January 27

It's a PENGUIN PARTY!
Today we finished up our Penguin unit with a party. The kids finished their reports on Monday and presented them to the class. Today we played "Roll a Penguin" with dice, did the penguin egg race ( pretending to be a penguin parent with the egg on their feet - a white beanbag), read a penguin play with each child taking parts ( fluency practice!), and then had treats. I bought swedish fish, whale crackers, blue jello, blue Hawaiian punch packets to put in a bottle for each child, and made "penguins" out of oreo cookies with a Hershey kiss. The kids seemed to enjoy it. While eating, they got to see a penguin video.

We also finished up our reading assessments for this nine weeks. I like the improvements I see! We also did fluency assessments to see if they have improved this 9 weeks. We'll talk about their assessments at conferences.

I would very much like to know the kids are reading each night. No child has turned in the reading calendar. Children are asked to read 20 minutes a night. Please work at this. Like I tell the kids, "The more we read, the better we get!"

We worked on calendars and estimating as part of our learning about telling time. Keep working on practicing math facts, too. It's important!

CATHOLIC SCHOOLS' WEEK NEXT WEEK! Hooray for OLL!!!

January 20

January 21 no school! ( for kids- but not teachers!) Hope you all have a nice weekend!

We are working on time in Math. I think some need more practice with analog clocks and minutes before and after the hour, so we'll keep on that.
Today I did individual Math facts oral tests. We've gotten up to the 6s in addition. I will test through the 9s, and then I will start on subtraction facts tests. They need to know facts through 18 or 20, so keep ( or start) practicing with your children. You can do this in the car, while making supper, etc.

We will be finishing up on our penguin reports next week. Each child has a certain penguin to find information on, and I have made this information available for each one. They may also work at home if you'd like to do so. They will need the reports ready to go next week - the "published" (final copy).

Reconciliation preparations are in full swing. I hope your child is taking the lessons home for you to read the "parent" section. I 've asked them to do so. We are also viewing some Reconciliation videos to add to our classroom lessons. They are videos we order through our diocesan media center.

Our Mass with Bishop Peter was so nice yesterday! The kids did very well on that long bus ride, too! It was a good chance for kids to see the cathedral also since most kids never get to do that.

We continue to keep the Eaton family in our prayers. Please keep them in yours too.


MARK YOUR CALENDARS! PARENT TEACHER CONFERENCES WILL BE ON FEBRUARY 7TH!

January 10

FIRST RECONCILIATION DATE IS FEBRUARY 9TH AT 5:30

January 8

HAPPY NEW YEAR! I hope you had a nice Christmas break! My family took turns having the stomach flu (It was bad! 11 of us got sick!)

It took some kids a bit of time to get back into the swing of things, but we're going full speed again. :-) We are practicing money since not enough of them passed the test to my satisfaction, so we're reviewing. We are also going to be learning about telling time. There are so many digital clocks around that some kids struggle with analog clocks.

This week we will be starting our Penguin Research project for Science. The kids will get a different penguin to find information on and write a report to share with the class. It wil be fun!

Spelling words are written in their planners each week and should be practiced each night - don't forget Math fact practice nightly, too! Sometimes we have a review test, and this coming Friday will be one of those. I'll pick words from any of the previous units. Later this month, we'll also do a mid-year achievement test and compare how they did on the first test to this one.

Reconciliation lessons are in full swing, too! Father Gary mentioned the date, and somewhere I had the 6th written down. It WON'T BE on a Sunday evening!!! It will be on Wednesday night. You WILL be receiving a letter on the information about the Sacrament time and date soon!