Happy Holidays!

                                                    

                                                    December 21, 2012

Focus on Curriculum

Jolly Phonics: This week the class learned the letter combination of oo.  Now we know the sounds of the letters and letter combinations: s, a, t, i, p, n, c, k, e, r, h, m, d, g, o, u, l, f, b, j, oa, oa, ie, ee, or,oo, z, w, v, y, and z. Please try and practice with your letter cards at home.  Please ask your child to say the letter names and sounds. All students have a bag of cards with letters, pictures, and words. They should try to match the letters, pictures, and words. You may choose to make it a game such as Memory, Rummy or Go Fish. Use your imagination!  Keep the cards in a special place at home so they can use them again and again.  The cards can stay at home.

Popcorn Words: This week we added three words to our popcorn bag: no, go, so.

Reading:  This week was Gingerbread Week.    We read many books about our new friend the Gingerbread Man who mysteriously ran away from our classroom.  We read the books The Gingerbread Man, The Gingerbread Baby, The Gingerbread Girl, and The Gingerbread Man is Loose in the School to try and get clues of where our new friend went.  The Gingerbread Man also left us clues to where he might be.  We even made Gingerbread friends in hopes that he returns.  Along with reading those books and gingerbread activities we did many other fun holiday activities.  We also read a story about the Gingerbread Man’s friend Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer.  The students were able to create their own Rudolph bag and we put Reindeer food inside to prepare for the upcoming holidays.

You would never guess it but our new friend the Gingerbread Man did return on Friday morning just in time for our Holiday Party.

REMEMBER:

I want to wish all the students and their families a very

safe and Happy Holiday Season!

Winter Break- No School December 24^th 2012- January 6^th 2013.

January 7^th 2013 is our first day back from Winter Break

Run, Run As Fast As You Can!

                                                

                                                    December 14, 2012

Focus on Curriculum

Jolly Phonics: This week the class learned the sounds of the letters y and x.  For the letter y we pretend that we are eating yogurt and for the letter z we pretend to put on our x-ray glasses.  Now we know the sounds of the letters and letter combinations: s, a, t, i, p, n, c, k, e, r, h, m, d, g, o, u, l, f, b, j, oa, oa, ie, ee, or, z, w, v, y, and z. Please try and practice with your letter cards at home.  Please ask your child to say the letter names and sounds. All students have a bag of cards with letters, pictures, and words. They should try to match the letters, pictures, and words. You may choose to make it a game such as Memory, Rummy or Go Fish. Use your imagination!  Keep the cards in a special place at home so they can use them again and again.  The cards can stay at home.

Reading:   We started our Let’s Count theme.  We read Benny's Pennies in which a boy has five pennies and buys gifts for his mother, brother, sister, dog and cat.  We talked about how the pennies in the book look different from the pennies we use.  We also talked about that Abraham Lincoln is on the penny and that 100 pennies equals one dollar.  We read Feast for 10.  We talked about the upcoming holidays and what we eat while we celebrate the upcoming holidays with our families.

Math:   We continued working on writing and tracing our numbers.  The children like to sing the Dr. Jean number song.  We learned about addition and that addition is putting numbers together.  We learned that the sign we use when adding is called the plus sign.

Popcorn Words: This week we added three words to our popcorn bag: little, and, yes.

Writing:  We wrote about our star student and why that student is a star.  Everyone in the class will have the chance to be the star of the week.

Next week we will be doing gingerbread activities.  Some will include reading gingerbread stories and searching for a gingerbread man who ran away inside our school.

 REMEMBER:

Next Friday December 21^st we will have a winter break party for both the morning and afternoon classes.

Please do not send treats to school.  The party planners will provide sufficient snacks and entertainment for our party.

WEAR YOUR GYM SHOES THURSDAY AND FRIDAY

BRING YOUR LIBRARY BOOKS ON WEDNESDAY

Here Comes The Gingerbread Man!

December 7, 2012

Focus on Curriculum

Jolly Phonics: This week the class learned the sounds of the letters w and v.  For the letter w we pretend that the wind is blowing and for the letter v we pretend we are driving a car.  Now we know the sounds of the letters and letter combinations: s, a, t, i, p, n, c, k, e, r, h, m, d, g, o, u, l, f, b, j, oa, oa, ie, ee, or, z, w,and v. Please try and practice with your letter cards at home.  Please ask your child to say the letter names and sounds. All students have a bag of cards with letters, pictures, and words. They should try to match the letters, pictures, and words. You may choose to make it a game such as Memory, Rummy or Go Fish. Use your imagination!  Keep the cards in a special place at home so they can use them again and again.  The cards can stay at home.

Reading:   We continued our theme friends together and continued to learn about making inferences.  We read the story Stone Soup and talked about the characters and setting of the story.  After the story was finished, as a class, we summarized what happened in the story.  We also talked about drawing conclusions.   We talked about how clever the hungry young man was and how he was able to get the villagers to give him the ingredients necessary to make his soup.  We also continued talking about action words.

Math:   We continued working on writing and tracing our numbers.  The children like to sing the Dr. Jean number song.  We also learned about greater than and less than.  For this concept I explained to the students that there is an alligator and his mouth always eats the greater number.  We had a chance to complete a greater than and less than activity in which there were alligator mouths for us to cut out and glue on our papers to make our number sentences read correctly.  I am so proud of the students.  They worked very hard learning this new concept.  We then played a greater than and less than computer game on Starfall. 

Popcorn Words: This week we added three words to our popcorn bag: ran, into, for.

Writing:  We wrote about our star student and why that student is a star.  Everyone in the class will have the chance to be the star of the week.

Watch for news about the upcoming gingerbread activities.

 REMEMBER:

WEAR YOUR GYM SHOES THURSDAY AND FRIDAY

BRING YOUR LIBRARY BOOKS ON WEDNESDAY