Happy Holidays!   We are fully entrenched in the holiday season now.  Your children's excitement is palpable!  I'm certain you know what I mean!  We are making cards for servicemen who will not be able to go home for the holidays.  We made very cute holiday gifts for you parents.  We are also playing the dreidel game with Hershey kisses and Mr. Betor's class on Friday.

I am asking your child to bring in a favorite stuffed animal on Monday.  We will be using it as a launch for a writing sample.  A hard copy of this request went home today.

A few pieces of information:
1.  Many children have already turned in their Read to Succeed forms.  Remember the signed forms are due to me by January 11th.
2.  Thank you so much for your generous outpouring of food for our school's food drive.  Our class alone has collected 3 LARGE boxes of food.  The drive ends tomorrow.
3.  There will be no formal homework given over the vacation.  Please encourage your child to read and practice his/her facts daily.
4.  Our class party will be at 1:00 on Friday, December 20th.  All parents are welcome to attend but due to fire safety restrictions, parents are asked NOT to attend the school's sing along at 2:15.
5.  We have been asked to ask parents NOT to pick children up before dismissal if at all possible.  It is quite disruptive to our classes to have to stop teaching, answer the phone,  and pack up one student while all the others wait.  Thank you for your cooperation.

This week we continued on with our themes:
Reading:  We finally completed our unit on non-fiction retells.  Most students successfully recalled information at a mastery level.  Next week, we will begin work on finding the main idea.
Math:  We are working on mentally adding multiples of 10 to a given number and have started beginning addition regrouping.  I am hoping your child can explain our process.  It is very different than the way, we were taught!
Writing:  We are continuing to work on putting our narratives all together.  They should include a "Snappy beginning", many rich details, a fully developed main event and a conclusion.  I am seeing real growth.
Science:  The students LOVE the Magnets unit.  This week our experiments involved discovering through which materials a magnet will attract and determining ways that a magnet can be helpful.  The students are becoming adept at making predictions and carefully following directions.

Again, thank you for all your help and support.  I am grateful to have such a caring group of people behind me!  Have a great weekend!