Happy Christmas All and to All a Good Night!!

Dear Parents,

We are down to the last 4 days before Christmas Break!!  I know that everybody has busy households as we finish all our Christmas preparations, yet stay caught up with our day to day activities.  Easier said than done--but try very hard to enjoy some peace within this busy time of year.

Math
In Math our unit on money continued with adding money amounts up to $10.00 using several strategies.  We used number bonds, a counting on strategy, and the partial sum strategy to help us add money amounts.  Having multiple strategies helps students with their number sense and allows them to pick a strategy that is a "good fit" for them.

We also tackled some word problems that included adding money amounts.  Word problems can be a bit challenging for students.  We are working hard to look at what the word problems are really wants as an answer--the whole or the part.

Since this week will be busy with assessing students, Mrs. Neal and myself have decided not assign homework.  Enjoy a week free of Math homework:)

Writing
Students are completing their final drafts of their informational pieces about the Pilgrims and Wampanoags.  I was hoping to complete this last week but we were not so it is pushing into this week.
We also spent some time reviewing letter writing.  We wrote a letters to Santa Claus and we are hoping that he will have time to write back to us.

Language Arts
Our focus in Language Arts was contractions.  We discussed how contractions are 2 words put together with some letters replaced by an apostrophe.  We listed some contractions on a tree map.  Our work with contractions will continue this week.

Projects
Although students shared their projects last week.  We will continue to edit and revise projects so I can take a final grade on them this week.  When we come back from vacation in January; our projects will focus on the area of Science.

As the 2nd quarter and calender year comes to an end; I wish all of you a peaceful and relaxing holiday season and a new year filled with joy!!

Sincerely,
Anne Bloomfield

Here's some information from Mrs. Jackson...

December 15-18

What a delightful time of year!  It’s such a balance between checking off our holiday lists and enjoying the season.  

This week in Reading, we continue to finish our report card assessments. Many of these require me to work individually with each student, so students will be spending some time this week working independently on activities connected to some holiday read-alouds, illustrating non-fiction mini-books about reindeer, writing about reindeer and reviewing some of the concepts they've seen throughout the year with a variety of activities.

There will be no new Spelling list this week.  I will be sending home last week’s Spelling test tomorrow.  We are a becoming much better spellers as we continue to work on Word Families.  I appreciate how much time some of you spend on Spelling throughout the week.  That practice has really been making a difference with some of the more difficult words.  

Have a wonderful vacation.  It is such a magical time for children. I hope it is for you as well.

Thank you for a fabulous fall!

Kristen Jackson