Monday the Last Day of February 2011

Today was a marvelous Monday. We had a guest teacher for P.E. and found lots of "Gg" words. We did rush through the little book "How Many?" that came home today. So it might be good for you to have your child read it to you. As I looked in the mailboxes I realized that quite a few students did not empty their boxes before going home. So they won't have it until tomorrow. We also cut up the sentences I had written to tell what they brought for 100's day Have them put it together for you and enjoy it one last time.

We are excited for the new month to start and find out where we sit tomorrow with March starting on a Tuesday! This is a really good learning month with all full weeks of school until the Early out days at the end for Parent Teacher conferences. Please help your child get lots of sleep so we can learn at our maximum level all month long! Then Mrs. Hansen and I will have wonderful progress to report at the end of March.

The PTA notice will come home in Thursday envelopes this week. We have such a wonderful supportive parent group. I hope you consider getting involved.

Last but foremost in the children's mind is pajama day. Some were asking if they could bring their pillow pets. I said it would be OK as long as they can still learn and not distract the other children from learning by horsing around too much. It will be a fun day celebrating Dr. Seuss' birthday in our pajamas!

Have a nice evening, Sincerely, Mrs. Clapper

Friday

Today was an odd day as there was a lot going on around Meadowlark. The upper grades had a talent sow today. We as a class were able to go and watch the talent show this morning. It took up most of our morning. Once again, there were no recesses today as it was below zero outside. The students had an extra long center time. We did get to finish out the week of blends by singing our song for the week, reviewing the question of the week and doing a couple more pages in our reader/writer notebooks. We finished out the Science unit about the sky. The students completed their Art projects by writing about what they drew. :-) We have them hanging up in the hall. We finished out the day by watching a fun Magic School Bus all about space. It was a fun way to end the unit. In Math we compared and contrasted telling time digitally and by analog. Phew! What a day! Have a great weekend!

Thursday :-)

 

Dear Parents,                                                      Thursday, February 24, 2011

 

            We are really moving through the year quickly. We have had a fun, busy month of February and March looks like much of the same. Since the children have earned 200 compliments, we will celebrate on March 2^nd which Dr. Seuss’s birthday.  The children suggested we have a Pajama Day! Yes, they can wear their pajamas as long as they have hard soles on their feet in case we have a fire drill. We usually still go out to recess if weather permits, so include appropriate outerwear for the day . Some choose to wear sandals and have tennis shoes in their backpacks for recess.

 

         All month long we will be assessing their skills in preparation for the Parent-Teacher conferences we will have at the end of this month.  You will be getting a letter home soon to sign up for a convenient time for your conference.  We look forward to that time to visit individually with each of you.  

        

         Feb. Book orders can still come in tomorrow, Feb 25^th. March book orders will be due back on March 25^th since there is not a book fair during Spring conferences.  The children love getting new books and reading is so good for all of us! As always Wednesday is Library Day and Mrs. Treglown squeezes us in even on Early Out Days!

 

          We are ready for more snacks! Ask your child for their favorite treats if you need ideas!  This seems like a short monthly parent letter, but we are in such a good routine, things are going smoothly and I don’t have much to explain to you! As always, if you have any questions, email us or call the school and leave a message for us to return.

                                             Sincerely, Mrs. Clapper and Mrs. Hansen

 

Here’s the list of show and tell days.  As always if they forget they can bring it the rest of the week.  Some of our students bring something every week, others hardly at all.   Please make an extra effort to help your child remember if they haven’t brought something for awhile. This week it’s “G g” and next week in the beginning sound of “Ee” and then the following is ‘e’ in the middle!

Tuesday * Students	Wednesday *	Thursday *	Friday *
Maddy Treyden Eli Austin	Elias Erica Ethyn Emma Ella	Gabrielle Jaxton Kaleigh Kendal Orion	Morgan Reece Remington Rikki Sophia

 

Wednasday

Hello! It is Wednesday already and the day went well. Here are a few of the things we fit in this afternoon:

We did two reading groups, we are working on blends: bl, gr, sl, fr, sp, sn, sw, just to name a few. I will continue with the other groups tomorrow. :-)

Show-n-tell this week has everything to do with bringing in something that has a blend. The students started off very well with this.

