Greetings and Happy New Year to all!

I sit here at my desk and it is pouring rain! I have been here working away to prepare for the kids and boy have I missed them!

The room will look much the same but if you look closely you will see many, many more books and readers in the room! Our class library has changed to reflect the exciting work of reading that is ahead of us! Using YouTube we will move out of “Four Step Phonics” (which some of you even used this summer for letter sounds) and into “Little Fox CVC Words and Sight Words”. I mention this so if your student is absent, you may be able to review with them at home. I also really enjoy and recommend “Alphablocks” and who could ever surpass “Sesame Street.” This would also be an amazing time to buy your child a picture dictionary! The one currently on my desk is “The American Heritage Picture Dictionary” By Houghton Mifflin. I also have a Dr. Seuss one!

In Math the kids will be counting to 100 by ones and tens as we get ready to celebrate the 100th Day of School! Then we will quickly be moving to comparing, adding and subtracting numbers. Kids will be using fingers, counters, number lines and ten frames to learn these concepts up to 10 and hopefully even to 20.

Calling all measurements! Please send in any item or tool that helps to measure. Your child can show it off at calendar time. Items such as a food scale, measuring spoons, tape measure, empty jugs, water bottles and even something clean from recycling!

Stickers Stories are a hit with this class! They LOVE to use stickers to illustrate and enhance their stories! Any stickers around your home or seasonal stickers would be put to good use here! Basic stars and smiles, Trader Joes, dots…they can be simple. Snowflakes, hearts, shamrocks….all will be collected and used!

Cutting Coupons! By the end of the year we will be learning to count change up to 100 cents. This concept will come easily after the ground work we have done with counting to 100 by 1’s, 5’s. 10’s. I would like to suggest to you that it is super fun for the kids to cut coupons (some still need page turning and cutting skills) and this reading skill can be made fun by “Buy One Get One Free Ice Cream” or “50 Cents Off”. The kids can cut coupons and collect them in a wallet. You might even let them “Keep The Change” for small purchases at a convince store if they can count it! When Lent comes they could “Keep The Change” to give as donations or to the church basket! They will love to count and give!

As we leave behind another Christmas with the story of how Jesus came to be on Earth, the kids and I will focus on some of our churches teaching here in Ordinary Time and stories about Jesus’ life and parables that he told. You will start to see packets from our Religion book now that most can follow along in the text. When Lent arrives we will talk about Jesus’ life preaching and teaching before Holy Week. We will focus on the Holy Week story just before our break when it comes in our church year. The kids love when we watch 2 minute videos by SaddleBack Kids.

January and February are a time to talk in Social Studies about MLK Jr. and our Presidents. Like Thanksgiving we can reflect on our US History and traditions and how things are similar or have changed. It is also a time to talk about kindness and how each of us is important. We also will look at their own dreams and what they might like to be when they grow up!

Winter brings many changes in the weather for us to watch and look for around campus for Science. This class does enjoy hiking about! We also find time to talk about animals and their homes. We will talk about Technology and how people use it.

Did you make it this far? WOW! Here’s the basics for January!

Mon. Jan 9th: Back to School, PE Uniform

Fri. Jan 13th: Spirit Day Shirt

Mon. Jan 16th: NO SCHOOL

Mon. Jan. 23rd: PE and Noon Dimissal

Tues. Jan. 24th: Mass Full Dress Uniform

Fri. Jan.27th: Birthday Free Dress

Sun. Jan. 29th: Open House 2:00 Beginning of Catholic School’s Week

Tues. Jan. 31st: Mass Full Dress Uniform