Holiday Fun!

Thank you to Mrs. D for baking gingerbread cookies for our class and the Pre-K! We got together and decorated our yummy cookies with frosting, sprinkles, marshmallows, raisins and m&ms!

Today, we got our golden tickets and boarded the Polar Express! 

All Aboard!

  That conductor sure looks like Dr. Bonasera… :)

After the movie we enjoyed hot cocoa with marshmallows and whipped cream, munchkins and cookies!

Santa came to Room 202 and left some gifts for my tots! They were so excited!

Mrs. D and I thank you for your generous gifts. It is our pleasure to spend the day with your child and we love watching them grow and learn! We wish you a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

See you in 2016!

Don't Forget Your Pajamas!

We will board the Polar Express tomorrow morning. Please remember to wear your pajamas!! If you signed up to send in items for our Polar Express Day, feel free to send them with your child to school!

Happy Birthday Fernando!

We celebrated Fernando's 5th birthday today! Happy Birthday Fernando!

Gingerbread Men & Holiday Traditions

Mrs. Botero came to read a holiday story to the class and share a tradition from Poland. Instead of breaking bread and wishing our friends happy holidays, we used munchkins!

  A letter went home Monday explaining our Polar Express Day! All students are invited to wear pajamas to school on Wednesday, December 23rd. We will "board" the Polar Express, watch the movie and  enjoy some hot chocolate!

Thank you to the room moms for organizing a sign up sheet using the website Sign up Genius. It looks like we have volunteers for all of the items. Thank you for your generosity!

This past week we continued to write our very own versions of The Gingerbread Boy! We are loving every gingerbread story we have read. Our favorite parts this week were Gingerbread Kid Lost in School, Catch that Cookie and A Cookie for Santa! We are enjoying our unit so much, we decided to  decorate our door and made my tots the gingerbread cookies!

Looking ahead…

Next week's Letter: Nn

Sight word: play

Wednesday, December 23rd is early dismissal for the holiday break. 

Since I won't see you all before  holiday break, I want to wish you a joyous holiday and happy new year! 

Oh Christmas Tree!

We are moving onto the next holiday; Christmas! Here we are working hard on our trees, and a picture of our beautiful display!

Friendly reminder that tomorrow is an early release day! Dismissal starts at 1:20!

Writing Journals

In January, we will  transition from our journal with no lines, to journals like this:

I have 15 from last year, however we have 20 students! If you see any of these journals at Walmart or Staples and would like to donate one to the class, it would be greatly appreciated. We only need 5 to have a class set!

Recap of the Week!

This week was filled with driedel spinning, gingerbread reading and writing, and lots of conferences! We began our week learning about the game played during Hanukkah, dreidel. We loved practicing our spins and playing with real pennies!

       We continued our Gingerbread unit. We decorated gingerbread people for our door, and read lots of stories such as Gingerbread Girl, Gingerbread Girl Goes Animal Crackers, Gingerbread Cowboy, and Gingerbread Baby.

Mrs. Lapolla, a reading teacher at Roxbury, stopped by to share her favorite gingerbread story, The Gingerbread Friends! Here we are enjoying the story on our new, beautiful rug!

In writing, we used our home gingerbread project to inspire our very own version of the Gingerbread Boy! We used a story element organizer to draw our characters and setting of the story. 

Yanni was the Celebrity of the Week. He shared a action figure bouncy ball from the dentist; pretty cool dentist!

Looking ahead…

Sight words: am, not

Letters: Rr, Ff

Wednesday, December 16th is early dismissal for staff development. 

If you have not returned your signed report card envelope, please send it to school with your child.

 Pre-K and Kindergarten will have their  Polar Express day filled with pajamas, a movie and hot coco on Wednesday, December 23rd.. Be on the look out for the letter this week in your child's folder.

Enjoy the beautiful, but weird December weather!! :)

Thank You! Thank You! Thank You!

Thank you to all families who donated to the classroom DonorsChoose project. Our new rug arrived this afternoon and it is all set for my tots to arrive at school tomorrow! Here's a sneak peek!

Gingerbread Projects Due Tomorrow!

Some of our gingerbread characters came back to school today!  The project is due tomorrow. If you need more time, please let me know! Here are a few of the characters:

I can't wait to see the rest! 

