Hi, Families! I did not send a newsletter home last week, as it was a shortened week because of the Teacher Workshop Day and the Friday holiday of Veteran's Day. It's also the same reason why I didn't have the kids' sight words and fluency sentences due on the Thursday of that short week--three days is not enough time to learn 10 words and 12 sentences! So I tested their words and sentences this past Friday, instead.
I would like to thank you for attending our parent - teacher conferences. I hope I was informative, and that you left having the sense that your child IS making progress! It was nice to have a chance to meet you, to tell you what I was seeing in our classroom, and share a sense with you of how your child is doing so far this year. I hope you will take a look at the two support documents that I gave you at our meeting, as they should help you know HOW to help your child at home.
Monday, 11/28, will begin our assessment week, prior to grades closing for the trimester. That means for this coming week only, fluency sentences and sight words will NOT be coming home, and "little readers" will only come home on Monday. I did the sight word assessment before the Break, so I could talk to you about them at parent-teacher conferences. The kids are really doing a TERRIFIC job learning those words, and it is making a HUGE difference in their reading. It is making trying to learn to read much less work and much more fun!!!! You have probably noticed that many of the word family words your child has been learning, along with the sight words he or she has been learning are the words from which those fluency sentences are built. That is very purposeful. The more fluently your child can read these two groups of words, the more success he or she will have in reading.
About half of the class has passed their timed additions test by now. That's terrific! I attribute their learning their addition facts so quickly (these tests aren't usually passed before Christmas) to all of the number sense work we have been doing since the first day of school. These kids are understanding numbers so well that they don't have to try to understand what I mean before they try to use them. The children LOVED smashing subtraction playdough balls as we learned to do subtract. Suddenly, subtraction wasn't this strange, mysterious thing! We will continue to work with both addition and subtraction from now to Christmas Break. We will also work with "fact families". A "fact family" involves three numbers, like 6 and 3 and 9. Each "fact family" has two addition facts and two subtraction facts that use only those numbers! So, the fact family equations for 6, 3, and 9 are: 3 + 6 = 9, 6 + 3 = 9 (its "turn around" fact), 9 - 3 = 6, and its "turn-around fact" 9 - 6 = 3. Samples of "word families" and "number fact families" were combined to make our student-created "Holiday Time Is Family Time" bulletin board. Please check it out, as this board was a fun and different way for your child and his classmates to show you what they were learning.
For the next few weeks, we will conclude our study of maps as we investigate what holidays are celebrated during this time of the year in different parts of the world. After Christmas Break, we will return to our study of the various systems of the human body.
On the first full week of December, each child in this classroom will select one other student's name as a SECRET Christmas buddy. Your child is being asked to purchase a non-food gift for (UNDER $8.00) for this buddy only. Then, at our Christmas party, each child will try to guess who picked his or her name for Christmas buddy. Please know that if purchase of this gift will prove to be a hardship for your family, there are means of assisting you with this purchase. Also, Katina is asking teachers to let her know if families need help buying presents for the kids this year. If you are in this situation, please contact Katina directly. I believe she has several resources at her disposal. Our Christmas party will take place on Tuesday, December 20th in the afternoon. Wednesday, December 21st, is a half-day of school. I believe that dismissal will occur at 11:30am. If you would be interested in contributing food or drink to our Christmas party, please let me know what you would like to send/bring in.
Before I leave this newsletter for this weekend, I would like to briefly mention the need for winter clothing, outerwear, hats, mittens or gloves, and boots to come to school any time temperatures are cool and/ or there is snow on the ground. Children without appropriate outerwear or boots will need to stay on the tarred surface of the back yard during recess time. Please be sure that your child also brings footwear to wear inside the school during the day. Feet kept in rubber boots all day can get damp and sweaty during the day. However, slippers are NOT encouraged unless they have rubber bottoms, as we need to be able to exit the building in case of an emergency without taking the time to change footwear. If you would like your child to keep snowpants and/or boots, please send me a note giving your child permission to leave those articles of clothing at school for the week. Regardless, all clothing and boots will return home on Fridays (or ends of the school week, as well as at the beginning of vacations), so the custodians can clean the coat area without having to work around clothing articles. Also, I would like to remind you that each child should bring a snack from home for our 9:30 am break. The children are hungry by then, but only need one snack, to help them refuel until lunch at 11:30. Quite a few children have been coming to school without snack recently.
That's it for this week! Enjoy the week without homework!
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