Maplewood SchoolNewsletter February 17, 2012
News From Room 113
Dear Families,
Wonderful things have been happening in our room. A big “thank you” to Jill, Chloe’s mom, who did an art literacy lesson introducing us to origami. Jill shared a great story done with origami characters. Students then learned to make an origami dog and a fan. We used our mini-study of Asian cultures and made a dragon on our fan, as this is the year of the dragon. Another “thank you” to Jill for bringing Chloe’s pet guinea pigs to school. She taught us about where guinea pigs originated, about their diet, characteristics of rodents, and let us hold either Buttercup or Caterpillar. We enjoyed their visit.
We are finishing up our Black American study. I want to thank Ally, Raechel’s mom, for coming in and presenting a wonderful lesson about color and how we all work together to make the world a beautiful place. Attached you will find the words to the book Ally shared, and a poem that went along with the lesson.
We are also finishing up a mini-study of the Asian cultures. We have read many Asian stories, learned about the Asian New Year, cooked and eaten rice together, and studied the giant panda found in China. We have our housekeeping center filled with many items you might find in a home in Asia.
In math, we are learning about 3D shapes and coins with our Number Corner work. The four main shapes we are focusing on are: sphere, cylinder, cube and cone. We are also talking about rectangular prisms, and pyramids. Please talk about these shapes and their attributes at home, compare them to each other and to 2D shapes.
We are also working with coins. At home you will want to have your child sort, identify, name and tell the value of these coins. You might have your child count a handful of coins, build numbers with coins (34 is three dimes and 4 pennies). A new math game is coming home today (if you came to math night you might already have this game!) It has students counting and trading coins. We are singing a song about coins and their values. We watched a short video of it on the Internet.
The students wanted me to give up the web address so you can check it out at home! http://www.onlinemathlearning.com/kindergarten-money.html
Our hundredth day of school will be on Monday, February 27. We will be doing several activities around 100!
We are very excited about our writing work. We have each written facts about 5 animals and are now in the process of publishing our first book. We are working on writing longer stories. Most students are very confident in writing independently. We are now working on writing a personal narrative.
If your child has been telling you we have been going to library on Thursdays and have had no computer lab the past two weeks, it is true. The 3-5 graders have been doing state testing so we loose one special a week and have our schedule changed a bit. We will do this again for two weeks in May. We will be back to our regular schedule next week.
If you did not have the opportunity to send back the envelope that your child’s report card came home in, please do so. I will use them again in April for the next report card.
Thank you to the continued support you give to us in class. We love having our parents and grandparents in to help. We could use a parent helper on Monday and Friday afternoons from 12-2. If this is a time that would work for you, please let me know and I will put you on our schedule.
Enjoy the long weekend.
Calendar
Feb. 20-No School
Feb. 24-Art Night
Feb. 27-Tree Lady will visit our class. 100th day of school!
March 2-Celebrate Dr. Seuss’s birthday-Fire Fighters from Station 18 will read to us 10-10:40/Nutrition Assembly 1:15-1:50
March 8-PTA meeting
March 21- Late Opening 9:50 am
March 26-30 Spring Break
April 13-No School
April 18-Late Opening 9:50
April 20 Report Cards come home
