January 7, 2014

Dear Parents,

I hope everyone enjoyed the winter vacation.  It was wonderful to get back to school and the children were excited to share their vacation highlights with their classmates. I would also like to thank our room parents for organizing our volunteers for the Gingerbread Party. The children had a great time building and eating! Thank you all so much for your help and for providing the supplies.

We are very happy to welcome our new student, Samuel Fashola to our class! Samuel joins us from Texas and the children have done a beautiful job making Samuel feel a part of our class community.

We will finish up our math unit 6 and we will have a test on Friday.  The children should practice their multiplication facts each night. The children have used the Xtra math website at school, and should practice each night at home. I sent home a letter today which has directions for you to access this site from home. This practice will not take long, but it is extremely important that the children practice every night. We will work on multiplication for the rest of the week.

In reading we are working on partner reading and carrying on conversations about the book that is being read. Next week we will begin working on our Beverly Cleary books. The children have done a great job carrying on conversations and staying on task.

In writing we are continuing our work with information writing. The children are researching and will write an informational piece of writing. We use "mentor texts"  to learn about organizing their information, using transition words, developing metaphors.

Thank you once again for your support,
Sue Fitzpatrick