Week of January 7-11, 2013

Hello Room 4 Families!
It's hard to believe 2013 is almost here. Here's what we have going on in our classroom:

Important dates:
January 7: first day back at school
Wednesday, January 9: Open enrollment tour. If you know anyone interested in having their kids attend Phoebe Hearst next year, please encourage them to attend a tour!
January 21: Martin Luther King, Jr. Day; no school
Friday, January 25: Free dress day
Friday February 8: PTO family dance, 6-8 pm

Language Arts: We are continuing our unit on the wind this week. We have been turning over our classroom phonics cards and working on identifying orally, reading, and writing words with our target sound/letter for the day. This week we will work on d, m, s, p, and short a. The kids are doing a really good job with this. I am able to challenge them frequently with these lessons.
New sight word: at
At the end of this week we will begin working with verbs.
Our writing this week will be about new year's resolutions/goals for 2013.

Math: This week we will begin a chapter on numbers 11-20.
The kids will learn to recognize, count objects up to, and write numbers to 20. We will continue to review past concepts during Board Math.

Science: This week we will begin a life science unit on animals.

Centers time note: Beginning this week our centers time is going to be 40 minutes long rather than an hour as it has been since September. The kids will complete 3 centers each day Monday through Thursday, and we will not have centers time on Fridays. This will give us more time to work on our phonics and writing lessons, which are beginning to be very involved! A HUGE thank you to the parents who have volunteered their time since September during our centers time. If you would like to start volunteering during centers from 8:10-8:50, please let me know. I do have a few spots I would like to fill on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays.

THANK YOU, families for the generous Christmas gift you gave me! I appreciate your thoughtfulness, and I'm looking forward to doing some shopping during break. :)
Thank you, also, to those parents who helped out at our holiday party today. It would not have been possible without you! A special thank you to Carolyn Stallings and Jacqui DeBoo for organizing.

Enjoy your holiday everyone! See you in 2013!

Week of December 17-21, 2012

Hello Room 4 Families,
It's hard to believe this is the last week of school for 2012! Your kids have worked so hard and learned so much since September.

Here is what's happening this week:

Friday, December 21: Free dress day/Class holiday party.
If you would like to bring items for the holiday party, there is information in the back of the classroom.

Language Arts:
We started our Wind unit last week. We are reading and learning about the wind and its effects.
We will be focusing on the sounds of m, s, and d. The kids will be blending words with these sounds, listening for these sounds, and writing words with these sounds next week.
New sight words: can, what, and you.
Writing: we will finish our writing about how to dress a snowman, and do an opinion piece on a story we read.
We will continue to work on adjectives that describe the five senses and position words.

Math: This week we will review past concepts rather than begin a new unit right before vacation. We will review numbers 1-10, patterning, and sorting.

Thanks for all you do, parents!
If you have any questions please email me carrie-relles@scusd.edu

Week of December 10-14, 2012

Hello Room 4 Families!
We have been working away this month on becoming excellent writers and readers. Here is what is coming up next week:

Wednesday, December 12: Open Enrollment tours begin. These will be every Wednesday through February 6th at 9 am. If you have any family or friends interested in attending Phoebe Hearst next year please encourage them to attend a tour. They should meet in the office at 9am.

Friday, December 21: Free dress day. We will also have a small winter  party on this day after lunch (11:45). The kids will be decorating cookies, drinking hot chocolate, and listening to music. If you're interested in helping out with this, please contact Carolyn Stallings or Jacqui DeBoo.

Monday, December 24-Friday, January 4: No school

Language Arts:
This week we are finishing up our Finding Friends unit and beginning a unit called The Wind. If your kids want to bring in any books to share that go with this theme, they are welcome to do so.
This week we will begin focusing on specific sounds and spellings and turning over the alphabet cards to reveal pictures that go with the sounds. The kids have been looking forward to this. This week we will work on the /s/ sound and listening for it at the beginning and end of words.
We will be working on adjectives that describe senses (warm, sweet, sour, etc).
This week we will be writing informational text on how to dress a snowman. We will be using the words first, next, and last in our writing.
New sight words: on

Math: This week we will finish up our unit on graphing. The kids are having a good time with collecting data and putting it into a graph. Thank you for helping them with this on their homework. We will take our chapter tests on Thursday and Friday.

Thank you, parents, for all you do!
Enjoy your weekend and please contact me if you have any questions or concerns. carrie-relles@scusd.edu