T-1 News January 24-28, 2011

We had a great week! All of my boys were back and in great health. We also escaped the snow once again. Monday will be the 100th Day of School. I will bring the boys cookies, we will be reading 100 books (as a class), and making pictures out of 100 items. All of this will be done at school, so there is no need to worry about doing anything at home. Here is other stuff we have doing:

A PEEK AT THIS WEEK
This week we continued talking about proper nouns. We paid special attention to the nouns that name holidays. We also discussed the long e sound as we see it in -e, -ea, and -ee (ex.-me, seat, greet) and the inflections -s, -ed, and -ing and learned that if a word ends with y, we need to change it to an i before adding the new ending. We also took our first spelling test today. Our theme for this week was Art in newsprint. We are discussing different kinds of art and how it is not always something to hang on the wall. We also continued talking about our Character Trait, Confidence. We learned that being confident means believing in yourself and your abilities, no matter how hard the task might be. In Math we finished Unit 6. Our skills were numbers through 100; number words; and counting different ways. Our Unit 6 test was today, too. I also encourage you to keep practicing time and money at home.

LOOKING AHEAD
Next week, we will continue our 5-week unit on the different kinds of Art. In particular, the art of Map-making. We will also spend a good amount of time continuing to work on our writing skills. I am striving for the boys to be able to correctly write a five sentence paragraph by the spring, as well as make their fictional stories more exciting by adding multiple sentences full of detail. Also, if your child has anything he would like to share that goes a long with our weekly theme, then I encourage him to bring it in. In Language Arts, our weekly skills will be main ideas, following directions, the long vowel a sound as it heard in a-e words (ex. -make), and using I & me. Our spelling test will be on words that have the long a (-ade, -ake) spelling pattern. Our Word Wall words for the week are Earth, United States of America, Mississippi, Oxford, special. We will continue talking about our character trait, Confidence. In Math we will begin Chapter 1 in the next level of the Math series. Our skills for the week will be relate number and shapes:3, 4, 5, 6; partners and totals for #4; and break aparts of #'s 5 & 6.

UPCOMING DATES TO REMEMBER
Monday, January 31: 100th Day of School!!!!!! (and Davis & Jacob's Half-Birthday)
Tuesday-Thursday, February 1-3: Scholastic Book Fair
Friday, February 11: T-1 Valentines Day Party 1:30pm-2:45 pm
Monday, February 21: President's Day NO SCHOOL!!!!!
Monday, February 28: Ms. Sarah's maternity leave begins/ Ms. Carolyn Davis will begin subbing

If you have any questions, please feel free to email me or send me a note at any time. I will continue to check my email during my maternity leave, so please feel free to continue emailing me. If there is an immediate concern, emergency, or transportation change please call Stephanie at the front office, 234-2200. I hope you all have a wonderful weekend!