November 17 - 21

For this week's spelling test, I will have two dictation sentences included as part of the test.  Please help your child with these sentences--I can tell most of you are, as I have been pleased with the majority of our spelling test results.

Tonight I sent home the math Chapter 3 Test Review homework.  If possible could you please help your child with that tonight, as we will start testing Chapter 3 tomorrow.  For Chapter 4 (subtraction strategies), our student teacher Mrs. Williams will teach lesson 4.1 and then we will focus on the concept of "Fact Families" (4 + 5 = 9, 5 + 4 = 9, 9 - 5 = 4. and 9 - 4 = 5) before we move to lesson 4.2.  As that lesson deals with related facts, that my students do not have the necessary background knowledge for.

This week we will be doing a writing/art activity about Piligrims. We will write about about what Pilgrim can..., what Pilgrims are..., and what Pilgrims have... and make a boy or girl Pilgrim to display our writing. 

We have a new visual arts teacher here at East Elementary, Mr. McDonald.  He replaces, Mr. Seeley, our theater arts teacher who took another position at Fiddler's Elementary.  Mr. McDonald has an art degree from the University of Utah and will be a great asset to our school.  He will visit our classroom bi-monthly for 45 minutes and integrate the visual arts into our core curriculum.  His first visit will be this Thursday.  I am so excited about this as his expertise far outweighs mine in the area of art and art instruction :)

I can't believe I'm saying this (where is the time going), but we will have a little Thanksgiving party next Tuesday, November 25 before school dismisses for the holiday.  We will have it in the afternoon after our computer time at approximately 1:30.  We will be making "turkey cookies".  I need various items for these cookies.  Things like double-stuffed oreos, mini-chocolate chips, whoppers, icing among other things like that.  If you would be willing to donate something for this activity, could you please contact me (e-mail is the best and I can assign you something or give you an option).  Also, since I'm asking for donations we are about out of pencil top erasers.  The next time you go to Wal-mart and feel inclined could you please buy a package of pencil top erasers for our classroom use.  I would appreciate it!

Happy Reading!