Mrs.Heslop

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As we begin our New Year of 2012, we have many new and exciting things
that we are doing in our classroom. Our author study this month is Jan Brett.
We have read The Mitten, The Hat, Hedgie’s Surprise, and others. These are
great stories to read at this time of the year, since many of them take place
in snowy settings.  The students are encouraged to use some of these ideas
during writers’ workshop and may try writing stories and poems about the snow
and their favorite winter things. In addition to the Jan Brett books we have
interactive read aloud where the students look for personal and text-to-text
connections. We are also learning about setting, characterization, main idea,
author’s message, and more.

Our guided reading groups continue to meet regularly. Here students have
opportunities to read aloud and discuss stories in small groups. When a
student is not meeting with his/her group, s/he is doing independent work at
his seat. We have been working with plurals, compound words, and most recently
contractions. Thanks to the generosity of the Spaulding Fund, we have been
very  fortunate to be able to buy some Nook colors for our classroom.
Nookcolors are e-readers that beautifully display children’s picture books.
They give students the option to read the stories independently or to listen
to them be read aloud. The children just love these!!!

In Math we continue to be right on schedule with our Everyday Math program.
We are now on unit 5, which continues to develop students’ basic ability to do
addition and subtraction. Students take pride in having “fact power”,
automaticity in knowing math facts without having to count them out. Unit 5
also works with place value and the addition of two digit numbers.

We have just begun our new science unit on States of Matter. The students
will learn the basic properties of states of matter, and we will do a few
experiments in class to test these properties. Don’t be surprised if your
child starts asking if you have food coloring and baking soda at home!!! At
the end of the month we will have an enrichment program, sponsored by the PTO,
which brings a “scientist” to our school that involves the students in some
very fun hands on experiments as well. They will love it!

A few things to note:

Please be sure your child is dressed properly for the weather. We try to get
the children out most days for recess, unless the weather is very inclement.

Students may bring an item to share on their day to share, but please do not
allow toys to come in. This should be a time for souvenirs, collections,
things that the student made, etc.

Please have students do their homework with a pencil. Often I would like to
have a student correct her work, but this is difficult if it has been done in pen.

Students should continue to read 15 minutes every night and record it on their
reading log. Once your child masters a book s/he should get a new one. If s/he
repeatedly forgets, just send me an email, and I will help him/her to select a
new book.

We are in need of a fresh supply of sharpened pencils. If you are willing to
sharpen a box or two of pencils for us, please shoot me an email. I will send
them home with your child. Thank you!

Our Eric Carle podcasts have been on-line. Please take a moment to enjoy them
if you haven’t already. You can hear them from our webpage under Links or the
school’s technology webpage.

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Mrs.Heslop

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