This week

Reminders & Classroom Happenings this Week

Tomorrow our class will be having a Polar Express Party! After reading this story numerous times and discussing all of the themes, we will be celebrating this fantastic book. If you have read the story, you know the children came upon the train in their pajamas-so our friends will too! J Tomorrow, 12/21, please send your child in their pajamas! They must wear sneakers to/from school (and in gym class) but they can wear slippers in class if you send them in!

Our class holiday party is on Thursday, 12/23. Please remember to send in your wrapped children’s book for our class book swap! Books can be sent in any time this week before the party.

What's New this Week

The holidays are approaching-and that's very clear in our classroom! The students have been hard at work to learn about all the holidays in December. They love to learn about what people do to celebrate all over the world!

In Reader's Workshop, we are beginning to look closely at stories. We will be discussing the element of character this week. To help us, we will be reading stories about a famous character-The Gingerbread man! We will be comparing the character in different versions of the story, and even meet The Gingerbread Girl!

We will continue to work on the Bonus Letter Rule in FUNdations. Remember that a word gets a bonus letter if....it has 1 syllable & it ends in f, l, or s!

There will be no homework next week. Don't forget your child's book for the book swap at our holiday party! :o)

Enjoy the holidays with your families and have a *fantastic* winter break! See you in 2011! :o)

Our class will be visiting the Holiday Boutique tomorrow, Wednesday. Make sure to send in some shopping money if wanted!

Holidays

The class Holiday Party will be held on December 23rd in the morning. Mrs. Belardino will be sending out a letter asking for food donations and notifying parents that will be chaperones. Look in your child's folder today for more holiday information! :o)

:) December is here! :)

Hello Friends!

December is here! This is a very busy and fun month in Room 110. We will discuss winter traditions around the world, including Hanukkah, Diwali, Kwanzaa and Christmas. If your family has a unique way of celebrating and you would like to share it with the class, email me to set something up. :o)

We will begin Unit 4 in FUNdations. This teaches us the bonus letter rule and the glued sound -all. We will search for examples of these in texts, spell words including these rules and have fun doing it!

I want to thank everyone for being so great and understanding while I was out this week. I appreciate your kind words and patience with the HW fiasco. You are all the best!

Holiday Scholastic

Today in your child's folder you will see *FOUR* Scholastic catalogs. I know many of you give books for the winter holidays as gifts. Scholastic does sell books on our students' levels at a reasonable cost. If any of the books you are purchasing this month are presents, please send me a note naming those books. I will send home these books in a sealed, "surprise" bag at the very end of the day so that students do not see them. :o) Please do not hesitate to ask if you have any questions or concerns.

I look forward to helping you with your holiday shopping!

Welcome

Thanks for stopping by our class blog! This website is something I can access from school, so please check the blog often for updates!

This week in school we will continue to talk about our bodies! We learned about bones last week, and this week we are diving into organs! Did you know our skin is the biggest organ in our body?

During Writer's Workshop, we are writing Small Moment stories. These are stories that focus on one tiny moment from a large idea (ex. Big Moment-School Trip; Small Moment-watching the video in the Little Theatre). This will help us to become better writers, making our stories more exciting! We will look to some of our favorite authors for guidance!

In Reader's Workshop we are beginning Unit 2. This unit will help us learn strategies to decode words. We are reading detectives! We will also identify story elements. Be sure to point out author, illustrator, characters, setting, etc. when you are reading at home!

**REMINDER: WEDNESDAY, 11/17, OUR CLASS WILL VISIT THE BOOK SALE!**