It is hard to believe that we are down to the last two days before winter break! This month has flown by. This past week we focused on learning about Kwanzaa. Kwanzaa is a celebration that honors African heritage and begins on December 26 and lasts until January 1. We were fortunate to have Dr. Tehia Glass, from UNCC, come and speak to us this week about this time of wonderful celebration. Dr. Glass brought some special artifacts, that have been passed down in her family, that she uses to celebrate Kwanzaa and shared these with our class. She explained that there are seven days of Kwanzaa, and each day represents one of the core principals that they celebrate. These seven principals are unity, self-determination, collective work and responsibility, cooperative economics, purpose, creativity, and faith. Some of the artifacts, or symbols of Kwanzaa, she shared with us were a Mkeka, or mat, on which other symbols are placed. She showed us her Kinara (candle holder) which has three red candles, three green candles and one black candle in the middle. The black candle is used to light the other candles. One candle is lit each day during Kwanzaa. She also brought in corn and fruits and vegetables to show us, as corn is the primary symbol for both decoration and dining, and fruits and vegetables are grown or bought from a farmers market to represent African idealisms. She also brought her special unity cup to show us. The family drinks water out of this special cup to represent family unity and to give thanks. The greeting for each day of Kwanzaa is Habari Gani? which is Swahili for "How are you?"
In our centers this week we made a book about Kwanzaa. We have been talking about doing our best work when making books. We also have been practicing reading these books to a grown up when we are finished. Please have your child read his/her book to you when he/she brings it home. Have him/her point to the words as he/she reads. If you have a shoe box let your child decorate it and keep his/her special books that he/she makes in the box. Revisit these books frequently, as familiar rereads are a great way to help emergent readers. It builds confidence and fluency! Our cooking center this week was using red and green M & M's on pretzel rods to make a Kinara. Your child should have brought home the recipe for this. This is another great way to practice reading as well as following multi-step directions in a fun way. Next, we worked on our fine motor skills by beading Kwanza bracelets using red, green and black beads. We also created a Kwanzaa necklace using the symbols of Kwanzaa. See if your child can retell you about the many things they know about this holiday by using the pictures on the necklace as a guide. Our final center was creating a unity cup glyph. This was our first time creating a glyph and the students did really well with this. Students had to choose certain symbols to put on their cups based on questions they were asked. For example they had to put a zig zag line on their cup if they were a boy and a curvy line on their cup if they were a girl. They had to put a certain amount of dots on their cup to represent pets or no pets, etc. See if your child can explain their glyph to you when he/she brings it home.
Our reading lessons this week focused on using pictures to help us think about the story. I read the students the book Carl's Christmas. This is a wordless picture book. We discussed how even though this book had almost no words at all in it I could still read the story just by using the pictures. We talked about how even though right now we might not be able to read all the words in books we are all still readers because we can use the pictures to help us think about and read the story. We practiced this on our own during our readers workshop time. Students were given three sticky notes to find three places in the book where they used the pictures to help them read or figure out what was going on in the story. They did an EXCELLENT job with this! We then transferred this skill into our writers workshop time. We read a book called My House. In this book the little boy talks about all the rooms in his house. He shows all the many different things he does in his house by using pictures and he also adds labels to his pictures. We talked about how labels can help the reader better understand what a certain picture may be expressing. Ms. Joy came to our class last week to talk about the athletic field and asked us to draw pictures of any ideas we might have for our new facility. We drew pictures for her of this and added labels so that she would be able to know exactly what our ideas were. Some of our students have BIG plans for Ms. Joy! :) We also wrote thank you letters to Dr. Glass. We drew our favorite Kwanzaa symbols and labeled them for her as well.
In math this week we focused on greater than, less than and equal to. We played a game using five frames where students rolled a die. They had to place the number of cubes they rolled on the frame. Their partner then rolled and did the same. Partners had to determine who had the highest number and the lowest number. The highest number got all the cubes until one of the partners had all of the cubes. We also talked about good sportsmanship and how at the end of a game whether we win or we lose we shake hands and say, "good game." The students did very well with all of these concepts. Our book buddies also taught us a new math game using ten frames. It was called Race to the Top. Students rolled a die and recorded the number he/she rolled. The first number to get to the top of the grid was the winning number. Students had to determine which number he/she rolled the most and least amount of times.
