December 9th - 13th

Hello everyone! We are in the final stretch of our first term at school! It's been such a whirlwind! The class has been working really hard this term and has made some excellent progress in their learning! I hope you will be as proud of them as I am when you read their progress reports next week! We have been working hard on our Christmas concert song and although they are nervous, I think they are also looking forward to singing it for you.

For the Christmas concert, our class needs to wear a plain black shirt (we can turn shirts inside out if they have a design), and plain, dark coloured pants. If the shirts could be labelled with their name and sent in on Monday, that would be a huge help! That way, I can prepare the shirts for the concert. If it comes on Tuesday, that's perfectly ok!

Here are some highlights from our week this week:

• we have been practicing place value in Math and representing numbers using base ten blocks

• in Reading, we have talked about the strategy 'Flippy Dolphin' which is when you change the vowel sound in a word if it doesn't make sense.

• We are working on a class book about what we like to do in winter. This week we have focused on the writing and next week, we will work on the pictures!

• we enjoyed making Christmas cards with our big buddies this week

• we 'travelled' to Italy and Sweden this week to learn about their Christmas traditions which was a lot of fun! The class was fascinated to learn that Venice is sinking!

• The class got to enjoy doing a variety of art with Mrs. Braraten this week

It's been a really fun week! Next week, we will keep many of our routines in place but will also make time for some art and other more relaxing projects as their excitement and energy rises! We will not be starting any new topics and I plan to send home their progress reports on Tuesday, December 17th. If you are planning to leave town early for a Christmas holiday, please just let us know so we can mark your child away.

Have a great weekend!

Mrs. Parkinson