Weekly News: December 13

I was so sad to have missed the Winter Performance on Friday, but heard the kids did a WONDERFUL job singing Jingle Bells!!!

Thank you to the parents who stayed in class ALL DAY on Friday to work on Copy/Staple/Prep for next month! I am incredibly lucky to have such amazing parents!

I have really enjoyed reading the writing homework the past few weeks. Many of the kids are writing two sentences each day for homework AND in class! They are really coming along with details and sticking to one topic. Thank you very much for supporting your child with writing at home. It is really showing!

There is NO SCHOOL for two weeks due to Christmas vacation!!!! This is our last week together in 2010. I wish you all a wonderful Christmas and New Years and I will see you back at school on Tuesday, January 4, 2011!!!

Upcoming Events:

Wednesday, December 15th: SUPER SANTA SHOP for all ILCS kids to shop this year will take place 1:00-7:00 at the Bryant St. Campus!!!! Parents can bring little shoppers and enjoy a cup of coffee or cocoa while your kiddos shop with the help of the PTO elves! Don't miss this great opportunity!

Friday, December 17th: Our Kindergarten Christmas Centers & Pizza Party - Thank you for signing up to donate your time and items for this special event!! We are still collecting $2 per student for the pizza party - if you are able to contribute, please send this donation to school in your child's GO folder. Thank you!

What Are We Learning This Week??:

Sight Words: ABOUT, THAT, WHAT, WANT, WAS.

Letter Team: ED (We are learning that tricky Mr. ED goes at the end of the word to tell us that something has already happened - making the word past tense. Mr. ED is tricky because sometimes he makes the "T" sound - like in LOOKED, and sometimes he makes the "D" sound - like in PLAYED).

Leadership Theme of the Month: SELF-CONTROL. We will also be discussing GENEROSITY in our classroom and how we can give to others and show our generosity during the holiday season.

Reading: I hope you enjoyed your first of many "Parent Education Newsletters" about reading comprehension. The kids have learned that schema is "what we know" and we have started applying this to our reading. This week we will continue to learn all about text-to-self connections and how to use our scheme before, during, and after our reading.. This week, we will also read books about the holidays, Santa, generosity, and our poem of the week, "Santa Clause is Coming to Town".

Writing: We are continuing to work on our "Writer's Checklist" - a list of things that all good writers do, such as proper punctuation, uppercases at the beginning of a sentence and name, finger spaces between each word, spelling word wall words correctly, adding details, making sure our writing makes sense, and trying our best! We will read this checklist everyday to make sure we are applying each of those skills in our writing.

Math: The students have been doing well with the MATH TIMED TESTS. Students are timed on addition skills and move up levels at their own pace. Some of our friends are already on +3!!!  We will continue to practice addition "DOUBLES" in our fun DOUBLES SONG. My goal for all students is to memorize all the doubles facts. Please work on basic addition (stories!) and doubles at home. Please also continue to reinforce LEFT and RIGHT with your child.