in our Everyday Math program. The students
have done a lot with measuring as we’ve explored measurement with both non
standard and standard units. Quarter to and quarter past have also been
introduced on the clock, and we are about to look at fact power. Fact power
is knowing the answers to number facts without having to use counters or a
number grid. We’ll start by developing fact power for facts adding 0 and 1,
and then we’ll introduce the double facts 2+2, 3+3…8+8. The more students
play math games like domino top it the more fact power they’ll develop.
Great news! Students can now use the website Rainforest Math at home. Please
access the website through links and use the following information.
USERNAME: rfmp0480
PASSWORD: gown70
This Friday is Miss Mailhot’s last day with us. It has been a pleasure having
her in our classroom. The students’ absolutely adore her and have become
quite attached. As a way of saying good bye each student will design a page
in a scrapbook with a letter and picture, which we will present to Miss
Mailhot. We will also give her an LL Bean canvas bag with the children’s
handprints and names on it. Miss Mailhot will be taking classes this coming
spring, but we’ll be sure to have her visit from time to time.
In January we would love to have some parent volunteers in the morning from
9:30 – 10:15 during language arts. Volunteers oversee students working
independently while teachers are reading with small groups. If you are
interested, please send me an email letting me know what day you are
available and whether you prefer every week or every other week.
One final note…our holiday concert is this Friday morning at 9:00. Students
are encouraged to “dress up” for their performance. And may I take this
opportunity to wish everyone a safe and happy holiday!!!