Be sure to have a wonderful weekend and give your kids LOTS of hugs tonight.  I can't wait to go home and see my little one.


REMINDERS:

• On Friday, December 21st the students will be dismissed at 1:25pm. 
• Please send in a seasonally appropriate change of clothes for your child - these are for playground accidents as well as potential bathroom accidents:)

During Social Studies, we have been learning about holidays around the world.  We talked about St. Nicholas Day, Hanukkah, and St. Lucia Day.  Everyone received a "Holmes School Passport" to document the different holidays they learn about and countries they visit.

Good Readers...

• Use a storyteller voice to make the story exciting.
• Use a storyteller voice to convey meaning.
• Continue to discuss the character's feelings and actions.
• Notice similarities between book - The Runaway Latkes vs. The Gingerbread Baby vs. The Gingerbread Man

Our Shared Reading was the "-An Family" poem.  We identified the words ending with the -an sound.  A copy will be sent home NEXT week.

Good Writers...

• Use their imagination to write creative stories.
• Write about family traditions.
• Continue to practice stretching out the sounds they hear in words.

Good Mathematicians...

• Complete repeating patterns.
• Color to complete a pattern.
• Sort and identify 3-D shapes.
• Sort items by different attributes.

Thank you to all of the parent volunteers.  I appreciate your help!

Spanish started on Monday!  Everyone enjoyed meeting their spanish teacher and learning some new words.  We will no longer have library time on Monday. Our new day for Library is WEDNESDAY, so please be sure that your child brings in his or her library book by Wednesday.

Good Readers...

• Preview books and make predictions.
• Study what is going on in the picture and notice how the character is feeling.
• Use their "magic wand" to point under each word.
• Find words that they know!

Sight Words - Class words - look and on.  Individual sight words went home today.

Good Writers...

• Brainstorm about a personal experience or memory.
• Illustrate and label their story.
• Add to the picture, add to the words, and start a new story.

Good Mathematicians learn about 3-D shapes!  We identified and sorted 3-D Shapes - cone, cylinder, ball shape (sphere), and box shapes (cube and rectangular prism).  Everyone enjoyed sorting the various 3-D items that were brought in for our museum.  Thanks for your support!

Social Studies - We began discussing various holidays like Sinterklass and Hanukkah.  We will continue to talk about December holidays and traditions throughout the month.  We completed a Second Steps lesson on feelings.  We talked about how you can tell a lot about how someone is feeling by looking at his/her facial expression and body language.