WE WON!!

We won the food drive sponsored by the high school student council. Our class brought in 220 food items. Thank you so much for your participation. We will have our party on January 7th. I will get the details to you when we all get them worked out.

The First AR Shirt

Congratulations to Addie for earning the first AR shirt of this school year. She passed 50 AR tests to earn this. I hope this is just the first of many. Last year 20/22 earned them and I gave away 17 watches. It is GREAT reading practice.

Week 17

We are taking a week off from the reading series. We will still be reading but using other materials this week. I love this time of year so we will be doing activities that go along with the season.

Our party will be Friday morning at 9:00. Since it is an early release day we will need to do it early. Hopefully this will allow some clean up time so the room will be ready to back to in the new year.

Questions of the Week

Monday - What do you want Santa to bring you for Christmas?

Tuesday - If you could only have one gift, what would it be?

Wednesday - What should Santa bring me for Christmas?

Thursday - What would you like to get your family for Christmas?

Friday - MERRY CHRISTMAS AND HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

We seem to be getting the hang of spelling on the computer. It is different than having someone give you the test orally. The hardest part is getting some of the kids to go to the computer to take a test. They are getting better at that also.

Reading Fluency seemed to be the hardest part for us on the DIBELS test. This will be the emphasis for the next semester. It is going to take lots of practice to bring those score up. The benchmark for December was 20 words per minute on unseen text. In May the benchmark is 40 words per minute. This is going to require some hard work on all of our parts.

Please have Santa bring new glue sticks. They are wonderful but they sure don't last very long. I bought 100 before school started and we only have a few left. Guess next year I'd better buy at least 200.

I am making a classroom wish list: Glue sticks, dry erase markers, cheap paper plates both large and small, paper cups, another Candy Land game, and anything else you think might be useful.

I will not be sending homework over the holiday. It would really be helpful if you child read some over the vacation. I am not sending reading books because sometimes they get left at grandma's, etc. Just use any books you have at home.

Have a happy and safe holiday season. See you in the new year.

Week 16

This week's story is a biography called "Tomas Rivera." Tomas was a young boy who picked crops with his family. He developed a love for reading and writing. He grew up to be an author and a teacher. The phonics sounds we will be working with this week are qu and wh. The wh sound is particularly hard because the kids don't really say wh anymore. They replace it with the sound of just w. This story also seems to be the story that takes us into a whole new reading level. It will get way more difficult from here on out. The new vocabulary words are:

about

books

by

family

grew

read

work

writing

In math we will continue working with the facts of 10 and learning them to automaticity. We will also be learning about place value. We will be doing ones and tens.

Questions of the Week

Monday - Tell me 5 things you see that let you know that Christmas is coming.

Tuesday - Tell me 5 things you hear that let you know that Christmas is coming.

Wednesday - Tell me 5 things you taste that let you know that Christmas is coming.

Thursday - Tell me 5 things you smell that let you know that Christmas is coming.

Friday - Tell me 5 things you touch that let you know that Christmas is coming.

Is anyone willing to contact parents to organize the Christmas party. I have a craft and a game. I will need paper goods and food. It will be in the morning on the 17th. Seems like donuts and hot chocolate might be a good thing. Also can someone do tree shaped sugar cookies that the kids can decorate??? I even have a cutter if someone will do them. We would need green frosting also. I have all kinds of sprinkles, etc. to decorate them.

Have a great week.