Shoes, shoes, shoes

Thank you to all of you who have already sent in shoes for our shoeman water project.  The children are so excited to be a part of this outreach and are excited to see how many shoes we can collect as a class.  We began tracking our shoes with the tally system and have just started to record our pairs of shoes on a tens-frame (just like what we use to count our days of school).  So far we have had 14 pairs since our start and we are excited to see how many more we can get between now and the end of our shoeman project time in January.

Keep sending in those shoes and thank you!

Upcoming events

Just a reminder that tomorrow is PJ day for our Polar Express Party. 

Also, we have two large projects coming up after the winter break.

100th DAY!

Our 100th day of school will be toward the end of January.  The official date won't be set till later depending on snow days!  For this special date you will need to make a 100th day hat with your child and send it back to school from Jan. 6th-17th.  I am telling you know as you might have time to work on it during the break.  Please look for a note coming home this week in folders with details about the hat :)

Children around the World

During this social studies unit we learn about many things from children all over the world.  This includes celebrations, traditions, food, clothing, shelter, transportation, location and more!  We always invite parents to come in and share their traditions and celebrations.  Some families have a strong heritage or culture they might want to share about.  In the past, we have had parents share about Irish dancing, Chinese New Year, Chinese clothing and food, Indian clothing, Muslim traditions and celebrations and more!  Some of you might be thinking well our traditions and celebrations are the same as most families.  Well that is still okay!  I have also had families share about St. Nick's Day, Christmas ornament traditions and other similar things.  The kids love any parent who is willing to share and they love when their own parent comes!

We will be having parents come from Jan. 6th- Jan.31st during our social studies time from 2:00-2:35.  Please let me know if you would like to come!  Also, if these times do not work for your schedule let me know and we can try and come up with an alternate time.  If you plan to share, will you also give me a little heads up on what you might be sharing about.

THANKS FOR HELPING US LEARN!

Mystery Mom

Today Evie's mom surprised us with two perfect winter stories to get us excited for our upcoming winter break.  She read "The Snowy Day" and "Stranger in the Woods".  Thank you to Evie's mom and brother for sharing the magic of the winter season with us!

Hearing the Holidays

Today the South Middle band, orchestra and choir came to deliver a holiday concert at Barretts. The children loved hearing familiar songs and seeing how many of the groups members were former Bobcats.  They did a beautiful job listening and being respectful too...they really are looking like such big boys and girls these days!  We even got to see a few classmates act as guest conductors.  How fun!

 

Wants/'Needs & Scarcity/Opportunity Cost

As we continue with our wants and needs unit we are starting to explore how choice is a part of wants and needs.  We are looking at how resources (whats available to us) have an opportunity to choose what is most important to us be it will cost us another choice.  We began talking today about how scarcity affects our ability to choose because of the higher cost often associated with scare items.  The children will be experimenting with these concepts all week and will required to make choices to identify their personal opportunity cost.

Shoe Goals

We have officially kicked off our service learning project with the assembly with George and the making of signs to get others around the building excited to help contribute to our service learning project.  To help make the process of collecting shoes more personal we also took time to set individual goals about how many shoes we would like to collect from family members and friends in our communities.  The children will be keeping track of how many shoes our class brings in and we will be using the opportunity to learn to count by 2's and group by 10's---this is the perfect lead into our upcoming sorting and collecting math unit in January.  If you could help me by talking to your child about his/her goal number and rubber banding any shoes you choose to send to school with your child I would be most grateful!  The children are very excited about reaching their goals and helping others.  I couldn't be more proud of their enthusiasm!

3D shapes sort

Today we had the opportunity to sort and graph 3D shapes.  We talked about the attributes of each shape including the number and shape of each face.  The children loved the opportunity to sort food items and then enjoy them...yum!  The are becoming so good at recognizing 2D and 3D shapes in their environment.  If you have not already had the chance to do so, please be sure to help your child complete his/her 3D shape hunt at home.  It is fun to see the many shapes hidden in the world around us!