Don't forget that we are making gingerbread houses on Tuesday at 1:00. All parents are invited to attend/help. We would love to have someone from each family attend so that each child will have someone to help them. However, if this is not possible it is totally fine, just let us know and we will gladly assist your child. Because it will be near the end of the day if you would like to take your child once we are finished you are welcome to do so. It is going to be great fun!
Upcoming Events:
Tuesday, December 19 @ 1:00 - Gingerbread Houses
December 20-January 2 - Winter Break
January 3 - Classes Resume, first day back from Winter Break
January 9 - Parent Advisory, 7:30
January 11 - Lottery Open House, 9:15 and 6:30
January 12 - CSD vs PLP home basketball game
January 15 - No School MLK Day
January 17 - Pancake Fundraiser at the Egg in Davidson 4pm -8pm
January 26 - No School, Teacher Workday
January 29 - No School, Teacher Workday
January 30 - 100th day of school, Lottery Open House, 9:15
Sunday, December 17, 2017
Saturday, December 9, 2017
Festival of Lights...
This week we "traveled" to Israel to learn about the origin of the celebration of Hanukah. Our new friend, Mrs. Jen Chaffman, who works at the high school, came to share about how she celebrates Hanukah. She brought her menorah and explained how there are eight nights of Hanukah. She told us the story about how long ago the Jewish people were fighting with the Greeks over a temple. During this fight they ran out of oil for their lamps. They found only enough oil to light their lamps for one night. The oil somehow lasted long enough for the lamp to burn for eight days and eight nights. That is why we light the menorah with nine candles for eight nights (the ninth is known as the shamash, or "head candle," and you use it to light the others.) She shared that often times people who celebrate Hanukah will eat foods fried in oil to represent the oil from the lamp. Latkas, or fried potato pancakes, are a favorite to eat during Hanukah with some applesauce (not syrup) on top! A favorite game played during Hanukah is the dreidel game. We learned how to play this game during our centers this week. We also each got to taste some yummy gelt (chocolate coins) that Ms. Jen brought us. Ms. Jen also brought along her guitar and we sang the dreidel song with her. This quickly became a class favorite! We also learned that the Israeli flag has an important Hanukah symbol on it, the Star of David. We used watercolors during centers to paint the Star of David, and we also talked about how many points were on the star, how many lines, how many small triangles and how many large triangles could be found on the star. We marked where Israel is on our classroom map. We decided that so far it is the furtherest country we have studied from the United States. We learned that Shalom is a way to say hello in Israel, that Israelis consume the most fruits and veggies in the world per person, and that bank notes in Israel have braille on them. We talked about what bank notes might be and also what braille is. We discovered that the signs outside of our bathrooms have braille on them, which is a way to help those who can't see be able to read. One of our favorite centers this week was "cooking" dreidels. We spread icing around the sides of a marshmallow and rolled them in blue sprinkles. Next we used the icing to stick a Hershey's kiss on top, and we put a pretzel on the other end. When you turn the marshmallow over and hold it by the pretzel it looks just like a dreidel. Each child brought home their own recipe in case you want to make these at home and to practice reading. Next week we "travel" to Africa to learn about Kwanzaa. We are very excited to have a guest speaker from UNCC on Wednesday morning come and share about this special holiday.
In math this week we used "menorah candles" (rods from the base ten blocks) to measure different items around the room. Student worked with partners to measure tables, rugs, books, pencils and chair legs to discover how long each item might be. They practiced making the "candles" touch each other to get an accurate measurement. We also used unifix cubes to estimate how many would fit on one of our menorah mats. We then filled the menorah with the cubes and practiced our one to one counting of objects. Our next center was Count the Room. We "hid" several gift tags with objects on them around the room. The students had to find these gift tags, count the objects and match them to the corresponding item on their recording sheet. Finally, we worked with blank calendars to create a December calendar. We put special stickers on the dates for St. Nicholas Day, Las Posadas, Hanukah and Christmas. We talked about what day of the week the first day of December was, as well as how many total days there were in December. Students wrote their own numbers on the calendar so that we could formatively assess how we are doing with our number writing into the teens and higher. We glued these calendars into our math notebooks that we will be sharing with you. We also played a listening game where students had to listen to how many times I rang the jingle bell and write that number on their white boards. They seemed to have great fun with this game. This worked on listening for a number, counting and number formation.
