Happy New Year!

January is a good time to set goals. Setting resolutions of what a person wants to accomplish for the year is a time-honored tradition and a learning opportunity for kids. Determining resolutions for the year can help children work toward personal growth and goals for all areas of life, such as academics, sports and daily life activities.

New Year's resolutions for kids are a great way to teach children responsibility and the importance of working toward a goal. Setting resolutions need not be a chore; try to make it a fun family activity where all members of the household come up with their goals for the coming year.

New Year's resolutions include:

Teaching how to set a goal and how to work towards it.
Determining resolutions can help kids find out more about themselves and what they want in life by figuring out what they want to achieve this year.
Building academic skills, such having an early reader write out his or her list and read it, or allowing an older child to enhance math skills by keeping score on a resolution goal-tracking chart.

LANGUAGE ARTS

We will begin Unit 6 in Benchmark next week. Our focus will be on understanding the role of the author, comparing and contrasting characters in familiar stories, and working on comprehension skills. We will also compare and contrast story elements utilizing graphic organizers. We will also focus on homonyms (words that have more than one meaning). In Fundations, we are finishing Unit 3 – writing our uppercase letters. I am encouraging all kids to take their time to ensure proper letter formation. Now, all students should be able to read, write, and sound out all of their upper and lower case letters. We are also learning how to use our letter sounds to “tap” out and write cvc (consonant vowel consonant) words. Please practice this at home. In addition to writing longer and complete sentences we are working on starting each sentence with a capital, leaving a finger space between words and using punctuation at the end of the sentence.

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. A date will soon be coming home for the Fairy Tale Plays. We encourage all parents to come watch. The lines will also be coming home to practice. PLEASE KEEP THIS IN YOUR CHILDS FOLDER.

MATH

In Math we will begin to explore the idea of subtraction. We will be using the take-away method and the cover method. The students will use words (birds fly away, frogs hop away, etc) and pictures to show subtraction. When they fly away, students will cross them out. We will also use the words cover or cover up.

Committees

We will be covering a range of topics including penguin facts, bears, New Mexico and Mittens. January 10th-14th is bear week. On Monday, please bring a stuffed bear into class (not a favorite). We will measure, sort, and write with and about our bears. On Friday, we will have a tea with our bears. The kids love this week so get those bears ready for school.

Reminders

Please remember to send a note, text, email, or call when your child is planning to go home different way than normal or to a different place. It is our job to make sure that each child gets home or to the next spot safely. If there is no note, we will send them where last stated by parents or the office. Thanks

Remind your students to take a warm coat to school each day. It is no fun to be outside when the weather is less than pleasant.

Encourage your student to complete their homework. Please let me know if you have out of the ordinary circumstances.

UPCOMING EVENTS

Virtual Field Trip

Bear WeeK

Jan. 13-17

Don't forget to bring a bear to school!

100th Day of School

We will we celebrating our 100th day of school on Tuesday, February 1st. For our celebration each student should bring in a 100th day project, which is a collection of 100 small items. These could be paper clips, M&M’s, pennies, etc. Be creative! More information will come home soon!

January Presentation

Careers

January presentations will be throughout the week of January 18th-21st. We will be focusing on Careers. Try wearing a costume or bringing in a prop from that career. I saw many creative ideas in November, keep up the good work!

Wish List

Please visit my SignUpGenius to help our class out.

Social Studies

We will be learning about the symbols of New Mexico. Here are a few we will learn about:

State Aircraft. Hot Air Balloon.
State Flag: Zia
State Animal. Black Bear.
State Ballad. Land of Enchantment.
Greater Roadrunner.
State Capital: Santa Fe.

We will also be tasting New Mexico Cuisine! Sign up on my wish list if you can help!

We will also begin to learn where we live; our street, city, state, and country. We will discuss Martin Luther King Jr. and what the holiday means. I will start by explaining how everyone can help make a difference in the world through kindness and respect, just like King did.

Science

Our focus this trimester will be on physical science. We will explore the properties of objects and learn about the forces that make things move.