Weekly News

IMPORTANT DATES
•    Thursday, January 12th: 1MC family breakfast, 8-8:45 am
•    Monday, January 16th: Martin Luther King, Jr. Holiday. No School
•    Thursday, January 19th: Caldecott Night, Devotion Library

WEATHER
We will go outside for recess every afternoon unless it is raining, extremely icy, or below 18 degrees F. Please send your child to school with adequate winter gear. Extra layers, boots, snow pants, mittens, hats, scarves, and gloves make a world of difference on these chilly days. Also, this is the season for chapped lips and dry skin. Feel free to send your child with chapstick or lotion in their backpack to apply during the day.

Lastly, there has been lots of fluctuation with the temperature in our classroom. It can get very hot at times and then pretty chilly at other times. We have no control of the heat in our room. Mr. Silvestri is looking into this issue and is trying to help us find some consistency with the room temperature. In the meantime, your child may wish to bring an extra sweatshirt to school in case it gets chilly.

FAMILY BREAKFAST
We are planning a family breakfast for Thursday, January 12, 2012 from 8-8:45 am. Parents, grandparents, siblings, and other important family members or friends are invited. This will be an opportunity for your child to show you around our classroom room, read to you, and share their portfolios and journals with you.  The children are so proud of their work and our community. Hopefully, you’ll be able to join us. We will post a sign-up sheet soon for foods, drinks, and paper products.

BLOG
There have been some questions about the blog and access. I will retry to add families that are not currently receiving it. If you have trouble accessing it, or wish to be removed from the list, please let me know.

CALDECOTT NIGHT
Every year, Devotion School hosts an event to celebrate the Caldecott book awards. This national award is given out yearly to exceptional childrens’ books. In preparation for this competition, our librarian, Ms. McDonnell, makes all of the nominated books available to teachers. She coordinates the event in which Devotion families come to school, eat pizza, read the books, and vote for their favorites. We’ll tally the results and announce the Devotion winner around the same time that the National winner is announced. The event will be held on Thursday evening, January 19th (Details on the attached orange paper). Ms. McDonnell is also planning to make voting available to students that are not able to attend Caldecott night. We’ll keep you posted of that process. We have already read over 20 of the books up to win this award. Students have some favorites and are eager to read more!

COMMUNITY
This week we focused on getting back into our routines after vacation. Next week will talk about Marin Luther King and Civil right, focusing on his life and what her believed in (treating people fairly and equally). Following MLK day, we will begin our unit on China by studying Chinese New Year.

LITERACY
Thanks to the PTO we were able to purchase headphones and multiple headphone jacks for our Listening Center. Thank you also to the family of Lucas who donated a stereo to our classroom to complete the Listening Center. We are now able to offer children the choice of listening to books on tapes or CDs during literacy centers. This is a great experience for all levels of readers. Beginning readers can follow along as more challenging texts are read by fluent readers (sometimes even celebrities!). And stronger readers can practice reading along and reading with expression as they listen to the books. This is also an opportunity for children to really engage with the stories; since they don’t have to focus as intensely on figuring out words, they can think a little deeper about and make connections with the story.

We’ve also added a Buddy Reading Center, and a few more Literacy Games. As children are becoming more independent readers and workers, Stephanie and I are able to use even more time to work with small groups on specific reading and writing skills.

MATH
This week, we began exploring telling time to the half hour. We carefully watched the hands on the analog clog, noticing that it takes 60 minutes or an hour for the minute hand to move all the way around the clock. In this same amount of time, the hour hand moves from one number to the next (from 2 to 3). Similarly, we noticed that when the minute hand moves halfway around the clock (from 12 to 6), it covers 30 minutes. During this movement, the hour hand moves half-way between two numbers (from 2 to half-way between 2 and 3). We could call this time half past 2, or 2:30 since its 2 o’clock plus 30 minutes. This gets to be tricky to remember that its 2:30 and not 3:30, and to remember to look carefully at which hand is pointing to which number (long minute hand or short hour hand).

We will also continue to work with 10s and some more, breaking down larger numbers into groups of 10’s and ones, and practicing counting money including dimes.

SNACK
Please check in with your child about lunch and snack. Maybe it’s a growth spurt, or the weather, but many children are still feeling hungry after they have eaten their entire snack and/ or lunch. We are thrilled that the children are taking time to eat all of their food, rather than talking so much they forget to eat.

ASK YOUR CHILD…
These questions can be conversation starters to discuss the week in school.
•    What did you notice about the how the hands of the clock move?
•    What are some of your favorite Caldecott Contender books that we have read?
•    What new literacy center did you try this week?