This week we added some more new words to our word wall. We added her, him, and, an and the. As you read to your child see if he/she can find these words in the books your are reading. We practiced building these words with letter tiles and writing them, we used word mats to build words out of play dough and then write them with a special Vis-a-V marker. A favorite this week was writing letters to Santa. I modeled for the students how we start a letter (just like Gobbles and Tinsel start their letters) and how we end them. We also talked about what we might want to say to Santa. We came up with a sentence we wanted to write and counted the words in the sentence. Next, as a class we practiced sounding out how to spell each word. Students helped be the "spacers" in between the words, because we noticed it is very difficult to read words when there are no spaces between them. We also decided that a list is a great way to write to Santa as well. Students wrote their letters and put them in a giant green Santa envelope for me to mail for them.
Addie was our Marvelous Me girl this week. We found out that Addie has three vowels and two consonants in her name. Her name starts with a vowel and ends with a vowel. She also has double letters in her name. How marvelous?! :)
Tinsel has been busy writing letters to us this week. He told us that many reindeer live in Canada. We found Canada on the map, and sure enough there was a picture of a reindeer as one of the symbols for Canada! He also shared with us that reindeer get their antlers when they are very young and their first set of antlers are called Rudolph antlers. We love finding out facts about reindeer, as well as seeing what Tinsel is learning from us in class!
This week we will go to the Laurels nursing home on Tuesday. This will be our first trip and I can't wait! The nursing home is one of my favorite places to visit. The residents get very excited to see us and they love spending time singing, playing games and doing crafts with us. If you would like to join us on this field trip we would love to have you! We will board the bus around 9:50 and are scheduled to be at the Laurels from 10:30-11:30. We will return to school around 12. If you would like to join us please let me know. Anyone is welcome and you may ride the bus if you would like. Please send me an email to let me know if you would like to join us and if you will be riding the bus or driving separately.
We will need milk cartons to make our gingerbread houses on the 19th. Mrs. Coppola has a friend who can get us most of these for our class. However, if you have any extra please send them in. They need to be the quart size or smaller. Also, we will need a parent to volunteer to help hot glue the graham crackers on so that we can get these ready for decorating. Once I get all the milk cartons from Mrs. Coppola I can let you all know, but we would LOVE any and all parents who want to help hot glue graham crackers to join us! :) This will make the decorating go much easier! If you are willing to help do this just send me an email and let me know. This is a job that we can send home with you if you would like.
Reminders:
We have had several children who have been sick this week. I know lots of germs are going around right now. Please remember that if your child has a fever or is throwing up he/she may not return to school until he/she has been fever free or not throwing up for at least 24 hours. This is very important, as we do not want anyone else in our classroom to get sick, especially during this very busy time of the year. Thank you in advance for your help with this.
Upcoming Events:
December 12 - Field Trip to the Laurels 10:00 am
December 19 - Making Gingerbread Houses 1:00
December 20-January 2 - Winter Break - No School
In math this week we used "menorah candles" (rods from the base ten blocks) to measure different items around the room. Student worked with partners to measure tables, rugs, books, pencils and chair legs to discover how long each item might be. They practiced making the "candles" touch each other to get an accurate measurement. We also used unifix cubes to estimate how many would fit on one of our menorah mats. We then filled the menorah with the cubes and practiced our one to one counting of objects. Our next center was Count the Room. We "hid" several gift tags with objects on them around the room. The students had to find these gift tags, count the objects and match them to the corresponding item on their recording sheet. Finally, we worked with blank calendars to create a December calendar. We put special stickers on the dates for St. Nicholas Day, Las Posadas, Hanukah and Christmas. We talked about what day of the week the first day of December was, as well as how many total days there were in December. Students wrote their own numbers on the calendar so that we could formatively assess how we are doing with our number writing into the teens and higher. We glued these calendars into our math notebooks that we will be sharing with you. We also played a listening game where students had to listen to how many times I rang the jingle bell and write that number on their white boards. They seemed to have great fun with this game. This worked on listening for a number, counting and number formation.
