MRS. ANDREA H. DAVIS
Weekly Newsletter
December 18, 2015
THEME: Community
UNIT: Celebrations
EXTENSION: Winter Holidays
Key Measure: There are children like me who live in different countries, speak different languages
and celebrate in different ways.
LANGUAGE ARTS
PHONEMIC AWARENESS AND PHONICS: We talked about on phoneme C this week. The
students learned that phoneme C is a copy cat! It usually copies phoneme K, but sometimes it copies
phoneme S, so it’s a tricky sound to learn.
SPEAKING: The students have learned some great songs for our brief performance on Friday.
Song lyrics and poetry reinforce phonemic awareness skills while increasing rhyming and reading
fluency.
WRITING: The students practiced writing letters correctly when they traced words and pictures
on our word search.
LISTENING: We are really trying to reinforce our use of I-Messages in our classroom. A main
part of an I-Message is listening to your friend. A good listener is quiet and looks the person who is
speaking in the eyes. Have your student practice I-Messages with you.
READING: I’ve been assessing each student on the 8 color words and 36 sight words for Q2 from
our Instant word list. For the first 18 sight words in Q1, the range of what the students could
read/recognize in October was from 1 word to 18 words (OCT class average was 11.85). The range
of what the kids can read now with a new 18 words is from 2 words to all 36 words (class average =
28.55 words). Nice improvement!! Be sure to check out the web page called “Dolch Lists” for
working on sight words at home. I’ll be sending home a ring of sight words for those kids who need
quick, daily practice at home.
SOCIAL STUDIES
We looked on our world map to find Israel, Germany, England and Mexico. We've learned that the
Jewish holiday tradition called Hanukkah lasts eight days. Jewish children light the candles of the
Menorah as part of their Hanukkah celebration. We learned that the concepts of Christmas
caroling and sending Christmas cards come from the country England. The tradition of the
Christmas tree (the Tannenbaum) comes from the country Germany. The tradition of piñatas and
poinsettias come from Mexico. We’ve learned to sing the alphabet in Spanish. These past two
weeks we’ve talked about unique cultures and practices of celebrating in these countries as well:
Holland, Norway, America (Kwanzaa & Christmas), India (Ramadan & Diwali) and Sweden. UPDATE:
Because I was gone on the last day of break, we did not do this, but will try to fit it in on Monday.
In honor of the Swedish tradition of St Lucia’s Day, the oldest girl in the class will get to serve a
treat (pudding in a cup) to all the students. The story is that only one of the treats will have a nut
in it (we’ll used a raisin) and the one who gets that special treat will have good luck for the rest of
the year. Ask your child tomorrow who the lucky one is!
MATH
We played Circle Countdown in Spanish from uno to diez. Ask why numerals 4 and 5 sat down
(cuatro and cinco). The students are practicing counting to 20, counting down from 20 to zero,
counting to 50 by 2’s and by 5’s.
SCIENCE
Because we are experiencing a variety of weather as we study winter holidays, the students are
acquiring experience drawing conclusions about seasonal characteristics and activities, i.e. trees,
leaves & grass changing, animals migrating & hibernating, winter snow - sledding & building snowmen.
Let it snow!
FYI
** We start back on Monday, Jan 4th, 2015.
** Quarter 2 report cards will come home on Thursday, Jan 7th
** Thursday Reader 1/7 Rachel Hall – come at 8:30 – bring 3-4 books from home
** Thursday Reader 1/14 Erin Rowan – come at 8:30 – bring 3-4 books from home
** We are out of school on Monday, Jan 18th for Martin Luther King.
** Thursday Reader 1/21 Miki Ranta – come at 8:30 – bring 3-4 books from home
** Thursday, Jan 28th is the next Collaboration date – LATE START – School starts at 10:40.
** Dynamic Dads is on Friday, Feb 5th.
ENJOY the break!!! Andrea Davis