A Happy Return!

Week #17 January 2-4, 2019

Happy New Year and welcome back!  Students were happy and eager to return to our classroom.  They were all smiles as they greeted each other and noticed all the changes in our physical space.  This short week did allow us to transition to student routines and build stamina for our daily schedule.

As we work hard to learn and grow together, I continue to tell them, "be brave and be kind".  This idea of being kind is reflected in our sharing for the month of January.  We will share kindness this month.  A Kindness Calendar went home today with a list of kind acts we brainstormed.  The students worked collaboratively to generate a list of acts of kindness before we created our class list.  They were very thoughtful and honest with ideas of meaningful kind acts they would actually do.  I look forward to hearing about their kindness throughout the month.  

We enjoy writing!  We continued our non-fiction writing that we began in December by trying "how to" books this week.  We read mentor texts to inspire us with topics related to how to: 1) draw, 2) make/bake/cook or 3) fulfill a role in our family.   Mrs. Hock's topic list included how to draw a bunny with two #12's, how to make pie crust, and how to be a big sister. 

Our winter creative arts schedule begins next week.  Please note that we will have our hour-long outdoor PE class on Thursdays.  Students will need to be prepared to wear full winter gear while skiing outside with Mr. Day.

Other things to ask your child about this week:

*Whole-school assembly to play the Teacher Baby Picture Guessing Game

*New Number Corner work related to halves of collections, pictographs, counting by 10's to 800, and counting area of larger arrays

*Alexander Who Used to be Rich Last Sunday

*Collaborative challenge work to make the largest snowman using 6 feet of paper, and an igloo with marshmallows & toothpicks

*Return to reading with new bookmarks and "book shopping"

Have a wonderful weekend with your family.

Mrs. Hock