This week we added some more new words to our word wall. We added her, him, and, an and the. As you read to your child see if he/she can find these words in the books your are reading. We practiced building these words with letter tiles and writing them, we used word mats to build words out of play dough and then write them with a special Vis-a-V marker. A favorite this week was writing letters to Santa. I modeled for the students how we start a letter (just like Gobbles and Tinsel start their letters) and how we end them. We also talked about what we might want to say to Santa. We came up with a sentence we wanted to write and counted the words in the sentence. Next, as a class we practiced sounding out how to spell each word. Students helped be the "spacers" in between the words, because we noticed it is very difficult to read words when there are no spaces between them. We also decided that a list is a great way to write to Santa as well. Students wrote their letters and put them in a giant green Santa envelope for me to mail for them.
Addie was our Marvelous Me girl this week. We found out that Addie has three vowels and two consonants in her name. Her name starts with a vowel and ends with a vowel. She also has double letters in her name. How marvelous?! :)
Tinsel has been busy writing letters to us this week. He told us that many reindeer live in Canada. We found Canada on the map, and sure enough there was a picture of a reindeer as one of the symbols for Canada! He also shared with us that reindeer get their antlers when they are very young and their first set of antlers are called Rudolph antlers. We love finding out facts about reindeer, as well as seeing what Tinsel is learning from us in class!
This week we will go to the Laurels nursing home on Tuesday. This will be our first trip and I can't wait! The nursing home is one of my favorite places to visit. The residents get very excited to see us and they love spending time singing, playing games and doing crafts with us. If you would like to join us on this field trip we would love to have you! We will board the bus around 9:50 and are scheduled to be at the Laurels from 10:30-11:30. We will return to school around 12. If you would like to join us please let me know. Anyone is welcome and you may ride the bus if you would like. Please send me an email to let me know if you would like to join us and if you will be riding the bus or driving separately.
We will need milk cartons to make our gingerbread houses on the 19th. Mrs. Coppola has a friend who can get us most of these for our class. However, if you have any extra please send them in. They need to be the quart size or smaller. Also, we will need a parent to volunteer to help hot glue the graham crackers on so that we can get these ready for decorating. Once I get all the milk cartons from Mrs. Coppola I can let you all know, but we would LOVE any and all parents who want to help hot glue graham crackers to join us! :) This will make the decorating go much easier! If you are willing to help do this just send me an email and let me know. This is a job that we can send home with you if you would like.
Reminders:
We have had several children who have been sick this week. I know lots of germs are going around right now. Please remember that if your child has a fever or is throwing up he/she may not return to school until he/she has been fever free or not throwing up for at least 24 hours. This is very important, as we do not want anyone else in our classroom to get sick, especially during this very busy time of the year. Thank you in advance for your help with this.
Upcoming Events:
December 12 - Field Trip to the Laurels 10:00 am
December 19 - Making Gingerbread Houses 1:00
December 20-January 2 - Winter Break - No School
Saturday, December 2, 2017
Traditions Around the World...
What a busy week we have had as we kicked off our unit of study on Traditions Around the World. We began our "travels" in the Netherlands. We learned that on December 5th, St. Nicholas Day, children fill their klompens (wooden shoes) with hay and carrots as they wait for the arrival of Sinterklaas. Sinterklaas is a kind man, who wears a long red robe and tall hat that comes to a point. He rides on a white horse. The horse eats the hay and carrots from the children's shoes and in return Sinterklass fills their shoes with treats. We are very excited and hopeful that Sinterklass will be paying us a visit this week. During rest time we will place our shoes in the hall filled with carrots and hay and hope that when we are done with our rest time that our shoes will be filled with treats. To celebrate, we are going to have pajama day on Tuesday, December 5. Have your child come to school dressed in their favorite jammies for a day of fun! They will still need to wear their tennis shoes with their pj's. :) We also learned that children in the Netherlands bake a letter cake in the shape of the first letter of their name to eat during the St. Nicholas Day celebration. "Prestige Kerstdagen" is the holiday greeting in the Netherlands. Pine wreaths and glass ornaments are used to decorate during this time. I was excited to share with the students that when I was in college I did a study abroad and one of the places I studied in was the Netherlands. I had a pair of real wooden klompens and a glass ornament to show them that came from the Netherlands. They were excited to check these items out! :)
In our centers this week we made our own letter cakes. Students carefully shaped their bread dough into the first letter of their name. After their letter cake baked they got to spread on some butter and add some sugar sprinkles to make the sweet bread treat. We traced, cut out and decorated our own klompens and added some "hay and carrots" to the picture as well. Students practiced writing this new word on their pictures. They are hanging in the hall for you to see. We also made a book about the Netherlands, as well as a fancy hat that tells all about the things we learned on our "travels" to the Netherlands. Finally, we began talking about Las Posadas, the Mexican celebration. We made beautiful poinsettia ornaments to hang on our trees. Right now they are hanging on the board outside our classroom for all to enjoy!
