Announcements: 

Thank you all for getting the field trip permission forms in! We are so excited about seeing Madeline and the Bad Hat! Also, thanks to our chaperones that are coming and helping out.

PTA Holiday Store is this Thursday (Dec. 3) afternoon. The envelopes were sent home before Thanksgiving break. Please let me know if you need another. They can also visit the store before and after school if you are wanting to go with them. There will be PTA members there to help the students pick out gifts within their budget. This is a good way for students to buy a surprise gift for moms, dad, siblings, or other family members without the family members help, and is a great independence builder.

Winter Gear: Each student needs to be bringing in all of their winter gear. This includes hats, gloves, snow pants, boots, and a heavy coat. Without any one of these items, the student either has a restricted recess or has to sit in the office for the entire recess. Also, I would suggest writing your child's name on their snow gear to help us keep everything accounted for. 

Items Needed:

• Glue sticks- we go through these pretty quickly and are almost out again. 
• Class snacks- Our "I forgot my snack" bucket is empty! If anyone would like to donate a healthy snack that can be kept in the classroom (pretzels, goldfish, etc) it would be extremely helpful for when anyone forgets a snack. 

Here's what's going on in class:

Language Arts: We just finished up our exciting unit on fables and are moving on to fairy tales! We are going to be learning about Cinderella around the world. At each stop on our journey, we will learn a little about the culture and gain a stamp on our passport. So far this week, we have learned the story elements of fairy tales, created our passports, and have headed to China to read Yeh Shen. 

The books we will be reading and comparing in this unit include:

Cinderella (Disney Version)

Yeh Shen (China)

The Rough-Face Girl (Algonquin Indian)

The Egyptian Cinderella (Egypt)

The students also get time daily to read to themselves and to read to a parter to build up their stamina and reading fluency, AKA to become a SUPER READER!!

Math: Chapter 2 test is Wednesday, Dec. 2. Thursday, we will begin chapter 4 where we will focus on addition and learn how to add with regrouping. Thanks to those that are using ExtraMath online. It will be a great asset as we further our addition skills.

Science- Our new science kits are here and we are starting a new unit on the plant life cycle. 

What else have we been up to??

Last week, we learned all about Thanksgiving. One of the many activities we worked on, was building a Mayflower to hold the Pilgrims (pennies). Each student was given one piece of aluminum foil, a small piece of paper, a straw, and one small piece of tape. They had to plan, test, and make improvements to their ships. We had some amazing discoveries and one of the ships held over 80 pennies!!

In October, we learned about the pumpkin life cycle. They measured and compared pumpkins, then cut them open and counted all the seeds! Messy, messy fun!!