Weather & Snowmen

We continued learning about weather this week with a theme of snowmen! The kids did an awesome job comparing and contrasting the snowman books we read during read aloud and they enjoyed their snowmen centers. We started making "Double Bubbles" and I took a screenshot but it's on my school computer- I may email it to you guys when I go into school tomorrow to prep! :)

I think the favorite thing of the week was making "Snowman Soup!" A lot of our books referenced hot chocolate, so we talked about what happens to a snowman if he drinks hot chocolate. We then created bowls of snowman soup and wrote the "recipe" or steps in order to make snowman soup. It's on our bulletin board outside of class!

I highly encourage you to take a moment to look through some of the papers you saved from August and September and compare your child's writing to now! Sometimes even I forget where they started... and it's truly amazing how much they grow! They love to write!

We had a fun snowman poem for the week and the kids enjoyed labeling the snowman! It was a great way to introduce our newest digraph/letter combination: "ck" as in stick! We have learned "sh" "ch" "th" and "ck" now... please practice these at home!

Ask Your Child About:

-Phonics: Marking short vowels and long vowels- What do long vowels say? (Their names), Digraphs (see above)

-Phonemic Awareness: Sound manipulation- If you change the "h" in hot to "p," what word is it? (pot) If you change the "sh" in mash to "th," what word is it? (math)

-Reading Comprehension: Comparing and contrasting the adventures of characters in familiar stories- What do the bubbles in the middle mean? (Things that are the SAME, similarities) What do the bubbles on the outside mean? (Things that are different, differences)

-Science: What do you want to learn more about? Can you learn about one more type of weather on PebbleGO?

-Math: We held off on starting our newest unit (comparing 2d and 3d shapes) due to MPG testing and internet issues this week, but we will be hitting it hard next week! :)

-Writing: What is your favorite thing to do in winter? What did you write about? (sledding, snowball fights, building a snowman, etc)

Miscellaneous:

-Thank you so much to those of you who wrote why you love Mountain View! Kindie Registration went well and I'm sure hoping for 3 full time classes again next year! :)

-I sent home in homework folders explanations of your child's reading level because I realized that the number doesn't mean much! It gives you sight words, skills, and reading comprehension to work on at home in order to help your child improve! I use these to help me plan word work and strategies for my small groups, so this will really help reinforce what we do at school!

-Thursday folders & homework: I know that the short weeks have been throwing us off, but please make sure your child is bringing their folder and homework folder on the right day! :)

-With the snow day, our 100th day of school is no longer on 1/31 (and I was a day off to begin with- whoops!) - I will be sending home information on this as soon as possible, but need to get approval from administration first!

Lastly, it was so amazing to get to jump with these munchkins at SkyZone for the birthday party this weekend! I think I may have actually had more fun than the kids and I loved getting to PLAY with them. I am so thankful for amazing relationships with you guys as parents, and that I get to be part of their lives outside of school too!

If you have any action shots/videos from jumping, please send them to me via text or email! :) I make photo books of all the pictures I take from each school year and would love to have them!

I hope you have a great rest of your weekend!

With SO much love,

Ms. Ham