Next week we will continue talking about Las Posadas. We have marked both Mexico and the Netherlands on our class map so that students may see where they are in relation to the United States and North Carolina. I have a beautiful art print to show the students by the Mexican artist, Diego Rivera. Rivera was known for his beautiful murals, so we will work to create a class mural in the style of Diego Rivera. We will also continue to sing Feliz Navidad, one of our new favorites, make a book about Las Posadas and string some Mexican pattern necklaces to celebrate this holiday. We will also introduce the celebration of Hanukkah. We will "travel" to Israel and learn about the origin of this special holiday. We will talk about some of the special symbols that are important to Jewish families. We will paint the Star of David and talk about the triangle shapes we see in it, learn the dreidel game and much, much more!
In math this week we continued playing one of our favorite games...Monster Squeeze. We played as a class, and each child also got to make their own game to take home and play with family and friends. Have your child play this game to work on number recognition, discussing where numbers fall on the number line, and are numbers higher or lower than the "secret number" you are trying to guess. Students also played roll and record, where they rolled two dice and counted and combined the number on each die to record the sum on their recording sheet. It was great fun to see which sum they rolled the most and which sum they rolled the least. We also played the domino parking lot game. Students used the dominoes to count the dots and combine them on each side of the domino to decide where they should "park" their domino on the parking lot sheet. They had lots of fun counting and adding the numbers to park their dominos in the right spot.
Our literacy centers had us writing words around the room. After we wrote them we practiced reading them to a grown up. We also made high frequency word ornaments to hang on our class tree.
Student had fun painting wooden letters and combining them to make new words they recognize. We added several new words to our word wall this week. We added: she, he, to, two, my, me, like and you. We will continue to add new words each week. Have your child look for these words when you are reading to them or see if there are places they can look for these words as they begin to become more familiar with how to read and spell them. Paige was our Marvelous Me girl this week. We discovered that she has a strong man "e" in her name that gives the /a/ in her name the courage to say its long vowel sound. We also talked about how exciting it is that the /g/ in Paige's name makes the /j/ sound. We discovered that /g/ has two sounds. Its most common is /g/ as in goat, but its second sound makes the /j/ sound like in Paige and giant. How marvelous is that?! :)
Finally, this week Gobbles, the turkey who had been leaving us notes and hiding in our classroom decided to sneak out and head back to the farm. We were sad to see him go, but are very excited because in one of his final notes he mentioned his good friend Tinsel may be paying our classroom a visit. We can not wait until Monday to see who and what Tinsel is! Many think he is an elf, others think he is Santa himself. Stay tuned to find out on Monday who Tinsel might be and what he or she might have to say to us! :) Have a wonderful week and a huge thanks to all of you for all the wonderful supplies you have been sending in for us to use to cook with and to help with our unit of study. We really appreciate all your help! One item that we are in need of is a new class basket to carry our PE equipment in when we go out on the field. The one that we had has seen better days. If anyone could send in a large basket (think laundry basket) we would greatly appreciate it!
Reminders:
-Don't forget to send in an extra set of clothes for your child if you haven't already.
-With the weather getting colder we have lots of jackets, mittens and hats at school. Make sure you label your child's items so that if they get lost we know who they belong to.
-Tuesday is Pajama Day!
