Happy New Year!

Happy New Year and welcome back!  It has been a bit of a crazy week, but we have all survived!  With the weather as cold as it has been, we have had indoor recess.  The class has been so disappointed that we haven't been able to go outside and the snow.  :)

We had a great first semester!  All of the children have formed many friendships not only within our classroom but also between classrooms.  The children participate daily in free play activities, which encourage the development of friendships and social skills.

 One of the biggest gains this year for the children is the number of letters and beginning sounds they have learned.  It is exciting, as everyday I see the progress of the children in both their individual writing and group writing.  We write, as a class, on a daily basis.  This allows the children to practice letter formation, spacing, and sentence structure.  The children also practice their writing individually on a daily basis.  As a group, we work on a writing sample together. Then, the children get to practice the skills we discussed as a whole group independently. Finally, I have a chance to conference with each child individually to focus on the needs of each child.

We will continue to write stories daily, as this helps the children to develop writing skills, reading readiness skills, and letter sound recognition.  During our writing block, I have asked the children to write a story with at least 5 sentences now.  We have discussed how a story needs a beginning, a middle (the details), and an ending.  We will start to "publish" these stories as the semester goes along. You can help your child with his/her writing by talking with him/her each day about what he/she will write during writing workshop time.

            In Math, the children have become fantastic at copying and creating patterns.  We have also worked on shapes, number writing, counting, and graphing during the first semester.  During the second semester, the math classes will be working on measuring some more, time, money, and simple story problems during the rest of the year.  You can help your child with his/her number recognition skills and number writing skills by practicing them at home.

I have sent home our first report card.  Please know that it will be in an email and the sender will be Carmel Clay Schools.  If you do not see it in your inbox, please check your junk mail.  Sometimes it does get sent there.  If you do not receive it by Sunday, please email me and I will resend it to you.

Have a great "warm" weekend!