Oh! My Goodness!

WOW!! What can I say? You are all the most phenomenal group of parents to work with, I consider myself to be truly blessed! One of my favorite things to do when I am not at school is to get into my kitchen and cook with my children. The gift you have given me will make that even better (Makayla loves the orange). I have even decorated my kitchen to match this line, so it is a perfect fit into my household. As this is a wonderful gift, I hope that you all know that my true present is that I get to come here and work with your little miracles every day. They continually amaze me, and I am so honored to be able to call you all part of our classroom family.

Our New Math Explorations!

We have new math games! Yay! First of all, a GREAT big thanks to Mrs. Mathy and Mrs. Szymusiak for getting the games for us! We received a total of 6 new games, and I introduced 3 of them today.

The first picture is one called Shapes and Shapes and is used to recreate pictures using puzzle pieces.

Our second game is called Pete's Pike , and is a strategy game where you are trying to get the mountain climber to the top of the mountain by knocking off the goats.

The last game I introduced today was called Hoppers, and it is a strategy game where you have the frogs "hop" over each other to knock them out (like in checkers). The goal of the game is to have the red frog be the last one on the board.

We will introduce the other new games next week, and I know the kids are thrilled because I am! There is nothing like new games in our room!!

Oh, Bring Us Some Figgy Pudding

So, we completed our reading of Fig Pudding by Ralph Fletcher. What an amazing story! This story is one that is filled with the ups and downs of a family's life, and how they go through a healing process. The family's holiday traditions are based around the making of fig pudding, and this tradition eventually leads the family to healing. So, today the class got the chance to taste fig in the form of Fig Newtons. We then used words and phrases that described what we thought. Here are a few responses:

-It was heaven!

-Yuck! I didn't like it!

-It tastes amazing.

-Sugary

-Sweet

Signs of Celebration Assembly

Today, we were very lucky to have a choir come to visit us who preforms thier songs in sign language. It was absolutely beautiful! I just wanted to share a little bit of their holiday cheer with you! Enjoy!

We WON A Pizza Party!

Thank you so much to all of the families in our class who have been going to CiCi's for family night! Because our turnout from our room was so high, we have WON a class pizza party! Yay! We are going to step it up a notch and ask any parents who would like to send in extra "yummies" such as juice bags, chips, dessert, etc., can do so. Our party is scheduled for Friday at 11:30, so don't worry about sending your child in with lunch (unless they don't want pizza). What a great way to start our weekend!

Regrouping in Subtraction

We have stared topic 9, which focuses on regrouping in subtraction of 2-digit numbers. We brought out our "trusty" workmats to be able to create a physical representation of the steps in our problem. The kiddos are still struggling a little with this concept, but yesterday was our first day so I know we will have a lot of "ah-ha" moments in the days to come!

Letter Writing

We have started learning about friendly letters! What fun! To introduce the students to this new topic, I have taught them a song that they can sing.

I Know What's in a Letter (sung to "The more we get together")

I know what's in a letter,

a letter, a letter.

I know what's in a letter.

It's easy to write.

You start with the date.

And then comes the greeting.

The body and the closing

are the last things you write.

Acrostic Fun!

We have taken a look at acrostic poetry in our classroom, but this time, we are trying to view it from a different angle. In the past, we have written a one or two word phrase on each line to describe our subject. Now, we are transitioning to writing a phrase or sentence, which is a little bit trickier. We started by working with our name, which is typically a very easy subject for us to write about. They really seemed to have a great deal of fun with this! I can't wait to see the finished products!