The Christmas season has arrived and we have a very busy month ahead of us.  This week is our annual St. Nick's day sale.  The children will go shopping for their family members and meet Santa.  We are scheduled to go shopping on Tuesday.  This means, have your child write on an envelope their name, and list of people they are buying for (Aunt Sally, Uncle Joe, Mom, Dad, Grandma, Grandpa, Sister(name), Brother (name) etc.).  Items can arrange anywhere from $1.00 to approximately $8.00 - so you may want to keep the list limited to immediate family members.  Usually $10 - $20 is sufficient.  Santa's helpers wrap each gift, so it is important that we have names to make it move quickly.  If you are volunteering, please help others instead of your own children.  The children love to pick out the gifts and make it a surprise for you and your family members.  We will help them select items within your budget.  They can even buy themselves a gift!  Please consider having your child purchase at least 2 gifts.  It is upsetting to see the children sitting on the side while others are having a grand time shopping.   

         On Friday, we celebrate the feast of St. Nicholas.  The children will learn who St. Nicholas is and how he brought joy to everyone.  The tradition is that children put their shoe out and hope that St. Nick will fill them with goodies.  To prepare for St. Nicholas, we are asking that your child bring in a shoe, this Thursday, so we can surprise them with treats (shhh!).

           In Religion, we begin preparing for Christmas and the children will know that Christmas is the celebration of Jesus' birthday.   The children will take home the countdown to Christmas and should do something special or kind for someone each day.  They can color in one piece of the puzzle each day until we reach Christmas Day.  The children came up with some sweet ideas that you can use.

            In Math, the children progress from plane shapes to solid shapes.  They will work with three dimensional solid models and manipulate the solids by rolling, sliding, and stacking them.  You can practice at home by finding objects around the house and identify them as spheres, cylinders, cones, cubes, and rectangular prisms.

            In ILA, we will say good-bye to Transporation and say hello to our unit on Foods.  This week we will be looking at different fruits and vegetables, where they come from and what we can make from them (pies, juice etc).  We continue to identify sequencing in our story.  Our high frequency word is "in" and our phonics sound is the letter "n".  You may want to practice saying words at home using the short "a,i" as a middle sound and asking your child to identify which it is.  For example, say "pit"  or "pat" and ask them to identify the letter they hear in the middle of the word.  We are practicing this in the class.  

            On Tuesday evening, St. Bart's Chorus will be performing at the Brunswick Square Mall at 7:00.  Please stop by if you are shopping in the area.  Our band and chorus will perform on Thursday evening in the school cafeteria.  The children will get to see the show during the day as the 3rd - 8th Graders perform for us.  We will be practicing our song for the Christmas show, coming up soon.

            You may begin to send in #2 pencils for the children to write with.  Please do not send in the pencils with the fancy erasers, for they are a little top heavy and the children can't hold them properly in their hand.  Only 2 pencils are needed at this time.

            Thanks and have a great week!