Happy New Year!!

I hope everyone enjoyed the holidays!  The kids were all pretty tired the first day back, trying to get adjusted to waking up early again I guess.  Since we have entered a new year this week we each wrote a new goal that we have for 2013.  Many of the goals had to do with school and sports. Here is what is happening in our classroom:

• We started our Solid, Liquids and Gases unit in Science.  The kids seem pretty excited about all the interesting experiments we will be conducting.
• In Math we continue to work on adding and subtracting.  This week we worked with number stories and adding 3 double digit numbers mentally.  This is not easy, the more practice the students have with simple addition and subtraction the easier this will be for them.  Don't forget that our school website has links to lots of great educational website in which they can practice these skills.  Please utilize these websites!
• We have started a mentor writing unit.  This is so cool, because what we do is we study a particular author and try to model our own writing after that author.  We are studying the author Angela Johnson, she writes stories about her family and they are easy for children to relate to.  This week we also talked about watermelon topics and seed topics, ask your child what this means.
• Thank you to all the parents who have helped their children take pictures around the community, they look amazing.  We will start this project next Friday in computers so if you haven't gotten around to it you still have a week left to get us some pictures.
• Also a big thank-you for following through with our new stuff animal rule.  It has worked out very well so far this week.  I am so lucky to have such supportive and wonderful families to work with here in Woodbury Heights!

Have a wonderful weekend!
Anne Taylor