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.
