December 4th Newsletter

Dear Parents and Guardians,

This week we'll wrap up our "storyboard stories," by finishing our writing and our cover page.  The students will have an opportunity to read their stories to the class if they wish.  They are looking great and will be sent home sometime this week. 

Please remember, the stories your child comes home with will not perfect, there will be spelling mistakes, maybe punctuation or capitalization mistakes.  When I conference with students, one on one, with their writing, I choose one or two areas to focus on and work to lift their understanding in that area.  If we overwhelm them by pointing out every error, they will likely be turned off to writing and begin to think that writing is all about spelling and conventions, instead of sharing thoughts and ideas with others.  We will begin learning about how we share our opinions by writing book reviews next week!  That will be so much fun!  

In math this week we will continue working on the Commutative Property of addition (if 8+3=11, then 3+8=11), understand that there are a variety of combinations to make the same sum (5+2=6+1), understand the meaning of the equal symbol, and work with problems with unknown addends (3+__=6).

In science we will be learning about African animals and the habitats that they live in.  We will be integrating writing into science by writing about grasslands as well as writing animal reports on different African animals that we will be learning about.

Special Points of Interest

• Scholastic Book Orders are due next Friday, December 15th. Go to: www.scholastic.com/bookclubs Online Code:  JBVLK
• The Kapco's Kids 2 Kids toy drive lasts through this Friday, December 15th.  If you are able to, please bring in a new, unwrapped toy for the Toy Drive.
• Buy an ornament day is this Friday and hat day is next Friday, December 15th - donate a dollar to buy an ornament and/or wear a hat to show your support.