Estes Extras...

What a great week. Only 1 week until Thanksgiving break... this year is going by too quickly! Next week is a BIG week. On Wednesday, we have our November brainstorm! It will be an all day event. On Friday, we have our Thanksgiving Friendship Feast. It will be from 1:15-2:00. Most everyone sent their form back with what they are bringing. Please let me know if you have questions with the items for the feast. I would really like it if at least one or more parents can come to the feast. It would mean the world to them if you came. We are performing a few songs, celebrating Thanksgiving in the style of the first Thanksgiving as little Indians and Pilgrims.  You are welcome to take your child home after the feast!!!

Next week's specials are: Monday: Art, Tuesday: P.E., Wednesday: Media, Thursday: Music, Friday: P.E.

Now that the temperatures are dropping please make sure that names are on jackets, hats and anything else that comes to school.
Library books went home this week. They are due on Tuesday. We are visiting the library on Wednesday.

Nadia was picked for student of the week. She has Max the Moose for the weekend! Have fun!


Thank you to Sofia's mom and Carla's mom who came and helped at literacy centers. Thank you to Elianna's dad who came and did science experiments with us. Thank you to Elianna's mom who was our Mystery Reader. Also, a special thank you to Sofia's mom who donated a bean bag to our classroom. Awesome! I love parent volunteers! A very special thank you to those who help from home, come in and for being the great parents you are for your children.


Academic Update:

Literacy: We are continuing our unit on Friendship. This next week will be our last week in this unit. Our Friendship Feast is also a celebration of wrapping up the unit. In phonics, we learned two new letters: X and Y.  We also learned some new sight words: is, are, here.

I started sending home the "book bags". These are books we are reading during center time with me. We are practicing reading one word at a time, reading from left to right, looking at the capital letter at the beginning of a sentence and looking at the punctuation at the end of the sentence. The books that come home a few times a week, are KCSMA books. Please send them back the next day. I can not send another book home, if the first book doesn't come back. Let your child read it to you. Then you read it together and then let them read it to you again. After reading it three times, ask comprehension questions about the book, such as 'what happened at the beginning, middle, end?' 'who were the characters in the book?', 'what is the setting?' 'was there a problem, if so- what was it?' If the book is about an animal or object, ask them how they would feel if they were that animal or object...etc. The more questions asked about the book, the better the comprehension is. We are now realizing that once we know the sight words, we can read simple sentences. We have many readers in the class which is awesome! Knowing the sight words is good, but understanding what we just read is more important. 

Math:

We are still continuing chapter 5 about shapes. We are learning the names of some shapes, how they move, their characteristics and when you put shapes together, they can make other shapes. We will be finishing up our chapter next week.

Science/Social Studies: This past week and next week, we are focusing on our upcoming holiday of Thanksgiving.  Elianna's dad, our science parent, came on Wednesday and taught us a new word: osmosis. Osmosis means to absorb. He showed us two awesome experiments. The first was two jars filled with vinegar. We placed an hard-boiled egg in each of the jars. We have been observing the changes of the egg as each day goes on. The other experiment was testing what a dry sponge felt like and predicted what would happen when dunked into water...(It expands, the sponge absorbs the water!)  We had a blast and can't wait to our next experiment!!

This past week was a tough week with our immune systems. We averaged about 10 friend each day and on Wednesday, we had only 8 friends in our class!! Please continue washing your hands and drinking your orange juice!! Mrs. Barnes and I are spraying the room down each day with hopes we can start to feel better. I tell the kids to sanitize all the time. I even lost my voice this week and I'm battling a small cold this weekend. Hopefully the cold that got us all, is gone and we are all back, good as new on Monday!!

This coming Monday, November 15th at 6:30pm is a very important meeting at Kennesaw City Hall about the vote for our possible new school land. Please come and wear RED. The class with the most parent support gets a party. See you at the meeting on Monday!!  

The scholastic book order forms are due on Thursday, November 18th. don't forget this is a great opportunity to stock up on Holiday gifts as well as the class book exchange in December.

Have a great weekend. I look forward to seeing everyone at the Friendship Feast on Friday!! Stay warm, feel better and Roll Tide!