Thoughts

As I sit here trying to put words on this blog to tell you about what is happening in our classroom I struggle.  The events that happened at Sandy Hook Elementary School are _________________.  I can not find the correct words.  My thoughts and prayers are with those families and staff that are personally dealing with this tragedy.

Have you heard the news....

Jolly, our Elf on the Shelf has come from the North Pole to watch the children throughout the day and report back to Santa.  The class enjoys receiving letters from Jolly each night and finding out where he is at in the classroom each morning.  He has also made lots of friends with your child’s elf too.  The children enjoy writing letters to Jolly throughout the day and leaving them for him to read each night.

There will be no word study until 2013.  We will pick up with the words as soon as we come back in January.  The next two weeks we will be reviewing the words and skills we have learned thus far in the school year.  I am stressing to the children to stretch out the sounds of words and try to write down each sound that we hear.  This will also help in our writing.

Graphic organizers have been aiding the children in their writing of realistic fiction.  We have kinda started anew with the unit.  We went back to square one and began to develop characters and problems and solution in a more concrete manner.  This time the children are really seeing how to develop characters and setting and their writing is better.  Now we need to also start focusing on writing more sentences by adding details and writing using our best stretchy snake skills (sounding out).

In math, we are working on addition and subtraction facts, fact families, and coin combinations.  This week also the dime was introduced.  Exchanging money and counting on is a multi-step process.  Think about it… a child has to recognize the coin, remember it and then recall the value before we even begin add up the combinations.  Here are my tips:

To trade in 5 pennies for a nickel I ask the kids if they can wiggle it.  5 pennies can be wiggled for a nickel.

To trade in a dime. Two nickels can be boxed in for a dime.  Also any combination of nickels and pennies equaling a dime can be boxed in. (this is a more advanced step)

Having the children draw a wiggle line or a box (visual) along with giving them a “gimmick” to remember works well.  This is tough ….so stick with it.  A little bit each day helps too.