Holidays

The holidays are a time for family to come together to celebrate tradition and to learn the reason for the season. While Christmas and Hanukkah tend to be to be the dominant winter holidays in American culture, December is a month with several other holidays, too. Teaching your children about how different cultures and religions celebrate these holidays can do wonders for their ability to respect other cultures and expand their worldview.

Children need to understand that in our heart of hearts, we are all the same, we are one. We're simply born with different looks into families with different beliefs, and different traditions.

The best way for kids to understand and learn anything is for them to participate using a hands-on approach. So we will play games, make crafts, read about holidays and enjoy different holiday food

Thanks to all who attended the fall conferences. I hope you enjoyed learning about what your child does each day and how he/she is progressing.

LANGUAGE ARTS

In Language Arts we are working on comparing and contrasting stories using graphic organizers. All of your kids are doing so well, we have begun writing words based on their cvc (consonant, vowel, consonant) sounds. Cvc words use the short sounds that we have already learned in Fundations (A, apple /a/). We teach students to tap out the words. To tap out a word, we put one hand flat like a table. Using the other hand, tap the first index finger for the first sound, the second finger for the second sound and the third finger for the third sound. Then blend them together by swiping all finger across the table or hand. We are also working on identifying the differences between literature and informational text as well as citing our text.

We are now in Unit 2 of Fundations. It is four weeks long. Our first week of Fundations we practice sounding out c-v-c words. We then will begin learning our upper-case letters.

The high frequency or sight words that your students should know are posted in class and on my website. Please practice reading these words nightly. In Fundations, we have learned the names, sounds and keywords to almost all of the lower case letters. In November, we will be adding y, x, q, and z. We will move quickly after finishing the lowercase letters.

Reading Buddies

With our wonderful 3rd grade reading buddies, we continue to explore Fairy Tale characters and settings as we prepare for our Fairy Tale plays.

MATH

In this module the students will be introduced to the concept of addition. They use stories and concrete materials to identify the features of this operation. Two types of addition are explored – active and static. Active stories use language that talks about one of the parts is joined to the other, for example, “two frogs hop onto a log to join three frogs.” In static stories, there are no action words, active stories are important because they are used later to help relate addition to subtraction. As they gain confidence, students will write words sentences for addition situations. They write both addends and the total. Concrete materials or pictures are always used to assist the children.

Committees

Committees this month will focus on exploring different holidays. We will learn about Christmas, St. Lucia, Hanukkah, Diwali, Las Posadas, Kwanzaa, and Yule (winter solstice)

UPCOMING EVENTS

Field Trips

Our next field trip will be in February, to the Fire Department.

PJ Day - Friday, December 20th

Canned Food Drive

Thank you so much for your generous donations!. We had a great time collecting cans and food. They kids were very excited. We talked about how winning a competition is fun, however the real prize is giving to people who are in need. Being truly hungry was a hard concept for a lot of kids to understand. Many said things like "why don't those people just go the store". We talked about it a few different times. Keep the conversations up at home.

Wish List

Please visit my SignUpGenius to help our class out.

Science

We will continue exploring the seasons, weather, sun energy and wind energy. We are still talking about germs as we are working hard in class to keep our hands out of our noses, eyes and mouths.

Social Studies

We will focus learning about Holidays. Here is a little information for all of you!

Christmas -Christmas is an annual festival commemorating the birth of Jesus Christ, observed primarily on December 25 as a religious and cultural celebration among billions of people around the world.
Hanukkah- is the eight-day Jewish celebration of the Maccabees and their fight for freedom. The dates change every year, but it usually takes place between the end of November and the end of December.
St. Lucia - is a holiday celebrated in Sweden to honor kindness.
Las Posadas- is a nine-day festival, mostly celebrated in Mexico, Central America and parts of the United States, which starts December 16th and lasts until Christmas Eve on the 24th.The 9 days represent Joseph and Mary's nine-day journey to Bethlehem.
Kwanzaa-is a holiday that honors African heritage and ends with a large feast. T
Yule (Winter Solstice)-, celebrates yule, or the winter solstice.
Diwali - is the Hindu festival of lights, which is celebrated every autumn in the northern hemisphere. Diwali symbolizes the spiritual victory of light over darkness, good over evil and knowledge over ignorance.