Upcoming Events:
December 5 - Love and Logic Parenting Session 8:30 am
December 12 - Field Trip to the Laurels 10:00 am
December 19 - Making Gingerbread Houses 1:00
December 20-January 2 - Winter Break - No School
In our centers this week we made our own letter cakes. Students carefully shaped their bread dough into the first letter of their name. After their letter cake baked they got to spread on some butter and add some sugar sprinkles to make the sweet bread treat. We traced, cut out and decorated our own klompens and added some "hay and carrots" to the picture as well. Students practiced writing this new word on their pictures. They are hanging in the hall for you to see. We also made a book about the Netherlands, as well as a fancy hat that tells all about the things we learned on our "travels" to the Netherlands. Finally, we began talking about Las Posadas, the Mexican celebration. We made beautiful poinsettia ornaments to hang on our trees. Right now they are hanging on the board outside our classroom for all to enjoy!
Next week we will continue talking about Las Posadas. We have marked both Mexico and the Netherlands on our class map so that students may see where they are in relation to the United States and North Carolina. I have a beautiful art print to show the students by the Mexican artist, Diego Rivera. Rivera was known for his beautiful murals, so we will work to create a class mural in the style of Diego Rivera. We will also continue to sing Feliz Navidad, one of our new favorites, make a book about Las Posadas and string some Mexican pattern necklaces to celebrate this holiday. We will also introduce the celebration of Hanukkah. We will "travel" to Israel and learn about the origin of this special holiday. We will talk about some of the special symbols that are important to Jewish families. We will paint the Star of David and talk about the triangle shapes we see in it, learn the dreidel game and much, much more!
In math this week we continued playing one of our favorite games...Monster Squeeze. We played as a class, and each child also got to make their own game to take home and play with family and friends. Have your child play this game to work on number recognition, discussing where numbers fall on the number line, and are numbers higher or lower than the "secret number" you are trying to guess. Students also played roll and record, where they rolled two dice and counted and combined the number on each die to record the sum on their recording sheet. It was great fun to see which sum they rolled the most and which sum they rolled the least. We also played the domino parking lot game. Students used the dominoes to count the dots and combine them on each side of the domino to decide where they should "park" their domino on the parking lot sheet. They had lots of fun counting and adding the numbers to park their dominos in the right spot.
Our literacy centers had us writing words around the room. After we wrote them we practiced reading them to a grown up. We also made high frequency word ornaments to hang on our class tree.
Student had fun painting wooden letters and combining them to make new words they recognize. We added several new words to our word wall this week. We added: she, he, to, two, my, me, like and you. We will continue to add new words each week. Have your child look for these words when you are reading to them or see if there are places they can look for these words as they begin to become more familiar with how to read and spell them. Paige was our Marvelous Me girl this week. We discovered that she has a strong man "e" in her name that gives the /a/ in her name the courage to say its long vowel sound. We also talked about how exciting it is that the /g/ in Paige's name makes the /j/ sound. We discovered that /g/ has two sounds. Its most common is /g/ as in goat, but its second sound makes the /j/ sound like in Paige and giant. How marvelous is that?! :)
Finally, this week Gobbles, the turkey who had been leaving us notes and hiding in our classroom decided to sneak out and head back to the farm. We were sad to see him go, but are very excited because in one of his final notes he mentioned his good friend Tinsel may be paying our classroom a visit. We can not wait until Monday to see who and what Tinsel is! Many think he is an elf, others think he is Santa himself. Stay tuned to find out on Monday who Tinsel might be and what he or she might have to say to us! :) Have a wonderful week and a huge thanks to all of you for all the wonderful supplies you have been sending in for us to use to cook with and to help with our unit of study. We really appreciate all your help! One item that we are in need of is a new class basket to carry our PE equipment in when we go out on the field. The one that we had has seen better days. If anyone could send in a large basket (think laundry basket) we would greatly appreciate it!
Reminders:
-Don't forget to send in an extra set of clothes for your child if you haven't already.
-With the weather getting colder we have lots of jackets, mittens and hats at school. Make sure you label your child's items so that if they get lost we know who they belong to.
-Tuesday is Pajama Day!
Upcoming Events:
December 5 - Love and Logic Parenting Session 8:30 am
December 12 - Field Trip to the Laurels 10:00 am
December 19 - Making Gingerbread Houses 1:00
December 20-January 2 - Winter Break - No School
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