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