Dear Apple Parents,
After the Christmas break there is huge progress made by the students. The pace of the students' reading and the number of math concepts understood really accelerates. Everyone in the class is reading now, even our newest student who came to us in late October from China.
Home Readers are brought to school more often now so that I can listen to the children read orally, what progress they have made. Most of the children are now hearing beginning, ending, and medial letter sounds. The Superkids' reading series is phonics based and we are seven letters of the alphabet from completing this series. The children are now using invented spelling to add to their art work.
In math we are learning about time, money, odd and even numbers, missing addends, tallying, and are adding and subtracting with more accuracy. We have also been studying the number words. We know the math sign for degrees, dollars, cents, and many more.
In science we just finished a unit on dinosaurs, magnets, shadows, and are about to start studying volcanoes. I will use a toy volcano that explodes with the help of baking soda and vinegar, I even add some food coloring to make it look like hot lava. I am sure that the children will want this experiment repeated as it is fascinating to them.
In social studies we will soon be studying past presidents in anticipation of Presidents' Day. We have planned a Valentine party and look forward to the
100th Day of school when we will be 100 days smarter.
After Valentine's Day we will be looking forward to a study of Texas and the Rodeo. We will give our selves cowboy/cowgirl names and I have a real horse saddle that the children will be able to sit on in class. Yipee!