Happy New Year!

Welcome Back!  We had a fun SHORT week with the snow days.  This week was all about learning about RESOLUTIONS and discussing snow.  We had a fun time adding sparkle to our 2015 craft and writing activity.  We learned that a resolution is a promise you make to yourself to try to be better at something.  We brainstormed personal, home and school resolution ideas.  Some that were mentioned were:
1.  Be nicer to my sibling by letting him/her choose what to play with first.
2.  Practice my sight words every night.
3.  Clean up my room and find a spot for everything.
4.  Practice my hockey without complaining.
The kids did a nice job on their paragraphs that linked their 3 ideas together.  These are displayed in the hall and will come home in a couple of weeks.

In reading we continue to focus on identifying the main idea in a story.  We learned that this is often found in the title and in the first couple sentences.  We also are focusing a lot on understanding what a complete sentence is so we can figure out where to put periods in our writing.  This is a very difficult concept for the kids, so we will keep at it.

Spelling this week was one of the harder lessons.  We did A LOT of white board practicing and games at school, so I felt they were as prepared as they were going to be for the test.  Next week is long i.

This week in math we focused on the concept of addition and subtraction.  We began "Mad Minute" tests.  We will take the tests twice a week.  Each test has 24 problems on it, and the students have 1 minute 15 seconds to compete all 24 correctly.  IF they do that, they progress to the next test.  We have individual star charts to record these on so we each can see our successes.  You should have received a set of flashcards to help you practice these facts at home.  We will begin Unit 5 in math next week, which is a lot on place value and greater than/less than.  You should've already received the Parent Letter for Unit 5 with an overview of the concepts.

Next week will also be the beginning of our new science unit:  Magnets!  We focused on Social Studies in November (Patriotic Symbols) and December (Lighting the Holidays) so I am VERY excited to do science again!   We also will continue to do weather experiments as our weather is changing with winter!

I hope you all enjoyed the winter vacation with your children.  It felt like a sloooowwww start back into the routines this week, but I was glad to get them back!  Hope you all are doing well.