Weekly Update

Hi Everyone!  Happy Friday!

It's about to be my favorite week of the entire school year!  The anticipation for the upcoming Holiday is palpable, everyone is in a festive mood, and everyone is even kinder than normal.  We have some fun events planned this week to mark the Holiday, and will be finishing up some of our academic units too.  

Here's a quick weekly update...

Next Week's Homework:
There is no written homework next week, and we will not have new sight words. Please read!

Winter Break Reading Log:
I sent home a Winter Break Reading Log in your child's Thursday folder yesterday. If you have any questions about this reading incentive, please email me.

Holiday Travel:

If you are traveling over the Holidays, and your child will be absent from school, please kindly notify the school in advance.  You can send a message or note to me, which I will forward to the office.  You may also submit your notification to the office directly by using the "online absence excuse", which is found on the Pinebrook home page.  The link to the Pinebrook home page is here.

Reflex Math:

We are coming to a close on our addition and subtraction unit.  Now that the kids have learned the strategies for solving addition and subtraction facts, it's time to practice fact fluency!  Fact fluency is the "fancy way" to describe the ability to quickly recall addition and subtraction facts.  I cannot teach fact fluency.  You cannot teach fact fluency.  As with reading, it's about practice, practice, practice.  To promote practice, our school subscribes to an on-line program called Reflex Math. The program's aim is to help kids build fact fluency.  Your child can now begin to log in to practice fact fluency via fun, arcade style games.  The log on information is in the "online resources" section of this blog.

Focus Areas for the Upcoming Short Week:

• Reading:  We will read the Holiday Classic The Polar Express, and review many of the good reader strategies we have learned this year, such as predicting, retelling, making connections, and story mapping.  
• Math:  We will review addition and subtraction strategies.  We will begin our place value unit in January.
• Writing:  We will complete some Holiday writing projects.
• Science / Social Studies:  We will talk about Holiday traditions around the world with our annual Holidays Around the World on Tuesday morning. During this time, the 1st grade teachers take turns rotating through each other's classrooms teaching the students about a holiday tradition from a particular country or culture.

I CAN'T WAIT!!!!!  The Mercer Band and Chorus (my Savey sings in the 8th grade chorus!) will come Tuesday afternoon for a Holiday concert, and on Wednesday, the entire school will pile into the gym for our annual Holiday Sing Along.  We sing Holiday songs from the many faith and cultural traditions represented at Pinebrook while the teachers and staff all take turns leading the songs.  Seriously....I CAN'T EVEN CONTAIN MYSELF.  I am 42 years old, but at this time of year, I am a 6 year old.  It's one reason why YOUR children are "MY PEOPLE"!  (It's also the reason I am typing in so many CAPITAL letters.)

Have a great weekend!  I am looking forward to baking more cookies, wrapping gifts, watching "It's a Wonderful Life" with my boys, and attending a Holiday concert at our Church.  

3 days....3 days....3 days.....