We had so much fun at our winter party! The kids made beautiful fillable ornaments, at yummy snacks, and enjoyed the company of their friends and lots of adults. It was great to see so many parents attend the party! Thank you to everyone who sent in items for the party, helped set up, and helped clean up! Thank you to Lesley, Lauren, and Robin for organizing! It was amazing!
What a fun cozy day we had! We all looked cute and cozy in our jammies! We enjoyed new books.
We had a cozy hot cocoa and popcorn party. We had a cozy fire and enjoyed talking with our friends!
We made lovely winter trees with lots of sparkly snow!
We used marshmallows and spaghetti noodles to engineer awesome creations!
Reading- We started working on letter formation of capital letters A-H. We also worked on using “tapping” to help us say each sound and blend them together to read words. We are working on reading simple consonant-vowel-consonant words like mop or rug. We continued practicing reading sight words and playing games in which we break sounds in words apart and put them together in various ways. We also used some of our reading time to share our family traditions.
Writing- We wrote a personal narrative this week about a time we played. We worked on drawing, labeling, and writing to tell what happened. We also practiced using spaces between each word.
Math- We continued developing our understanding of numbers with various games like Top it and Count and Sit. We also explored the 100 grid.
Science and Social Studies- Our cool tool was about indoor recess behavior. We enjoyed a mystery science video about how money is made. We began reading about holidays that happen in winter such as St. Nicholas Day and St. Lucia Day. Next week we will learn about many other holidays as well.
We are having a great time learning about the family traditions in our class. The kids are doing a great job using a speaking voice to share about their tradition as well as listening respectfully when others are sharing. It is fun to hear the big variety of traditions in our class, make connections, and learn something new about each other. If your child has not brought in their things to share, please send it sometime this week. 
Here are the little problem solvers at work on their puzzles! So fun!
Reading- We worked hard reviewing letter formation of lower case letters this week. Many children need more practice with making their letters independently so please keep up the practice at home. We also worked on using “tapping” to help us say each sound and blend them together to read words. We continued to share connections we make as we read.
Writing- We are fine tuning the content of our personal narratives this week and working on using our words and pictures to show what happens first, next, and last. We are making sure our writing has words and sentences. They do not have to be perfect but each child needs to try to add words and sentences!
Math- We introduced the concepts of weight and capacity this week. We also worked on decomposing or breaking numbers apart.
Science and Social Studies- Our cool tool was about being a problem solver. We enjoyed a mystery science video about why the Mars is red. We learned about how challenges help us learn with our counselor, Mrs. Davison.
Today we bundled up to try to catch some snowflakes on black paper and look closely at them. We did not have much luck catching many but had a good discussion about why they were difficult to catch. We took a look at snowflakes photos online and then drew snowflakes of our own with white crayon on black paper.
Reading- We wrapped up z and qu this week. We also practiced reading the sight words at and not. We also began echo reading the entire sight word list so the kids can get some general practice reading sight words. Much of our work in guided reading groups involved practicing the sight words that were specific to the book each group was reading. The focus of each guided reading group is tailored to the skills of the kids in that group but most groups worked on previewing the book by looking at the pictures before reading, making predictions, reading independently or reading with support, using the pictures to help figure out words and retelling after reading.
Writing- We worked on completing a personal narrative from start to finish. This involves thinking and planning, drawing, adding details, labeling, coloring and writing a sentence. We also worked on making sure our personal narrative was a true story from our life and that our pictures and words show who, what, and where. This is all review but it is difficult for the kids to accomplish so many different things. We needed more practice sticking with our writing until it is truly finished.
Math- We worked on teen numbers this week by practicing identifying teens, ordering teens, and counting quantities in the teens. We continued practicing writing numbers and some of the kids are learning to write their numbers all the way to 100. We also worked on building hexagons using other shapes.
Science and Social Studies- Our cool tool was about tone of voice this week. We enjoyed a mystery science video about why the sky is blue. We began learning about germs and how to sneeze into a tissue or our elbow to keep cold germs to ourselves. We also learned about the importance of hand washing!
I forgot to post some pictures from the fabulous hats we made before break. We read a silly Thanksgiving story about Thelonius turkey. The basic plot is that Thelonius thinks he is about to become dinner because the farmer Felicia keeps plucking his feathers out. He thinks she is seeing how he is fattening up so he pulls all kinds of pranks to distract her from eating him. In the end it turns out that Felicia was just plucking his feathers for her hat factory so she could make beautiful hats. We got creative and made our own awesome hats!
Here are just a few pictures from our first day back in the saddle. After the extra long break we had to get back into our school routine and remember school rules and expectations. The kids did great! 