Math- We worked on telling time with an analog clock. This is DEFINITELY something you can review at home.

The students had Library today and center time this afternoon. The weather has been so bad that we ended up not going to recess today. Hopefully the weather will improve so that we can go outside. Have a great evening!

George Washington's Birthday

We had a great day for our first day back after the long break! The children were excited, yet focused and we got quite a bit of both Monday and Tuesday work done. Plus we got to learn about George Washington. We talked about how he would have been 279 years old today! We read a story about how he returned the British General's dog to him when the colonists found the dog after a long battle. At the end of this children's story, the author had a picture of George Washington's actual letter to General Howe that was written by Alexander Hamilton. At the end of the day we read another story about a boy named George W. Allen who was also born on Feb. 22nd and loved to learn everything about George Washington including what he had for breakfast. Tomorrow I will finish the story and we will have Indian Hoecakes (a kind of cornmeal pancake cooked on a griddle rather than a hoe).

This week is also I LOVE TO READ week, so we read the Reading series story One Little Mouse to make it 3 books in one day!!! I really do love to read to the children, it's one of my FAVORITE things to do. Sometime this week Mrs. Leffler a 3rd grade teacher will come read a favorite book of hers to our class, and I will go read one of my favorites to her class.

LIBRARY IS TOMORROW!

We had most of our Tuesday show and tell people absent today, so tomorrow we will do Tues. and Wed show and tells. Remember it needs to start with a blend. gr,cr,br, bl, cl, sl, sw, sp, etc.

In Math we had a fun DINO-TIME book and mainly focused on positions of the hands on the hour and half hour.

____ o'clock (longer hand on the 12/ the smaller hand is on the ___) or

___thirty (when the longer hand is on the 6/the small hand is between that number and the number that is one higher than it)

That's all for now folks!

Mrs. Clapper

Early Out Wednesday

We had just 12 students today and really missed our friends who are sick. I didn't start the TIME part of our math unit because we were missing so many children. Instead we drew pictures and wrote about our favorite parts of the play and put them in our writing folders.

We did start the first 2 steps of problem solving because Impulsive Puppy was so excited to get out of his red box and meet the children. They quickly realized that he does the 1st thing that pops into his head and he became a little annoying when he pulled hair and untied shoes as he met our students. His friend, Slow Down Snail came out had to help to him calm down. Slow Down's favorite saying is "Slow Down, Stop, and Think".

We had fun doing calendar and looking ahead to George Washington's birthday on the day we come back from vacation. Your homework over the long weekend is to show your child a dollar bill and talk about why George Washington is on it! I hope everyone is healthy and ready to return to school next week!

Have a great vacation!

Sincerely, Mrs. Clapper

Giggle, Giggle Quack

The Alberta Bair trip to see the play was a great experience for the children. It turned out to be a musical! It was fun to see the parts that were the same as and what was different from the book. The children were very patient as Meadowlark was one of the last schools to be called to board the buses. We barely got back in time for a quick drink (as it was very warm in the balcony of the theatre) before dismissal time. So we did not get a chance to visit about the play. Hopefully, we will have some time today, although two of our children were sick and missed it. So if they are back, I may not spend too much time as it would make them feel sad.

We have had a few incidences of touching that are inappropriate. Then yesterday there was talk of someone wanting to kiss a classmate. We talked about keeping our hands to ourselves and especially not patting bottoms or touching anyone private parts. We talked about Valentine's day and how we did hug our friends sometimes to thank them for their Valentine, but that we only kiss family members and there is no kissing at school. It was only a couple incidences, but I want everyone to be aware so if their child brings it up, you know why.

I am so happy Mrs. Treglown could fit us in early for library today since we get out EARLY!

Have a nice 5 day vacation everyone, and we'll see you on Tuesday, George Washington's real birthday!

Sincerely, Mrs. Clapper