January 9th - 13th

Happy 2012! 

I hope you and your family had a wonderful break. I enjoyed reading the sweet emails from some of you and spending time with my family. This year was especially wonderful, as it was Jaylie's 1st Christmas! 

This first week back to school flew by especially quickly! We had LOTS of fun with our Fairy Tales Unit and our Energy Unit. Both units will continue through next week.

Language Arts:

Next week in Language Arts, we will continue this very fun unit on Fairy Tales.  Each day we will continue to read a new Fairy Tale and follow that with various skill building. These activities include making a story map, discussing the elements of that particular fairy tale, completing themed math lessons, and writing a story from a story prompt.  We have a Fairy Tale Graph in our hallway that has new data added to it daily.  I hope you get a chance to come and read our graphs. Mrs. Hadden’s room even has a castle outside of their room! 

We also have some clever letters written to Rapunzel, trying to convince her to cut her hair, along with some stories of what we would use our hair for if it was as long as Rapunzels. One of my favorite convincing statements to Rapunzel to cut her hair is ... "If you cut your hair, porcupines will not get stuck in it." !!! Of course!! Why didn't I think of that!?  These kiddos keep me laughing!!

You will notice, now that we have entered the second semester of school, your child will be more responsible for his/her spelling, editing and handwriting.  You may notice that your child is writing his or her first and last name on school work, and seeing more corrections with grading that is a little bit more strict this semester.  I'm trying to get the students ready for second grade. 

Math:

Next week we will focus on using different strategies in our problem solving.  Each day we will do a whole group lesson. After this, your child will independently solve a similar problem. This will be an ongoing focus throughout the school year.

Science:

We explored 3 Types of Energy - heat, light and sound energy.  Next week we will have fun learning about magnets.

Reminders:

    Jan. 16^th, 2012 - School Holiday, no school

Jan. 31^st, 2012 Science Fair  (Information was sent home in the Tuesday Folder)

Thank You:

Classroom Helper - Cheryl Borden  

Thursday Parent Teacher - Judy Lopato