Happy New Year!  I hope everyone had a wonderful vacation.  We have spent time reviewing and practicing expected behaviors as we ease back into routines.  This week we read and compared three different versions of The Mitten by Jan Brett, Jim Aylesworth, and Alvin Tresselt.  We talked about which version we liked best and practiced supporting our opinions with evidence from the text.  Many children preferred the version by Jim Aylesworth because they liked the colorful illustrations, while some preferred the version by Alvin Tresselt because of the unusual animals.  We retold and acted out the story several ways, using our nature name animals and today we spent the morning working on a project to go with the story.

In writing we began exploring informational text, working on All About books.  We talked about the importance of using facts (cats have four legs instead of cats are cute) and making sure all of our facts are about one topic.  Children have been writing about a variety of topics from jousting, to puffer fish, to the NHL.  Coming back after twelve days off takes a lot of energy for young children- I hope everyone has a restful weekend!