ANNOUNCEMENTS and little things...

Parents...tomorrow night is the SCHOOL play! Wahoo! Have your child dressed and fed and dropped off at the Alta school by 6:15pm. We will take care of the rest. Entertainment will be provided beginning at 6:45 by Mr. Starks and other students. 

Have your child wear their pajamas to school on Wednesday for MOVIE MORNING. Please make sure they wear warm socks because at 1:15 we are headed out into the elements on a sleigh guided by Meredith Wilson and his team of horses. Please keep this part a secret as I haven't told the kids yet! I am so excited to do this with them. 

I hope that everyone has a wonderful Holiday break with their family. I am looking forward to the time off to spend with little Whitty, Jordy and my parents.

'tis the season!!!!
falalalalalala-Mrs. Griffin

Welcome Winter! We've been waiting!!!

Room happenings...

Last week we celebrated Ms. Vancie's birthday! Mrs. Beard made the whole school cupcakes.

Happy Birthday Ms. Vancie

ARE YOU WONDERING ABOUT this week?

It will not be your typical week at the Alta School. We are in FULL blown play practice mode. We practice everyday and by Friday we might even practice twice. Whoa!

This week in Reading we will be reviewing the things we have learned...
Letters: M,A,T,S,P,C
Snap words: am,a,I,is,little,like,my,the,to,we...student names...colors...easy decodables: pan, mat, Tam..etc.
We will be learning three new spelling games: BANG! Word WALL rockstar! and SPARKLE!
How to help at home: Make index cards with snap words on them and decodables and play a matching game...or just learn to read them!
Some new skills to use when reading....IF I GET STUCK...
Accuracy-Use the beginning and ending sounds
Accuracy-Do the words and pictures match?
Accuarcy-Skip the word then come back.
Accuracy-Trade a word/Guess a word that makes sense
Comprehension-Back up and reread!
Comprehension-CROSS checking: Does it look right? Does it sound right? Does it make sense?

We have pretty much finished our first "ALL about" book and will be celebrating with the BIG roomers as our Thursday guests! We can't wait to read to them and have cake and candy canes! Wahoo!

Kids were introduced to their FREE writing journals two weeks ago and they have enjoyed coming in and writing in them to share their weekends. Sometimes there is a prompt on the board for them to follow and sometimes it's all student lead. I am excited about them writing words, sentences and even filling whole pages!

Yesterday we made REINDEER puppets...it's the little things right? I had made little reindeer cookies at home and brought them in for the kids. They seemed to enjoy that surprise.

We are working on some surprises for you that may come home this Friday or next week wrapped. Please stick it under the tree...

SPEAKING of FRIDAY...Kindergarten will be having TACKY CHRISTMAS day! WEar all of you Christmas stuff...mix and match...have fun getting dressed...and please mark down that next Wednesday we wear our pajamas to school. It's the day after the play...kids are tired (exhausted) and we also have a VERY SPECIAL surprise planned! At 1:15 I have arranged for a horse drawn sleigh to pick us up outside the Alta School. The kids have no idea. We will have a hot cocoa bar with sugar cookies...and load up the sleigh to go caroling around Targhee town! Please keep it a secret!!!

We have a full sleigh of kids and volunteers. Even my parents are going to join us!

Back on this week and the tiny bit of next...we will be REVIEWING....CRAFTING...CREATING...WRITING...PRINTING...celebrating...practicing...and REPEATING all the above....maybe...just maybe...there might be a CHRISTMAS movie!!! Maybe!?!

WE have been reading a bunch! Reading to someone is so fun! 

Cross checking to make meaning out of the text.

EEKK! Elbow...Elbow...knee to knee!

Little love bugs after tootie fruiti pattern necklas

Walking in a winter wonderland!

Oh man! I am in our classroom 2 days this week! I didn't really plan on it going like that...but...it is. Tuesday and Wednesday I will be Curriculum mapping in Jackson for Kindergarten. Friday I am taking a personal day to head to Lander, Wyoming. Our great friends live there and we are off for a little visit!

Back in the classroom during reading:
We will be reading Bear snores on. Monday we will begin to focus on plot and predictions as a whole group and as I read.
Kids are starting to get stuck more often during independent time while reading. This week we will continue to focus on what to do when a reader gets stuck. We will be using the HANDY reading strategies! I sent this home with you during your parent/teacher conference. I hope it comes in handy at home too. :)
See the family times for more information.

During Writing we will continue on our EXPERT book. Kids are wrapping up their first book. We learned all about making spaces when we write last week. We are trying to make spaces between our words every time we write. You can help your child at home with this too by reminding them of the 2 finger rule or making a spaceman like we did. We just decorated a tongue depresser with a little guy and our name and called it spaceman. He reminds us to make spaces when we write!
We will read ANIMAL babies during writing again this week. We will begin to brainstorm a list of what our EXPERT book has to have.
Things like:
titles, bold words, table of contents, labels, pictures...
We will review NONfiction and it's features. I hope to be publishing by this week or next. That will leave our PUBLISHING party before Christmas. The Kindergartners have invited the BIG roomers to this one. They are so excited about it!

During math we are...
Continuing to work in our NEW math books. Kids are pumped about a MATH book! We have just started writing our numbers. Kids are practicing estimating every other day. They are getting better at being educated guessers. Try this at home too. It's fun!
Review Roll and record where we practice our number counting and writing
You should be counting at home by: 1's, 5's, 10's and 2's and even backwards from 10.
Learning something new: THE PAN BALANCE (comparing weights of objects)
Domino concentration game
Monster squeeze

Other news:

Christmas play practice is underway. Last week we had SONG practice everyday, but this week we actually start to tackle the play. Kindergarten is only involved on Wednesday. As it gets closer we go to practice more, but for this week...just once.

I had my formal observation last Thursday with Mrs. P in our classroom. I was so excited to get observed....yet really NERVOUS too. It was the first time in 3 years since I had been observed. It went really well...I think. I will let you know if they will be asking me to leave anytime soon. :)

Happy DECEMBER!!!

Mrs. G