What an exciting week it has been! Both last week and this week we have been studying the life of Johnny Appleseed and have been studying the life cycle of an apple and all the fun things you can do with apples. On Monday we made homemade applesauce. It was the most delicious smell in the entire world! Everyone had a lovely afternoon snack and all seemed to like the applesauce. Thank you a million times over for the gracious donations of apples you sent our way.

We have also began practicing writing and reading short "i" words. Yesterday we filled the white board as we brainstormed words that contained the short "i" sound. In the coming weeks we will continue to study all of the short vowel sounds. It won't be long before we are practicing long vowels!

We also have jumped with both feet into our Literacy Centers. I have the class split up into 6 different reading groups based on their reading levels. This way I can differentiate my instruction with each group. Your child meets with me 3 times a week to work on reading strategies, skills and high frequency words. All of our centers revolve around becoming the best readers possible. You too can have games at your house that will continue to improve your childs reading skills. Childhood games such as Candyland, Chutes and Laddars, Go Fish and Memory are all great games to help master high frequency words. If you are interested in more instruction with this please do note hesitate to send me an email. I will gladly provide word cards to play with.

In Math we took the big leap into counting pennies today. I must say the whole class caught on very quickly! Money is something that we will practice ALL year long! Any practice at home that you do will greatly help your son or daughter in the classroom. We start with pennies, add in nickels, then combine pennies and nickels. It is an intense process, but I have no doubt that our class will excel all year long.