February 3rd Newsletter

Dear Parents and Guardians,

This week, we will continue our author study of Nicola Davies by taking a closer look at a few of her books.  We are going to begin making a class book in Community Writing that is in the same format as her books.  The students are then going to write their own narrative non-fiction book about an animal of their choice.  Additionally, they will be researching online using Pebble Go (which you can find on the IMC page), as well as finding facts in non-fiction books from the IMC.  They will begin to think about how to lay out their facts, their illustrations and their title.

In the beginning of the year, many of our students were going crazy for the Elephant and Piggie books (by Mo Willems) and we now are fascinated with Mercy Watson and Narwhal and Jelly books!  Many of these books are always checked out of the IMC by one of the first graders!  I just wanted to give you the title and author in case you wanted to check the public library or look on Amazon.  

In math this week we will...

• Review defining attributes of 2- and 3-dimensional shapes.
• Read Wholey-y Cow: Fractions Are Fun by Taryn Souders and Give Me Half by Stuart J. Murphy.
• Explore what happens when 2, 3 and 4 students have to share 1 pizza, as well as what happens when 4 and 8 students share 2 pizzas. 
• Play "Fraction Bingo"
• Have fun with 100th Day of School activities!

On Friday, we are celebrating the 100th day of school.  We will have fun exploring different activities using the number 100.  If your child is comfortable, please have them dress like they're 100 years old on Friday! :-)

A great resource for all subject areas is BrainPopJr.  From Thorson’s homepage, go to students and click on Destiny, then click on the link for BrainPopJr.  There are many videos and games that are fun and educational for the children!

Special Points of Interest

• February 7- 100th Day of School 
• February 10- Thorson's 50th Birthday Celebration/PTO Meeting (7:00 pm)
• February 14- Valentine's Day Activities/Box Top Turn in Day
• Thank you in advance to all of the parents who are donating food and items for our party!
• Scholastic book orders are due Friday, February 14th. You can go online to order www.scholastic.com/bookclub and type in the Online Code: JBVLX, or you can send the order form and money to school with your child.
• February 20- Parent-Teacher Conferences (teacher or parent request)
• February 21- No School- Professional Development