Room 202's Week at a Glance

We learned the letters P and U this week. We added two new sight words to our word wall, and worked with friends to practice reading them!

We read stories about octopus for our Non-fiction unit and wrote facts we learned from the text. We explored gingerbread books for our December unit! We compared two stories and discussed their similarities and differences. The books are called, The Gingerbread Boy and You Can't Catch Me! 

In math we worked with teen numbers. We practiced writing our teen numbers, and identifying them. We learned that 11 and 12 are the "tween numbers" because they are in between 10 and 13! We also worked with the addition sign and equals sign. 

Darlin was our Celebrity of the Week! She brought in her favorite Angelina Ballerina toy to share with the class, and told her friends her favorite food is pizza!

Looking Ahead…

Next week's letter: U review and Bb

Next week's sight words: at, went

Gingerbread projects are due Tuesday, December 8th! Please encourage your child to write the gingerbread's name by sounding out the word on the paper provided. 

The gingerbread project will be the only homework for the week due to Hanukkah beginning. 

If anyone is interested in sharing a family tradition with the class, please send me an email so we can set up a time! In the past I've had parents read their favorite holiday story, bring in a favorite treat, play a game or make a craft such as an ornament.

There is early dismissal Wednesday, Thursday and Friday due to conferences. Dismissal begins at 1:20. 

I look forward to seeing you all at conferences! Have a wonderful weekend!

Kindergarten Roxstars!

My tots are "Roxstar" author and illustrators! I am so proud of their second non-fiction story that they wrote all about themselves! We used a brainstorming web to gather some facts. Next, we drew pictures and matched our words to the picture. We tried really hard to sound out the words by ourselves. The next skill we will work on is spaces between our words! :)

So proud of my tots!

The family Gingerbread project went home tonight. I Can't wait to see those gingerbread characters make their way back to school! The due date is Tuesday, December 8th. This will be the only homework for the rest of this week and into next due to the Jewish holiday, Hanukkah. 

New Specials Schedule

The second marking period has begun, which means our specials schedule changed!

Our new schedule is:

Monday- Music
Tuesday- Media
Wednesday-Art
Thursday-Gym
Friday-Music

Please be sure to wear sneakers on Thursdays!!

Your conference date and time went home today. If this time does not work for you, please let me know ASAP.

Be on the look out for our December family project-

Happy Thanksgiving!

I hope everyone enjoyed their long holiday weekend! I want to give a big THANK YOU to all of the parents who purchased items for our feast, and the parents who helped serve all of our tots their delicious meal at the feast!

Another big thank you to the families who donated to our Donors Choose project. These donations go toward a  larger ABC rug so we can all sit comfortably during story time and whole group lessons! If you wish to donate to the class, the link is below. 

http://www.donorschoose.org/project/msts-circle-time-carpet/1793634/?rf=email-system-2015-11-proposal_approve-teacher_2000514&challengeid=316622&utm_source=dc&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=proposal_approve&utm_swu=4258

Looking ahead…

**Report Cards will go home this Friday**

Letter of the Week: P

Sight words of the week: Can, of

I will send home a list of the first marking period words to practice 

Your schedule conference time and date will go home this week. 

During conference days  (Wed. 12/9, Thurs. 12/10, Fri.  12/11) it is early release from school. Dismissal will begin at 1:20.

Please send your child to school with a coat. We go outside for recess as long as the weather is not below 32 degrees. 

Character Assembly

A Big Congrats to our 6 Rockin' Rockstars who showed acts of kindness earning them a character charm! 

Preview of Thanksgiving

Tomorrow is our much anticipated Thanksgiving feast. Today, we got ready for our feast by making Native American Hats. All of my tots were so excited, the quote "Look at me, I'm Squanto" was heard across Room 202! Here's a sneak peak at some of Room 202's Native Americans.

 Thank you to the wonderful Mrs. D for bringing us in special turkey cookies! We got to decorate our turkeys with M&M's marshmallows, sprinkles, chocolate chips and frosting. The best part of all, eating them of course!

If you are bringing something for the feast, feel free to drop it off at Roxbury between 8:45-12:00. The feast is at 12:00, so make sure we have the items by 12, thanks!