Windy Wednesday

Phew! What a windy chilly day! The kids had a tough time today staying on task. Maybe it was because of the wind. We finished up Chapter 3 in Math today and will move on to Chapter 4 tomorrow. The students have been learning about nature and how to observe the things of nature. This reading section fits nicely into the Science curriculum which is on our 5 senses and how we observe objects using our 5 senses. The students have been enjoying learning the letter "S", learning to write, sound it out and read the letter "S". They had a chance to practice the number 8. They LOVED the 8, "Make an S, do not wait, go back up and close the gate!"

Hopefully tomorrow will be a better day!

Super Tuesday!

We had a super day today learning about scarecrows and spiders! Had a great book called "The Lonely Scarecrow" Ask your child what changed the way the animals thought about the scarecrow. If they say winter came, or snow covered the scarecrow, give them a big High Five or pat on the back! We are working on retelling stories, so anytime you can get them to tell you the beginning, middle and end of a story it's great!

Morgan's Mom helped us make spider webs and count out 8 legs to make a spider. All of the children got their webs done but only some of the children got their spiders done. Kelsey our career student from West can finish them up through out the week.

We had Abe's July birthday early because he will be moving at the end of this week. We will miss him so much and wish him well at his new school! This is such a great class and they are really showing good manners through out the day. As we talked about why we were celebrating Abe's birthday early many of the children told him how much they would miss him. Many of them drew and extra picture on the back of his Birthday cake card!

Don't forget Wednesday is Library Day and the children love to check out new books!

Mrs. Hansen and I are busy preparing for conferences. So far we have received 13 out of the 20 yellow questionaires to help us prepare for your child's individual conference. On Thursday you will be getting the time assigned next week for our meeting! We got 18 out of 20 blue time request sheets. If you have not turned in the blue sheet, we will just assign you a time and hope you can make it. We are hoping for 100 % attendance this year! Together we can make this the BEST for YOUR child!

Sincerely, Carol Clapper

Quick Half Day!

Hello! I hope that you are reading this after you have had a wonderful day! The kids did very well today for it being a half day of school. We did get to centers today and we were able to go over vowels, read our book called "Flowers" and complete the calendar. We did quite a bit of singing today to say our alphabet and vowel sounds. The students even had a chance to go to Library this morning. For Science today we dissected a real flower and drew its parts in our Science journal and labeled them. What a full day! Have a great 4 days off of school! ~Mrs. Abigail Hansen

P.S. The students did have a chance to draw a picture of a flower that they can turn in to the Gainains store in the heights and get a free baby pumpkin. I hope that you have a chance to use their drawing! Also pictures came home today. I made sure that they were not placed in backpacks to avoid them getting smashed. 

Wednesday

Hello! Today was a split day between Mrs. Clapper and myself. We worked on quite a few things. Here are just a few: Math- We have been counting to 5 and working on one-to-one correspondence. The students have been using blocks to count out different numbers and then use the vocabulary more and fewer (and less). We read today about flowers and the different parts to a flower. If you have a chance, go over the parts with your child and see what they can pick out and tell you. We have been working on vowels and especially the letter "A". The students have been learning a song about the vowels names and their sounds. We used our reader/writer notebooks today and worked on A, a and our sight words: am, is, little have. Overall the day went well. I did have to remind the students NOT to go near the bridge at recess and to keep our hands to ourselves. Please remind your child of these things. Thank you for all the love and support you show your child everyday!

Mrs. Abigail Hansen

P.S. Please have your child bring back their conference slips so that you can get an ideal time for your child's conference coming up soon.

Monday of the short Oct. Week

WOW! Monday was a marvelous day! We started our second unit of Reading Street and will be looking at how plants and animals are unique. We talked about how 'unique' means one of a kind and very special. Maybe that's why our day went so well, everyone was feeling extra special!

We added 6 links to our kindness chain, that more than doubles what we had so far! The children worked hard, played hard and enjoyed each other during our school day.

Tomorrow we will have a story called "Flowers" and talk about the different parts of a flower. Our amazing words are: bloom, buds, fruits, petal, seeds, and stem.

Our letter for this week is "A a" (next week will be S s - sorry about that!) We learned that this letter is a vowel and has more than one sound. We are working hard to make the circle for the lower case 'a' in a counterclockwise circle and then go down and add a monkey tail. We will revisit this vowel many times during the year. Our high-frequency words are 'have' and 'is'.

We will not have show and tell for "A a" week because we miss too many afternoons!

Next week we will get back on schedule with Show and Tell during "S s" week because it is a five day week!

Tell your child how proud Mrs. Clapper is that they were kind and considerate all day today!

Mrs. Hansen will be in Tuesday afternoon to share this short week. Please don't forget our early dismissal:

12:00 Wednesday, October 2oth

Sincerely, Carol Clapper

Thursday Newsletter

10/14/2010

Wow! Another week has come and almost gone! Here are just a few reminders for this next week:

~”S” week is coming up.

~Next week there is an early out on Wednesday the 20^th. There are sack lunches available. The students will be released at noon. There is NO SCHOOL that Thursday and Friday.

~There is a note about conferences. Please fill it out and send it back as soon as possible.

~Tomorrow is SPIRIT DAY for Meadowlark Elementary!!! Dress in the school colors (Gold and black) if you don’t have a Meadowlark shirt.

~Book orders are due tomorrow, Friday 15^th. Have a wonderful upcoming weekend!

     ~Mrs. Hansen and Mrs. Clapper

Columbus Day

Wow! we had a wonderful day of learning1

We started out with orange playdough and made long,thin strips to make the letter "m".

We also divided our playdough into 4 pieces, then 5 and did some math! We will be working on writing 4's and 5's. the rhyme for four is "Down and over, down some more makes the number 4! Five doesn't really have a rhyme but we try to make a line down and a big fat tummy and then a hat on top so the numeral 5 doesn't look too much like the letter 's'.

We talked about Columbus Day and had a story of the 3 ships he used to get over to the Bahama Islands south of our country. We also talked about how he was an explorer and had to be mighty and strong and brave. We did a number dot to dot for Math that made his largest ship. On the back is an alphabet dot to dot that is a little tricky. So we sang the ABC's a few times and I did it with the picture projected up for them to watch. If they want to bring it back to school completed and colored nicely, they can earn a sticker!

We had fun discovering where our tongue went when we made the 't' sound and came up with lots of 't' words. I forgot to remind the Tuesday show-and tell students to bring one thing that starts with 't' so please help Eli, Abe, Austin, Maddy and Treyden remember!

I sent home rings, bracelets, those rubber band shapes, and money today. As children show other children, or play with jewelry, fancy scarves, etc. it distracts the other children and interrupts learning. Please help them only wear or bring items that they can ignore while we are working hard at school. Thanks for your help and also for the treats that are coming in! Today we had awesome apple slices and the children shared so nicely, we have more for tomorrow!

Last but not least I promised them I would remind you of the

Meadowlark PTA - Ice Cream Social !

It's tomorrow night from 6:00 to 7:00 .

See you then! Mrs. Clapper