Sunday, December 8, 2013

December 9-13, 2013


Dear Families and Friends,

The weather has been a little bit chilly this past week. Brrrr... Our amazing Autumn temperatures and cool breezes are moving on and making way for Winter's icy, cold air! But with that, we have been so fortunate to have had very few icy roads this past week; we were able to take a two hour break on Friday morning; we have warm homes to return to at the end of each day... We are blessed! 
As we are right in the middle of our Giving Unit, we will be making healthy snacks for the wild animals because it is more difficult for them to find food when it is icy outside, and the weather has been perfect for this lesson!
By the way, how will the snowman be getting to school for "Fit Friday" this week? 
He will be traveling by icicle!

Math: This week, students will continue to work on recognizing the penny, nickel, dime and quarter and their value.  We will extend this learning by skip counting and applying our knowledge to problem solving. 

Reading Workshop:  This week in reading workshop we will introduce an important and often times the most difficult reading strategy to implement and that is inferring.  Inferring is the bedrock of understanding.  Writers don't always spill information onto the page; often they leak it slowly leaving clues along the way to keep the reader engaged in the act of constructing meaning.  Inferring involves taking what you know, your background knowledge, and merging it with clues in the text to come up with some information that isn't explicitly stated there.  We will continue with this strategy until the winter break, giving the students plenty of time to understand and find examples of inferring. We will also continue to model and practice using this important reading skill with the children.

Writing Workshop:  This week and next week during writing workshop, we will continue our unit on writing friendly letters. As an extension to a story that will be read during Reading, we will each write a letter to a dog at the animal shelter. We will then decorate a bag with dog treats that will be brought to a local animal shelter to help the animals feel loved.  We will also use our Writer’s Workshop time to research and record facts about the different customs and traditions celebrated around the world that our elf travels to each day.

Social Studies:  This week, we will continue our cultural unit on winter holiday traditions around the world.  This unit helps children to understand the differences and similarities in traditions around the world.  Since we are such a diverse group here at Caraway, we are also able to learn more about each other. 


Habit #6:  Synergize. I value other people’s strengths and learn from them.  I seek out other people’s ideas because I know that by teaming with others, we can create better solutions than anyone of us can alone.
 
Reminders:
*Please remember to send a healthy snack every day.  Snack time is @ 9:30am.
*Make sure your child wears tennis shoes every Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday.
*Library day is Thursday.
*Please remember to send back your child’s homework bag with completed homework on Friday.

Dates to remember:
December 9-13:  Book Fair
December 19:  Winter Holiday Party @1 pm-2 pm
December 20:  Polar Express Day (wear pajamas)
December 23:  Winter Break Begins
January 7:  2nd Semester Begins
January 20:  No School
January 22:  International Festival
January 30:  Science Fair


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