I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday.  I spent time with my family in New Hampshire and had a couple of quiet days at home as well.  My own children were very appreciative of not having to get up quite so early!

Now that we are back in school we have been quite busy.  In math we are well into a unit on patterns and have been spending lots of time identifying, creating, and continuing various patterns.  This week we have worked on breaking patterns into their individual units (red, orange or AB).   We are also continuing our work with numbers, identifying, counting, representing and sequencing numbers greater than 10.  For many children moving from one decade to another is challenging (29 to 30 etc.)  To reinforce this skill we have been playing a game called POP that my son taught me.  We count a given sequence around the circle over and over, for example 18-23.  The last number is the POP number and that person gets to line up, get ready for lunch etc.  We keep playing until one or two students are left.  The children really enjoy this game and are getting good counting practice as well.  We have also been playing Rocket to practice sequencing numbers.  This game was included in the packet I sent home earlier in the year.  We began playing with a 12 sided die and have moved on to a 20 sided die, which is a bit more challenging.

I have started meeting with small groups during reading time.  I generally meet with four students at a time and the groups are flexible and constantly changing.  While I am meeting with groups the other children are quietly reading, either predictable books from their book bags or books from our classroom library.  We are continuing to work on sight words in a variety of ways:  spelling them with our bodies, writing them, finding them in the morning message or in songs or chants, and reading them on sight word rings.  I am amazed by the progress of this group.  They are extremely motivated!

In science we have continued to talk about rocks and so many children have brought in wonderful rocks to share, spurring more conversation.  Yesterday pairs of rocks were passed out to the class.  Each child drew his or her rock with as much detail as possible and chose three words to describe it.   They then took turns sharing their descriptions and trying to find the person who had the same rock.    Today we used clay to explore the ways that rocks are constantly changing.

Winter is here and we still go outside twice a day.  Please make sure your child comes with warm boots, jacket, hat and mittens every day. I also strongly encourage snow pants- the playground is much more fun when children are warm and dry.