Dr. Seuss Week!!!

Good morning! I hope you all had a fantastic weekend! I don't know how you couldn't have with this wonderful weather. This is why we live in Florida! You should have received home a couple of pieces of important information on Friday. First, your child's third nine weeks progress report came home in the Homework Folder. Please sign and return this and I will send you back a copy. Also, you should have received a copy of our itinerary for the week. We are celebrating Dr. Seuss' 107th birthday!! We will have different activities every day this week. It should be a fun week as we explore many of Dr. Seuss' books and his style of writing.

We are having an influx of toys and balls brought to school for playground time. Please be aware that often times, the balls and frisbees end up on the roof of the school. We have no way of getting them down and I cannot be responsible for your child's toys if this happens. Unfortunately, I see many tears in this situation, but there is nothing I can do about it. Please explain this possibility to your child if you are going to allow them to bring these toys to school.

Thank you so much to those parents who have sent in much needed supplies for our classroom. They are so appreciated! It helps me tremendously not to have to pay out of pocket for all of it myself. We are also in need of number 2 pencils. They go so quickly! You were so kind to send in so many at the beginning of the school year, but we have almost completely depleted that supply.

Next Monday, you are invited to participate in music class with your child! Our music teacher, Ms. Dix, is doing some very exciting activities with them, and she would love for you to come and be a part of it. We have music from 10:30 - 11:00. If you are able to come, your child would love it!

The secret words for this week are The Cat in the Hat. Have a wonderful week, and as always, if you need anything or have any questions, please let me know!

Updates February 21st

Good evening! I hope all of you have enjoyed this glorious weekend! We could not have asked for better weather. I thank all of you who got your child's field trip money in on time. You should have received your receipt in your child's homework folder. I know it is tough to pay for two field trips at one time, but it saves so much hassle in the long run!

We are hoping for more wonderful weather this week. It is so nice when we are able to get outside in the afternoon to get the wiggles out! We will have PE on Wednesday and Art on Friday this week. Unfortunately, with having the day off today, we missed Music for this week.

We took a math quiz on Friday and I saw that some of the students are still trying to add or subtract too quickly. This causes them to make careless mistakes. Please talk to your child about the importance of slowing down and making sure to check their answers before moving on. It is not a race, and they are always given as much time as they need for a test or quiz.

Have a wonderful week and feel free to contact me if you have any questions or comments! The secret word for the week is Ralph. He is the main character in our read aloud, The Mouse and the Motorcycle!

Happy Valentine's Day!!

Good afternoon! Your child will probably tell you that I told them to just leave their planners at school today, and they would be correct! They had so much to carry with the Valentine's boxes and their backpacks and coats that I just told them to leave the planners. This means that you will not be able to write the secret word tonight. Just write it tomorrow night on Wednesday and it will count for their extra sticker. We had a great day today and everyone behaved well, so don't worry that you don't get to see their behavior grade for today. Thank you so much to Ms. Santos for bringing in some yummy cupcakes and to Mr. and Mrs. McDonald for sending in cookies. I sent all of the kiddoes home to you on a sugar high ;-) Tomorrow morning at 10:00, JSO will be bringing their police horses out to the school for a visit. I'm not sure yet whether we have the 10:00 or the 10:30 time slot. Also, please remember that Wednesday is an early dismissal day, so the students will get out at 1:30 instead of 2:45.

Thank you so much to all of you who sent in Valentine surprises for me! I appreciate so much that you thought of me!

We have a lot of distractions this week, but we will still be having our regular learning days. We will still have our spelling and story tests on Friday, so please be studying those words with your child! If your child did not know all of the high frequency words that were sent home on Friday, please study those with him/her also.

If any of you are out and about and feeling extra generous, we have a few needs for the classroom. We need Expo Dry Erase markers, copy paper, and white card-stock paper. I do appreciate anything you are able to send in! It is so helpful for the students to have the supplies to do some extra learning activities.

The secret word for this week is actually two words Harriet Tubman. We are studying African Americans who made a difference in the lives of many this month. Your child should be able to tell you what Harriet Tubman is famous for doing.

Have a fabulous week!

Updates 2/7/11

Good afternoon! I hope you are all having a fabulous weekend! We had a great week last week celebrating the 100th day of school and getting back into the swing of a five day week! I would like to thank all of you who sent in your ingredient to make our 100th day snack. We enjoyed so much seeing how 10 sets of 10 make 100 (and of course having a snack to eat at the end of the lesson didn't hurt either)! This week we will continue looking at the three different strategies to add to 18. These are doubles, doubles plus 1, and making 10. Some of the students are really having a hard time with this concept, so we will definitely continue to work on these strategies. The reading Selection Tests looked really good this week. I think they are finally getting the hang of "thinking" while reading so that they understand the story better. The Weekly Skills test was a struggle this week. No matter how many times I cautioned them to go back and make sure they have answered all of the questions, many of them still left some unanswered. Please discuss with your child the importance of checking over his/her work. I am including in my post this week, pictures of our science experiment. Our question was whether or not we could reach the center of a Tootsie Roll Pop with 100 licks. Our hypothesis was that we would not reach the center with 100 licks. Pictured is our "research". Our conclusion proved our hypothesis to be correct. Needless to say, they thoroughly enjoyed this experiment!!

The secret word for this week is hypothesis. Please ask your child to explain to you what a hypothesis is.