We wrapped up 2015 with a lot of fun!
The kids continued to practice their "partial sums" method of adding two digit numbers! Natalie enjoyed showing her classmates how this strategy works (adding the tens place, then adding the ones place, and then combining the two!) using the document camera!
The children were so happy to prepare a holiday gift for their families! We hope you enjoyed the picture frame they created just for you.
It was so much fun watching them concentrate from start to finish to do their very best- from the creating and writing of their holiday card, all the way to making and wrapping their gift!
Perfect!
During our last reading lesson of our fiction unit, the children learned about figurative language. This included similes, idioms, and personification. I was a bit skeptical of the children learning all three of these terms at once, but I have to say that they did a remarkable job! The hardest examples for us to find were idioms, but they were on the lookout during their independent reading to do their best to identify these terms that help the reader to better picture the authors words in their mind!
During our holiday customs mini unit, the children learned about how Kwanzaa, Hanukkah, and Christmas involve traditions that come from many places, near and far. We talked about how our country is made of people that have come here from other countries, bringing their traditions with them. Here the children all gave us a "hand" as they created a tree, which is a tradition that stems from Germany!
The 2nd graders helped Mrs. Schmidt's kindergarteners learn how the human heart works with the heart course!
We revisited (and closed) our writing unit learning about how to write a business letter! We included our home address in the heading, and we wrote the company's address down too. The children and I pretended that we bought a bicycle from Toys R Us that had a flat tire. We respectfully requested the tire to be replaced or repaired right away, including the model number of the bicycle in our letter. The children did a great job!
These were just a few of the holiday books we spent some time reading this week!
We had a blast at the "Winter Wonderland" event that was put together by Mrs. Sessler and the PTA. The children enjoyed listening to music, playing games, and stretching their creative muscles with some engaging arts and crafts! Thank you also to Mrs. Schmidt, Mrs. Troup, Mrs. Sheehan, Mrs. Otahal, and Mrs. Stevenson for coming to spend this time with us!
Mr. Deptula dropped by with a bunch of festive 5th graders to sing some holiday tunes with us!
It was finally time for our Holiday Book Exchange. The kids were so excited to swap an old book for a "new" one!
Here we are with our books and our jammies- ready to open our new books!
And here we are afterward! What an interesting of array of books!! Thank you so much for helping your child to participate in this fun event with us!
We read the book
Silver Packages by Cynthia Rylant to remind us the power of being kind to others, especially during the holiday season. While reading this story, we learned about how one kind deed became contagious and led to others doing kind deeds for people around them. The children received their homework assignment- to simply do a kind deed for someone else, expecting nothing in return, but with the hope that the kindness would ignite the same giving spirit in others!
A wave from a familiar friend was the perfect send-off into our winter break!
Enjoy your long vacation from school, everyone! See you in 2016!
:) Kelly O'Sullivan
Other ways for the children to sharpen their skills over the winter break:
READ!
https://www.ixl.com/
https://play.dreambox.com/login/2emy/drydenes
http://typingtraining.com/
