This week is American Education Week and are celebrating by dressing up on:
Monday - wear your favorite sweatshirt
Wednesday - wear red/white/blue
Friday - wear black/gold

Hard to believe it is Sunday already and we will be back at school in just a few hours! Last week was such a great week. We may have a big class but we sure know how to have fun while working hard. Our class has been working so hard to finish our Class Alliteration Book. We are to the point now where we all share what we wrote about each specific person. Everyone will have their own page in our book. Once it is all said and done each kiddo will have a chance to take the book home so they can share it with you. They are so creative, it just makes you smile!

In Math we have been working hard at several new concepts. We have introduced and work with number grid patterns, counting by 3's, telling time to the half hour, adding and subtracting on the number line and frames and arrows. These skills are difficult and take awhile to master. We review our skills every morning before we begin our new lesson. This seems to help reinforce what we are learning before jumping into something new.

Guided Reading continues to be a success everyday. The best thing about GR is that I get to work with all of my students in a small group setting. I get to listen to each child read 1 on 1 every other day. I am working at redoing my schedule so I can possibly read with students more often than that...we will see! ;) I have seen A LOT of growth from each student. They work hard and are learning new strategies to reading each day. Somethings you can do at home to help with this is: practice the orange and purple word cards that have come home, listen to your child read each night, ask questions while they are reading: what happened on that page, who are the characters, what are they doing, what happened in the beginning, middle and end? etc. After your child has finished reading his/her book have him/her draw a picture of their favorite part and write a sentence to go with it.

Continue practicing your spelling words each night. The nightly practice has been paying off. 2 Fridays ago the whole class got 100% on their spelling tests!

Keep up the great work for Book-It, remember if you read 400 minutes each month and return your calendar you will get a pizza party in the classroom in April!

The KE Boosters have asked us to collect Box Tops and participate in a classroom contest. The classroom with the most Box Tops will get to have a cookie party! So keep the Box Tops coming! :) (You can print of papers from the Box Tops website, or clip them, count them and send them in a baggie...your choice!