February 7th, 2011

Dear Parents,
Today is the 100th day of school! We will have fun with many different activities working with the numbers 1-100 including making our own I Spy book on the Promethean Board. Our Valentine’s Party is next Monday at 2:00pm. Our room mothers have it under control! We keep it really simple as they have the most fun just opening their valentines. They can deliver their valentines any time this week if they haven’t already!

Next Friday, February 18th , we will dismiss at 11:15AM for conferences and there is also no school that following Monday for President’s Day. We’ll be learning more about Washington and Lincoln the next two weeks. We’re also continuing to work with dental health studies this week. Mrs. Baker will visit Friday morning to teach us about caring for our teeth. We have many “irons in the fire” right now! They just love God’s World Time when we work with all our themes.

Our Bible lessons this week are centered on the Lord’s Prayer. God loved us so much He sent His Son, Jesus to be our Savior. By taking our sins away, Jesus makes us children of God. God wants us to talk to Him in prayer about our joys, our problems and our needs. This fits wonderfully with Valentine’s Day since His love shines through everything. We’re writing about God’s love for us to display. Our Bible verse this week is from Luke 11:1 “Lord, teach us to pray…” This month our school offerings go to the Zion Food Bank. We work with Love, Inc. and they send many families to us who need assistance. You can send in money or nonperishable food items.

We are finishing the alphabet! See what you can find at home that begins or ends with “y” or “z.” We’ve been learning that y is often used at the end of words or in the middle and makes a different sound than at the beginning of words. We are already using our skills every day copying things, writing, and sounding out what we want to spell. Writing workshop is going well. Many new phonics lessons arise out of these lessons. As the weeks go on we will concentrate on vowel sounds, word families, and blends such as cr, br, etc. Readers look at chunks more than individual letters, so when they know “sing” they can relate it to “bring” and “swing” almost immediately. We will continue to have phonics, word study time every day! That website I mentioned earlier has simple phonics games to play – www.starfall.com.

In math we are busy with all kinds of choices that involve much thinking. Now they are learning the symbols + and – and how to add or subtract one from something. It’s hard now but won’t be in a few days! This will be the game that goes home in the binders this week. You’ll use the wipe off marker to play it many times. At school we use a special + and - dice, but you as the parent get to decide if they add one or subtract one!

Mrs. Withee and I have decided to change our show and tell time to something new. We will begin sending home a “Riddle Bucket” each night with one child. Directions will be on the lid. They place a small item from home in the bucket. Help them write 3 clues to give hints as to what is inside. Then send it back!

PTL Swim night is this Friday evening. Come have fun. I’ll come watch! It is from 6:30 to 8:30PM and costs $3.75.

We have a field trip scheduled to the hospital on Wed., March 16th, at 1PM. I’ll put a driver sheet outside the door probably next week. Let me know if you can drive!

I will be sending in the books orders on Friday, so send them in if you still want to order!


God’s blessings on your week!
Natalie Graumann