Happy December!

Along with December comes the snow. YAY! It is so fun to watch the kids enjoying this weather at recess. That being said please help your child to remember to bring his/her snow boots and snow pants for recess. Without out either of those, he/she will not be allowed to play in the snow. I don’t like to see anyone being left out, thank you!

The Book-It program is continuing through December. This is just a fun way to reward your child for working hard to become better readers. Thank you to the parents who take the time to do this each month. Keep working with the High Frequency Words on the turkey and now on the santa. The words on the santa will continue into January. It is a combination of words for unit three (we are currently in) and unit four (starting in January). The kiddos are doing great with their high frequency words!

Reading Update:

We have started a new unit in our reading series. Unit three is all about different kinds of homes and families. This is a fun unit where many text–to–self connections can be made. In this unit we will be trying to find information to answer the following questions:

Theme Question: What makes a home?

Weekly Questions: Why do we need a home? What kinds of homes are there? Who is part of a home? What do families do at home?

Reading Strategies:

            Making predictions

            Text Connections

            Summerizing

            Recall & Retell key details

            Punctuation determines expression ( . ! ?)

          Punctuation also means to stop/pause (no running sentences together, take a breath)

Reading Group Strategies: (to help with an unknown word)

            Look at the picture clues

            Get your mouth ready to say the word (beginning sound)

            Sound it out, or slide through the sounds

High Frequency Words:

can  do  what   you  it no  this  are  at  have  like  too

Digraphs:
sh  ch  th  wh (all make one sound)

Continue to work on ALL letter sounds. This will be crucial in the upcoming weeks. We are moving into isolating the beginning, middle and final sounds in a word.  Knowing letter sounds will not only help your child with reading but it will aide him/her in writing.

In this unit we are going to introduce the inquiry process. This is something that all students LOVE! As a class we come up with a question or problem (on the topic we are learning about) and we all use our background knowledge, books we’ve read, and our brains to think up possible answers or solutions. This is one of my favorite activities in this unit.

Math Update:

This quarter in math we are really focusing on mastering the counting strategies. For example, being able to count to 100 by 10s and by 1s, being able to start counting at a random number (like 13 and count to 25 or start counting at 65 and count to 81), being able to find a missing number ( ___  5  6 ), knowing if two numbers are greater than/ less than/ equal ( >  <  =  ). These are things that we have been working on all year.

Things new for this quarter would be shapes, using positional words to describe things (above, under, in front of, behind, next to, etc.) being able to write numbers 0 – 20, number identification for numbers 0 – 20.

This month will fly by, but be sure to remember these dates!

December 5^th: Gingerbread men are due back to be displayed in the hallway

December 18^th: Skate Night!

December 22^nd: Holiday Program at         Meadowlark! (starts at 2:00pm)*

December 23^rd: Pajama day & Polar Express day  
December 24th to January 4th: Winter Break!