Winter Holidays Celebration

Dear Parents/Guardians,

We are celebrating “Winter holidays” in our classroom with fun festivities before Winter Break! Each day, your child will participate in listening to a holiday “Read-Aloud” story and the following hand’s on activities:

Monday, December 14: “Paint a Snow-man or Snow-woman Day!” We will read, Snowmen At Night and make our own 3-D snowmen!

Tuesday, December 15: “Holiday Cards & Ornaments Day!” We will read, Silver Packages and make our own special packages for family members.

Wednesday, December 16: Polar Express Pajama Day! Students will come to school in their comfortable “PJ’s.” We will read, The Polar Express and watch the movie while sipping on delicious hot chocolate!)

*Bring your family to lunch today! We will have a pizza party in the classroom from 11:30-12:30 p.m. Please join us! $2.00 per person is required for those having pizza- including parents! Check the box at the bottom of this sheet to let us know if you or your child will be eating pizza so that we know how many boxes to pre-order!
We look forward to a fun filled last week and would appreciate your help in bringing in any of the following items. Please sign up for what you may be able to bring in by next Monday, December 7th. We will need all of the items in by Friday, December 11th.

___ 1 bag of small pretzel sticks (for the snowmen)
___ Juice boxes (at least 30)
___ Paper plates
___ Styrofoam cups (for the hot chocolate!)
___ Plastic spoons
___ 1 bag of mini marshmallows
___ Cookies (Any kind!)
___ Hot chocolate packets

Thanksgiving Feast

We had such a wonderful feast for Thanksgiving on Tuesday, November 24th! Thank you to all of our parents for sending in such amazing food and goodies. Also, thank you to those of you who came in to join us in the celebration. Hope everyone had a very Happy Thanksgiving holiday!

Halloween Photos

We had so much fun in our Halloween Book Character Parade. Students in our class dressed as various flying food items from the book, "Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs." We also decorated our pumpkin to resemble a gigantic meatball over spaghetti noodles in the literary pumpkin contest!

Tetrominos

We are beginning our new Math Investigations unit: Flips, Turns & Area this week! The first subject we learn about is tetrominos.

Students will find all possible arrangements of four squares, called tetrominoes by sliding, flipping and turning.

We will work with these ideas using paper cutouts and plastic math manipulatives on larger sized graph paper.

Being able to visualize how different shapes fit in space in an important geometric skill. It also has a lot of practical aspects. For example, think of how hard it is to get a couch up a stairway and into the living room- it's really a matter of slides, flips and turns!

Part of this unit is about discovering area as a measure of a flat surface. Look for opportunities at home to talk about area with your child. For example:

Do you have square tiles covering a floor or bathroom wall? How many squares are there? Suppose you make roll-out cookies with your child. This poses a problem of area: How can you place the cookie cutters so that you cover the most area, and have the least amount of dough leftover? Do you have to rotate the cookie cutter to get the best fit?

Have a good time exploring these ideas with your child!