Odds and Ends......

Hopefully you are enjoying the sunny days!  We have one last day of February left and we will be going to the nursing home to sing.  We leave at 1:30 and will get back at 3:10.    The next day brings us to March, which starts our celebration of Dr. Seuss and all of his books.  Please read with your child daily for at least 10 minutes and record it onto the log that was sent home yesterday.  We are charting as a school all of the time that we have read.  We have special activities scheduled for each week, these can be found in Quick Notes.

We will be visiting Cycle Systems on March 22nd in the AM.  On the 27th of March we will visit the Roanoke library for an Author's reading.  More details on that later.

We are continuing to work on addition and subtraction facts and are incorporating word problems into the mix.  We are writing a narrative about ourselves and reading daily.  We just finished up habitats in Science and will begin learning about plants and gardening.  We will use our money made at the bake sale to buy seeds and plants.  

Let me know if you have any questions about what we are doing in class.....

Hope to see all at the spaghetti dinner on Thursday!

Rooster Day

In a galaxy, far, far away at Community School there was a rooster named Flynn visiting.  It was fun, especially when he crowed, which was often.  It was yucky when he pooped, which was not so often.  It was chaos when he made lots of noise.  It was cool when he flew.  Keri put him in the cage with the bunnies.  The bunnies did not like it!  Flynn was very cute and very pretty.  He was very funny!  He liked us!  We loved having him visit!  The rooster gets to go home with James to live at his house.  He will like his chicken and his chicken shed.

by Keri's Class

February - Beary nice!!!!!!

We are working hard on habitats!  Together with Emily's class, we are building habitats for our bears.  We have divided up and are studying polar bears, pandas and grizzly bears.  We have found out some interesting facts about our bears.

We are also busy using our touch points to subtract and have been counting down from 50.  Some of the second years are also learning about regrouping and subtracting 2 digit numbers.

We have been reading about bears during our reading time.  Polar Bears Past Bedtime, a Magic Tree House book and some shorter books as well.  We have been reading many versions of the Three Bears and have retold Goldilocks and the Three Bears story in our own writing.

Thank you very much for the soup!  We donated several bags of soup to the seniors via LOA and they were very excited to get our donation.  We have also made Valentines to give to some of the adults who live at Hollin's Manor with our buddies from RuthAnn's room.  We also gave them cards at Thanksgiving and Christmas.  The adults were very excited to receive these cards.

Tomorrow is Valentine's Day and we are getting ready by decorating our envelopes.  We also are doing several activities today and tomorrow and are very excited to be celebrating with our friends.  It is also the 100th day tomorrow.  Can you believe that we have been in school 100 days?  I can't!

Remember to read with your child and encourage them to read for 5-10 minutes daily.  We have begun word study and they should be bringing home a copy of their sort on Monday or Tuesday so you will know what words we are working on.  Right now, they are short vowel words with a digraph, sh, ch or wh beginning.

Jan. 12

It is almost conference time again!  My, how the year is flying by......  Hopefully the times that were given earlier this year work with everyone.  If you cannot make your time, please let me know now so we can work on rescheduling.  The schedule will be posted in Quick Notes on the 17th.  If you do not remember your time, email me and I can tell you.

We are working on bears!  Everything bears!   Reading bear books, studying habitats for bears and doing some science activities involving cold and hot.
We have worked on time to the half hour, and quarter hour for those that were ready.  We are working on subtraction of numbers through 19.  I have really tried to get everyone comfortable with their addition facts.  If you have time in the car, practice doubles through 10, sums of 10 and 9 plus.  The memorization and understanding of these facts will really help with subtraction.
We are reading daily here at school and you are reading at home as well.  I am really seeing progress in their reading skills.   They are also doing a great job with their journaling and are better able to spell what they hear in their writing.

Friday is a field trip to Hollins for the local hero award ceremony in the afternoon.  Monday is a holiday and there is no school.

Welcome back! Where did the warm days of December go? Only a few more days of extreme cold to go, for this round anyway! That being said, remember that we are outside for at least a part of every day. Please send in gloves, hats, warm coats, etc that they can wear outside. I invested in a huge parka and really warm boots last year after spending a few cold recess duties freezing. We are so glad to be back together. We have welcomed Flint and Gerald to our room, well outside actually! They are the bunnies that are in the pen outside of our classroom. The kids are sharing their leftovers with them and waiting to have a chance to hold them. We will learn about animal care and animal adaptation through the care of our bunnies. We are also working on telling time to the half or quarter hour. If you happen to have an analog clock, have your child practice. We are working on our decoding skills with word study. We will work as a group this week, and next week each child will have their own list of words to work on. Remember to continue to read with your son or daughter daily. They are really making progress with their reading. Let me know if you have any questions about what we are doing. There is no school on January 16th. Conferences are January 27th.

This Week, December 12-16th

A look at our week! 

Monday:  We go over to Hollins for the Winter Carnival from 2-3

Tuesday:  We go to the Taubman to see Christmas Cookies.  We then come back to school to bake and decorate cookies. 

Wednesday:  Normal schedule.

Thursday:  We bake and decorate more cookies.

Friday:  Winter Break Celebration!!!  Breakfast at 9 am.  We will make pancakes!!!!  We will read Pancakes! Pancakes! By Eric Carle and also Pancakes for Breakfast by Tomie Depaola.  We will celebrate in our pajamas. 

In the afternoon, we will listen to a reading of Polar Express and drink hot cocoa.  We will still be going outside, so dress warmly enough.  

December is flying by!!!!!!

We had a great turnout for our luncheon today!  Everyone enjoyed some great cookies and wonderful gingerbread (thanks Jacinda!).  We had a few stories read by our class and then went into RuthAnn's class to watch them perform Skippy John Jones.  What a treat!  Many have had a time to visit the book fair and get some great books.  Every child has filled out a wish list which is kept at the book fair just in case you were looking to do some holiday or birthday shopping.  Every book sold supports our school!  There is also a class wish list of books that our class would love.

 A big thank you to Anna's grandparents who contributed to the new filter system for our turtles.  The turtles got rather stinky, and a new system will hopefully keep that from happening again.

We are busy learning and playing and crafting away.  With a little over a week left before break we are trying to fit in all of the neat activities that we want to get completed.  We are reading the Gingerbread Man and Goldilocks and the Three Bears over the next week.  We are making gingerbread next week and  doing lots of activities that go along with those stories.