I hope you are all having as wonderful a week as we are here!  December seems to be moving even more quickly than our previous months.  I will be releasing the Book Order this afternoon.  Expect the books to arrive in about 10 days.  I will email all parents who requested that items be held as soon as they come in. 
Thank you so much for your generous outpouring of support for our school's food drive.  Our class alone has collected 3 giant boxes of pastas and sauce!  I can't thank you enough for teaching your children the importance of sharing with and caring for others.  I am privileged to be working with you.  The collection ends next Friday.
Reading:  We are wrapping up our unit on non-fiction retells.  You are probably noticing the change in the webs.  The students are including many more organized details.  I am very proud of their HUGE gains.
Math:  We have completed a unit on place value and will assess it tomorrow.  The students have been discovering all the ways to represent numbers, using the "greater gator" symbol, determining what makes a number odd or even, and using mental math to add tens (ie.  What numbers is 10 less than 34?).  We also completed our December timed fact tests.  The results are going home today.
Writing:  We are continuing to work on writing the main event in narratives.  I am working with the children on adding suspense by slowing down the action, using "show not tell" descriptions, and the "magic of threes".  Your students' writing is really beginning to develop.
Science: We are continuing to use experimentation to discover information about magnets.  This week students created magnets with pins and learned how to destroy magnets by disturbing their lines of force.  It is a very exciting unit.

Have a wonderful weekend!  Thank you for all your support in all the ways you have been showing it.  I truly appreciate your efforts.