Friday Newsletter

Hello Everyone! Just one more full week and one very short week until winter break! The students are super excited and full of holiday spirit. We had an eventful week. We had our first snow worthy of snow pants and boots, and we had teachers from the Putnam Museum come to teach the students an art lesson. The art lesson was about art in nature. The students learned about shape, texture, color, and line. They even got to make an origami frog that hops. You may see your child playing with it this weekend! The Putnam teacher gave each student a free pass to visit the museum. I took a look at it, and noticed that it expires on December 31st of this year. That does not leave very much time to make your visit, so I thought I'd point that out!

The "Five"
Now that we have had our first snow the students need to have 5 specific winter items in order to play off the blacktop. They will need a coat, gloves or mittens, a hat, snow pants, and boots. If students do not have one or more of the above mentioned items, they will not be permitted to leave the blacktop during either recess. This is a school wide rule. Please let me know if you have specific questions about this rule.

Pencils and Supplies
Please check with your child to see if he or she is running out of or missing school supplies.

Multiplication
Last Friday, we started to learn our sevens multiplication facts. At this point we have now learned the ones, tens, and sevens. Some of the students are really struggling to get the 25 facts done in one minute. I suggest making or purchasing some flashcards that your child can practice with. It is very important for the students to learn these facts as we have already started to learn division. As the students move forward in math, they will continue to use these basic multiplication facts on a daily basis. I have seen flashcards sold at Dollar Tree, Walgreens, Target, and Wal-Mart. If you do not want to purchase flashcards, you can also make them on note cards. You can print some free flash cards at the following website: http://multiplication.com/flashcards.htm

Gift Exchange
Please remember to send your child's gift for the gift exchange by Friday, December 16th. Do not hesitate to contact me with any questions or concerns.

The Week Ahead
English: We will continue learning about verbs.
Math: Next week we will learn to subtract 2, Use guess and check to solve problems, measure with cups, tablespoons, and teaspoons, read a recipe, write a part of a set as a fraction, subtract a multiple of 10 from a number using mental computation, estimate differences of two two-digit numbers, square numbers, identify perfect squares, find area of a square, and simplify expressions with exponents of 2.
Reading: My reading class will be reading a selection from Ramona Forever. We will also discuss prefixes and suffixes, decoding strategies, root words and suffixes, following directions, drawing conclusions, and literary forms.
Science: We will continue our unit about types of animals.
Social Studies: We will continue our unit about December celebrations.

Friday Newsletter

We had an exciting week! As mentioned last week, we were lucky enough to have Junior Achievement lessons all week. Mr. Seys made each lesson engaging for the students. They learned about how a city operates. Mr. Seys even put together a newspaper using articles that the students wrote during one of the lessons. These newspapers will go home with the students on Monday.

Bundle Up
As the temperature starts to drop, please make sure that your child is coming to school with a heavy coat, gloves or mittens, and a hat. The students have two outdoor recesses each day.

Gift Exchange
During the week of Thanksgiving, your child should have brought home a gift exchange note. This note should indicate the child that they will bring a gift for, and some ideas for gifts. These gifts should be brought to school by Friday, December 16th. It is important that each student brings a gift (no more than $5.00) so that no one is left out. If for some reason you cannot participate in this exchange, please privately let me know by sending a note or emailing me at bcalcott@orionschools.us. I will then make different arrangements with you.

The Week Ahead
English: We will continue our unit about verbs
Math: We will learn to estimate capacity, act out, draw pictures, and write number sentences for "equal-groups" stories, identify and draw lines of symmetry, write division problems in three ways, divide by 10, by 7, and by 1, and identify quotients.
Reading: My reading class will be reading a story called, Centerfield Ballhawk. We will also discuss sequencing, summarizing, compound words, drawing conclusions, following directions, and much more.
Social Studies: We will begin learning about different holiday celebrations.
Science: We will being learning about types of animals.

I hope everyone is having a wonderful weekend. Please feel free to e-mail me with any questions or concerns at bcalcott@orionschools.us.