Newsletter December 12 - 16

Wow! It's hard to believe that our year is half over. I have had such a great year so far. I have truly loved getting to know all of your children and we have had a wonderful time together. They have all worked hard this semester and I'm so proud of all they have accomplished. I cannot wait to see what the second half of the year will hold for us.

I have been blessed with so much this year and cannot tell you how grateful I am and how much I love working at BDS. It is an awesome place...I feel so lucky to be a part of it. I hope that you all have a merry Christmas and a happy New Year!

This week we begin our Christmas unit. The hallway looks fantastic; the kids are going to be in awe tomorrow morning. We will have our Christmas performance on Thursday evening at 6 PM. Please see the school newsletter for more details.

News to Know

• Lola is this week's snack helper. Summer will be snack helper when we return from break.
• Report cards will be sent home Monday. Please contact me if you have any questions.
• The conceptual posttests are often difficult and cover material from throughout the unit. I always encourage the students to try their best and I grade the tests on a curve. While it may look like the students are struggling with the questions, a comparison of their pretest and posttest answers will show that they are actually learning a lot about each topic and I am grading them accordingly. Students also receive conceptual grades for various projects and participation in activities. The conceptual posttest counts as only a small portion of the students' final grades for conceptual.
• Friday will be a half day and dismissal will be at 12 PM. Students are allowed to wear pajamas on this day.
• I am still looking at books for the January unit. I will be in touch soon with information about the book I've chosen.

Language Arts

This week I will be sharing one of my favorite childhood books with the students: The Best Christmas Pageant Ever by Barbara Robinson. It's a hilarious and heartwarming tale that I know the kids will love. We will also review grammar concepts with some fun, Christmas-themed lessons.

Math

We will wrap up Topic 8 and take a test on either Tuesday or Wednesday. It is important that students continue to study their multiplication facts over the break. Mastering their facts will make future topics much easier for them.

Conceptual

This week we will learn about other countries' holiday traditions as well as our own. It promises to be a fun week!

Science / Social Studies

We will finish up our timeline project.

Newsletter December 5 - 9

Hi parents! I hope that everyone is having a wonderful weekend! Thank you so much for all your help with Friday's tea party! The students learned a lot and tried some new things. This has been such a great unit. I have thoroughly enjoyed sharing my love for Shakespeare with the students. They have been so enthusiastic this unit.

News to Know

• Luke Weathersby is this week's snack helper. Lola will be next week's helper.
• Family tree projects are due on Tuesday. Please refer to the assignment sheet for instructions.
• Students will need a mirror for Wednesday's center activity.
• We will begin our Secret Santa project on Monday, December 12. Remember, presents are not to be expensive: candy or small toys are perfect.

Language Arts

We will finish reading The Shakespeare Stealer this week and take a test on Friday. We will continue discussing verbs and have a grammar test on Friday. We will also continue working on our object descriptions.

Math

We will finish the Topic 7 test on Monday (the students are almost finished). We will then begin Topic 8: Division. This topic focuses on using multiplication / division fact families to figure out answers to division problems. This is a short topic and we will try to wrap it up before Christmas break.

Conceptual

We will finish the Shakespeare unit this week. We will present our family trees on Tuesday. We will discuss the mystery over Shakespeare's identity, Queen Elizabeth, and the use of sound effects during performances. We will have the Hamlet performance on Thursday and A Midsummer Night's Dream on Friday.

Science

We will continue our experiments with weathering and erosion.