December 8th

Dear Parents,
On Thursday, December 18th will be constructing frames for gingerbread houses. We will be needing parents to help with building the frames of the houses from 1:15-3:00 in the wet area . This is EASY and done with graham crackers. On Friday, December 19th from 12:15 to 1:45 we will be having a gingerbread celebration to finish our study of the gingerbread man. I will need 6-10 parents to help. If you would be able to help our classroom on either day, please sign this form and return it to school.
We will be needing lots of goodies to decorate the houses. Please send any of the following items in with your child BY Tuesday, December 16th. We need the following:

Melt aways pretzels
M & Ms graham crackers
small candy canes small marshmallows
cereals red hots
skittles cereal (Trix, Chex, etc. )
White frosting (canned) red juice
peppermint candies large candy canes
jelly beans gumdrops
other ___________________

Please let me know if you can help.

This week's spelling paragraph is:

Gingerbread cookies can be very tricky! Gingerbread men and babies can be extremely sly as they are running very fast. They run and they run but nobody can ever catch them. These clever cookies can run away from people and animals like the devious fox and gently little old man and lady. Apparently, gingerbread cookies are resourceful.

We are reading, comparing, and contrasting versions of the gingerbread man until winter break. Students are recognizing and identifying the differences between versions. This obviously has a high interest for students during this season.

In math we continue to study place value in whole numbers and decimals. Please also be studying multiplication facts to 5. We are going to start timed tests in January. This is a good website to play multiplication baseball, a game we have played in class.

http://www.funbrain.com/math/index.html

Another site would be:

http://www.learningplanet.com/sam/sm/index.asp

December 1st

It's hard to believe, December is already here!

This week we are reading the story "Two Days In May". It is a story about deer that have made their way into a garden in the city. Please be looking for newspaper or articles about animals in the city and send them in with your child.

In math, we will be starting a unit on place value and decimals. A good math website to practice place value is http://www.mhschool.com/math/mathtoolchest/mtc_online/

Our spelling skill focus this week is homophones. Words that sound the same, but have different meanings. You will notice there are several words that have homophones like there / their, fair/fare, tail/tale, and horse/hoarse. This week's spelling paragraph is:

The Tale of The Fair Maiden

Once upon a time, there was a fair maiden named Ms. Brewer. She rode by herself across the kingdom on a fine horse named Alex. Everything seemed peaceful. Instantly, a cluster of children appeared out of nowhere and turned Ms. Brewer into a croaking toad. Unaware she was beneath his hoof, Alex squashed the croaking maiden ending the tale of this fair lady.
The End