Welcome Back!

Hello!

I hope everyone had a safe and relaxing break. I enjoyed my time with my family but missed your little munchkins so much!

We have have kicked off our unit on holiday traditions around the world by studying Hanukkah and Sinterklaas. Each child should come home with Dreidel rules, a Star of David, a Latkes recipie and a Klompen picture (shoes similar to clogs that people of the Netherlands wear). They should also come home with lots of knew knowledge about different traditions!

Sinterklaas is from the Netherlands and is very similar to Santa Clause. He rides a horse and delivers candy to all the shoes of little kids on December 6th. Hopefully he visits us tomorrow! :) Kids leave hay and carrots for his horse with the hopes that Sinterklaas will leave them candy! Don't forget to wear pajamas tomorrow!

The upcoming traditions we are studying are Christmas and Las Posadas.

Math:
We started a new unit this week. We started learning about measurement! We are learning about non standard measurement. This means we are measuring with different objects rather than rulers, yard sticks and tape measurers. We measured with our bodies, with giant feet and tons of other objects around the room! We measured small things like pencils and large things like paper cut the size of a dinosaur! Measuring at home is easy. Pick the item you want to measure with and the item you want to measure and get going! We also compared several different items and compared measuring the same item with a different measuring tool.

Literacy:
We started a new unit in writer's workshop this week. We started our patterned writing unit. Patterned books are very popular in kindergarten so this topic was easier than we thought! We kicked off our unit by making our own class book version of "Mary Wore Her Red Dress." This was a book we read at the beginning of the year! It is a great book that helps us understand patterned writing.

We are adding a new site word to our word ring tomorrow. The word is do! Look for this word this weekend!

We also started our unit on rhyming. It is so much fun! We have played rhyming games, looked for rhymes in our own books and plan to read lots of Dr. Seuss! Rhyming games are super great for the car. You say a word and then your child has to come up with a word that rhymes. Then you switch! They say a word and then you have to come up with something that rhymes.

**We will be reading The Polar Express book next Friday the 13th...so of course we need to be in our jammies again! We will be having another pajama day next Friday. We will also be drinking hot cocoa with marshmallows. I apologize in advance for any craziness you may experience that afternoon! :)

**The sign up genius for next week was already sent out last week. I am sorry for the formatting issues.  It looks like we have a couple people set up to go to the park. Yahoo!

**Latkes were a HUGE hit today! Thanks to everyone who sent items in so we could pull this off. We definitely want to start cooking more. The kids had so much fun!

**December 17th is our first field trip! We will be going to the nursing home. We will definitely need a few parent volunteers. That sign up genius will go out next week. I just wanted you to have a heads up!

Hugs,
Mrs. Schultz