Happy New Year!!  I hope you all had a wonderful holiday season with your families and a safe and happy new year.

     In Social Studies we will be learning about the process of changing years and make New Year's Resolutions. Our class New Year's Resolution will be to begin writing our first and last names on every paper. We will also learn about Martin Luther King Jr.

      In Math this month we will continue learning about patterns. Towards the end of the month we will begin our unit on counting and measure. The students will be learning how to measure objects accurately. We will also compare lengths and talk about the words longer, shorter, and same. 

     In Science will be studying the winter weather! We will talk about what winter weather is like, how we should dress, and fun activities that you can do outside! I can't wait to hear about your child's favorite winter activities!

     During writing workshop the children will continue developing small moment stories. They will be selecting something that happened in their life and determine a small part that they could stretch out and add detail to for their small moment story. They will begin to use conventions in their writing such as spaces, a capital letter at the beginning, and a period at the end. Their portfolios are almost ready to come home for a family homework assignment!

    During handwriting we will begin learning how to write lowercase letters properly. To do this we will start by learning the Handwriting Without Tears double lines and how to write the letters on them. You will begin to see worksheets come home with your child to practice writing his or her name on the lines correctly.

     During ELA (English Language Arts), the children will continue to use strategies when reading. The children know that "good readers" do lots of things to help them read. Please refer to the list of stragtegies below and encourage your child to do these things to help with tricky words.

Good Readers.....
1. Point to the words.
2. Look at the pictures for clues.
3. Get their mouth ready to make the first sound.
4. Read words they know in a snap.
5. Sound out the whole word.

       I hope you have a terrific start to 2012!  Let me know if I can be of assistance at this time.

Warm Wishes,

Mrs. Heinsler

PS - Check out this link on the Scribner Road webpage for our school's WE ARE calendar.