Newsletter: Week 9

Friday, October 23, 2009
Miss Wagenaar

Reminders/Notices:
• Laurelwood Literacy Night: Tuesday November 3rd 6:30-7:45pm – Check out this amazing event for FREE activities for all ages, story time, and a book exchange!
• Dining for Dollars at Armadillo Willy’s: Wednesday October 28th from 5-9pm – 20% of purchases help our school (take out is included)
• Halloween Parade: Children are invited to wear their Halloween costumes to school for our parade, which begins on the upper grade playground at 8:30. We will change out of our costumes directly following, so if your child is not independent with removing their costume, please plan on staying to assist them. (Parents are welcome to join and take pictures of this fun activity)
• Halloween Celebration: Room 4 will be celebrating after lunch time, with games, crafts and snacks. If you have not had a chance to sign up on Jooners, please do so or fill out the form sent home in Thursday folders. Thank you!
• Pajama Day: Monday November 2nd – students are invited to wear their PJs to school as we enjoy a day of resting, writing about Halloween, and learning about day and night

This Week:
• We learned about pumpkins: we labeled the parts of a pumpkin, cut it open, carved the pumpkin, and roasted the pumpkin seeds. We also began talking about the stages of pumpkin growth (seed, vine, flower, etc)
• We learned the sight word “the” and practiced the letter Tt.
• In Readers Workshop we learned that good readers connect the pages of the story by saying “and then” as they turn the page. We also discussed characters and identified them within our Look Books.
• In Writers Workshop we worked on labeling our pictures and rereading our stories and sharing our work with a partner.
• We did an introduction to patterns, and students explored linking cubes to create their own patterns.
• We baked Pumpkin Cranberry muffins and they were delicious.


Next Week:
 We will be discussing fire safety all week long and Laurelwood will be visited by a Fire Engine and firefighters who can answer questions and share more information.
 We will continue our study of patterns, and work on creating our own unique patterns.
 We will discuss spiders, from a scientific standpoint as well as determining the difference between fiction and non-fiction by comparing a variety of books on the topic of spiders.
Students will make puppets and use them to recite the short rhyme “Five Little Pumpk ins.”

Questions to ask your child
1.Make a pattern using household objects (ex. fork spoon fork spoon)
2.Ask your child if they liked the Pumpkin Cranberry muffins that we baked and tasted.
3.Give your child the opportunity to create a drawing at home and add labels to their illustration to help tell the story.