I hope everyone had a peaceful and relaxing holiday. Everyone seems to have returned rejuvenated!

Today in your child's orange folder is a packet of math games that I collected from various resources. They vary in level of difficulty and skills, but hopefully there is at least one that will appeal to everyone.

We have begun our study of rocks and several children have brought in rocks to share. I have a large collection in the classroom, but children are welcome to bring in rocks of their own. If your child would like to keep the rocks please send them in a labeled bag.

As I mentioned previously, our next share will focus on 3-5 things that start with the same letter. One strategy for gathering these items is to think of one thing your child would really like to share and then fine a couple of other objects that start with the same letter. Two children shared today- see if your child remembers what letters these shares represented.

Today in your child's orange folder you will find his/her report card. I have included a rubric for language arts and math to give you a sense of the expectations for this trimester, and how these will change as we progress through the year. Hopefully this will be helpful as you look at your child's report card. I am looking forward to meeting with all of you next week!

We have been working on creating social stories as a class for various routines. I have been taking pictures of students modeling these routines and we are making them into class books. So far we have a completed book for sharing and a book in progress for quiet reading and playing board games. When the books are finished they serve as good reminders for appropriate behavior in specific situations and are also just fun to read.

For our next share I have asked everyone to bring in 3 items that start with the same letter. Children will have an opportunity to share their items and we will guess what letter they represent. I'll remind them again after the Thanksgiving break, but I thought some children might enjoy thinking about and gathering their items over the break.

Our next science unit, which we will be covering after Thanksgiving, focuses on rocks. I have many, many rocks, but if children happen to find an interesting or special rock that they would like to bring in for our study that would be great. I'm thinking the ground will soon be covered in snow and rock collecting will become a bit more challenging!

We are still having a lot of kindergarteners sign up for hot snack right at snack time and Kathi has been running out of snacks. If you're child will have hot snack regularly on a specific day, for instance every Tuesday, it is very helpful to know this. Otherwise if you could please email Kathi the day before to sign up that would be very helpful. The menu is always the same: Monday-cheese stick and fruit, Tuesday- bagel and cream cheese, Wednesday- cereal and milk, Thursday- egg burritos, and Friday- trail mix. Thank you!

In Writers Workshop we continue to work on writing stories with a beginning, middle, and end. Students are now working on writing their own sentences for their stories using sounds they hear. For example H and I wnt f a wk could represent Hannah and I went for a walk. I am also encouraging them to leave spaces between words and to number their pages. It is very exciting for me to be able to read some of what they are writing without having it read to me.

In math we have been working more extensively on patterns. We have been creating, extending, and identifying all kinds of patterns. We have also continued working on sorting and counting.

I will not be in school on Thursday. I am attending an all day workshop at the Flynn Theater called "Engaging Active Learners", with a focus on incorporating movement and drama throughout the curriculum. While I hate to be away from the classroom I have always been very impressed by offerings from the Flynn and believe this workshop will be very worthwhile.

Today in your child's orange folder there is a letter about accessing Power School to get information about your child's lunch account.

Please remember to sign up for a conference if you haven't done so already. The online scheduler should be working now!

I have been busily doing assessments in across academic areas for report cards!

Today in your child's orange folder there is a sheet with directions for scheduling parent conferences using the online scheduler, which actually opens tomorros. I am running my conferences on the afternoons/evenings of November 21st and 22nd starting at 12:00. When you access my schedule the 12:00-2:30 times say available, but have a red X. I'm not sure what the red X means but these times are open- please feel free to fill them up!

Today in your child's backpack you will find a shiny, new, laminated orange folder! This will take the place of the tattered blue folders. Inside there is a sign up form for the Thanksgiving lunch which takes place on Thursday, November 17th.

Please remember to schedule a conference for your child using the online scheduler, which opens tomorrow morning. I am holding conferences on the afternoons/evenings of November 21st and 22nd. If for some reason you can't make it on either of those days please let me know as soon as possible and we can try to find a different time.

Our class received many compliments on their performance this morning! Writing the song, learning the words, and practicing performing for an audience took a lot of effort on the part of students. They did a fantastic job!

As we are wrapping up our science unit on living and nonliving things we have been creating a game based on what we have learned. We have read a little bit about endangered species and discussed the hardships they face and what need is not being met for them to thrive. We have used this information to make cards for the game that move a player either forward or backwards depending on the situation. Everyone has been excited about this process and eager to actually play the game. Many students have also expressed an interest in creating their own games so this may be a future station!

Our tile bucket is nearly full. We will most likely have a small celebration on Tuesday for all of our acts of kindess and respect.

Today during Writers Workshop we took a few minutes to clean out our writing folders! They were getting very full. Everyone had a chance to look through their work, decide what they might like to keep for further work. The rest should be coming home today.

We have been very busy during the last few weeks. Some of the things we have been talking about/ working on include:

-measuring to determine whether objects are shorter or longer than 10 cubes

- sorting sets of objects

- showing numbers to 10 using math hands, and then showing the numbers a different way

(eg. showing 5 with 4 and 1 and then 5 and 0)

- counting the tiles in our kindness bucket which is up to 39 so far

- working on books about our families and things we like to do with them

- observing, drawing, and labeling corn and bean seeds as they begin to sprout

And practicing, practicing, practicing our song for our performance on Friday morning.

Assembly starts at 7:45. PLEASE MAKE SURE YOUR CHILD ARRIVES BY 7:40 ON FRIDAY!

The song is brief and your child will miss it if they are late.