Hello Families,

     I hope you all enjoyed spending time with your child looking over his/her portfolio during out halfway point of our school year.  The students have made very good gains.  Portfolios will go home again towards the end of the school year.

  I'd like to share with you some of the latest information coming out of Room 117:

  Students have finished their final opinion piece and hopefully have shared it with you.  We are finishing up the Mystery unit in Reading. Our next unit in Reading and Writing is Poetry.  Students will be exposed to the different elements of poetry, such as rhythm, rhyme, alliteration, etc.  They will be comparing poems.  Yesterday, they learned the difference between Poetry and Prose. Today we spoke about the Poet’s message.

   I was hoping to finish our Measurement and Date unit this week and test prior to February vacation, however with early dismissal yesterday and special snack/passing out Valentine’s on Thursday, it will not be given until after vacation.     Following that, we will be working on Geometry during the end of February and March.  Our Geometry unit has four main areas of focus:

To investigate line segments, rays, and lines

To explore polygons, including triangles and quadrangles

To draw and measure angles

To explore area and perimeter

Tomorrow---Valentine’s Day-I sent home a notice last week asking for you to send in an extra snack for your child to have during our Valentine celebration.  On the back of the notice you will find the names of our students should your child wish to make Valentine cards. 

Speaking of cards, one of our Room 117 friends, Stone DeLuca will be leaving us as of this Friday.  I would like students to make a card at home to give to him on Friday.  Please tell your child that this is a surprise and to hand it to me when they are finished, either tomorrow or Friday morning, when they arrive at school.  I will hold on to them until Friday afternoon.

You have probably heard by now that the para in our room, Mrs. Lussier, has left to take another job.  Mrs. Davis has been the substitute and has taken over her duties until a permanent para is hired.  Mrs. Davis has eased right into the role and has a quiet, gentle way with the students.

February vacation will soon be upon us.  I hope that you are able to enjoy some down time with your child.

Best,

Mary-Ellen G.