December 16

1. Class Christmas Party This Friday, December 16 you are all welcome to join us at our holiday party from 2:15-3:10. Thank you so much to Sra. Lieuwen and all of the other helpers for putting everything together! December 16 This past week we finished up our literacy assessments. We are in the process of analyzing the data which we will use this data to plan each student’s needs so we can differentiate their practice according to what they are working on. We wrote about our teacher and about what we saw in the classroom. It is to neat to see most students starting to sound words out independently! We worked on counting by 10’s, patterns of increasing difficulty, and simple addition. We focused on the letters “G” and “J”. We continue to work on writing letters and numbers appropriately. Don’t forget that the Handwriting Without Tears handwriting guide is available on our website so you can continue to work on this with your child at home as well. We continued working on holidays and senses, focusing on vision and touch while we learned a little about Hanukkah and Kwanzaa. We also made a special super secret project as a parent gift  This week we will work on the letters “ch”, and “y”. We will also finish up our study of senses and holidays by finishing up touch and Kwanzaa and talking about taste and Tres Reyes. We will be writing about things that we do to celebrate and drawing/labeling a story we make up with a beginning, middle, and end. We will continue to work on counting by 10’s, number recognition, and addition. We will also be talking about rhyming and practicing splitting words we hear up into syllables and individual sounds. We will also (hopefully!) finish up our December handprint paintings and have our class Christmas party on Friday! Friday’s Tragedy Most of us know of the horrible shootings in Connecticut and have heard many more details than we wish. While it is a situation that breaks my heart and hits especially close to home in a kindergarten classroom it is not something I plan to bring up or discuss with our little ones. However, I know that it is likely that students who do know about the situation will bring it up. While I don’t hear every conversation that goes on during the day, if I hear students discussing it I am planning to respond by saying that sometimes people do bad things, reminding them that we do lots of things to make sure that we are safe here at school and try to quash the conversation so that parents can address it with their children as they see appropriate at home. I wish you luck answering the questions and easing the worries that this topic may raise in your child and am so thankful that I don’t have to address with my own child yet as I can’t even wrap my own head around it. What a horrible horrible thing to have to figure out how to deal with with our kiddos... Gingerbread houses What fun! Thank you to everyone to came to help students build their gingerbread houses and for helping clean everything up afterwards!

2. Upcoming Events December 17-21 Personal Hygiene Product Drive for Sibley Elementary December 21 - Sibling Kindergarten Registration Ends December 24-January 6 – NO SCHOOL, Winter Break January 7 – School Resumes January 7 – Ada Vista Kindergarten Open Registration begins January 11 – Autoresjovenes Vocabulary Parade January 11 – PTO Board Meeting January 18 – Student Council Pajama Day January 18 – Ada Vista Kindergarten Open Registration ends January 24 – Ada Vista Ice Skating Party Homework Please make sure to continue working on your child’s homework each day with them. As a result of the literacy assessments we completed this week we are creating differentiated homework to make sure each child is practicing things at their level. Some students will continue practicing letter names and sounds. Others will begin working on syllables and/or sight words. Some will begin bringing home baggie books to practice reading daily. Your child may receive new homework this week or just after break. Instructions will be included with their homework in their backpack if it is different and I will post a homework page on the site with instructions as well. Please don’t hesitate to send me an e-mail if you have questions as well. On the note of e-mails…I just today found a few e-mails that I missed over a week ago. Please compose a new e-mail rather than respond to a mass e-mail that I send out as it is very difficult to keep track of all of the conversations listed under the same e-mail  If for some reason you don’t hear back from me within a day or two please send me a reminder e-mail! Personal Hygiene Drive for Sibley Elementary (our sister school in GRPS) Hygiene Product Drive for Sibley Elementary Sibley is our sister school in GRPS As you prepare for this week's holiday parties, would you consider adding an extra hygiene product to your shopping cart? We will be collecting soap, shampoo/conditioner, African American hair products, toothbrushes, toothpaste and children and youth size socks and underwear for our friends at Sibley Elementary. These donations will be used as incentives at Sibley’s winter conferences. The blue Sibley bins will be in the hallways the final week of school before break. Thank you in advance for your generosity and for fostering giving hearts in our children. Contact: Katie Silvernalekatentroy@hotmail.com or Sra. Widdiskwiddis@fhps.net