Week of 12/6

Dear Parents,

You should have received a note regarding your child's Nutcracker part, and what s/he should wear for the performance in last week's Wednesday envelope. Please let me know if there are any problems with gathering up the various clothes needed-- most girls will be wearing leotards, and most boys will be wearing dark pants and either a light or dark shirt. Hopefully, if there is a clothing item you do not have, you can borrow it, as I do not intend for you to have to buy anything.  Girls-- I have several leotards of my daughter's that can be borrowed.  Again, the performance of the Nutcracker will be at 10:00. Get there a little early (the invitation we are sending home tomorrow has a time 10 minutes before the start) so that you can be seated when the performance begins. You won't want to miss it!

On another Nutcracker note, I am in need of two photographers with decent cameras for the event.  They will be responsible for taking constant pictures throughout the performance, and then insuring that I get a high-resolution copy of the pictures afterward as soon as possible.  We will offer priority seating to the photographers.  Please let me know if you can help.

Curriculum
This week's letter is Cc, and the Alphafriend is Callie Cat. We have two new sight words this week: that and at. We will be continuing with our math unit on addition.  Again, I want to remind you that any reinforcement you can provide with addition is very helpful.  If your child has access to an iPad, "Hungry Fish" and "Math Bingo" and I'm sure many other great math apps are out there. I would suggest continuing to work on addition throughout the holidays as well.  When we return in January, we will begin subtraction, so it is important to have good fluency in addition before we start subtraction.

This week's sharing is Letter of the Week share. Please have your child bring in something that starts with Cc. Please write clues and hide it in a bag.

This week, our class will participate in an exciting movement called Hour of Code. We will be using our Bee-Bot to do some programming, getting the Bee-Bot around a gridded mat. We are excited to be a part of this global movement!

We have a Cornerstone lesson this Friday the 11th. Thank you to Matt (Leo's dad) and Meg (Nia's mom) for their great Cornerstone lessons.

This is our final week of centers before the holidays, as next week we will be focusing on Nutcracker rehearsals.  Thank you so much to our classroom helpers in 2015, and thank you for your continued support in 2016!  I will be updating the 2016 schedule as soon as I can. Please let me know if there are any changes to the schedule or if you'd like to be added to the schedule.

Blue Bags are due tomorrow, and will go home again on Wednesday for the last time before the holidays. When we return from Winter Break, the journal component will be added to the Blue Bags. Your children will be asked to write a response to the story they read. We would like them to write a sentence about what they liked about the book, and draw a nice picture to go along with it. More details will follow in the Blue Bag on the week of January 3rd.

This Week's Helpers & Activities:
Monday: Blue Bags returned (Jillian), Centers (Hiromi & Maria), Sharing
Tuesday: Centers (Jerri & Tanya), P.E. with Coach Jose, Sharing
Wednesday: Computers (Johanna), Sharing, Blue Bags go Home

Thursday: Centers (Lawrence & Lisa), Sharing
Friday: Story time with Grandma Gail, Cornerstone, Sharing

Upcoming Events:

12/18: Nutcracker Performance @ 10:00
12/19-1/3: Winter Break
1/18: No School: MLK Day
1/21: Incoming Kindergartner Parent Information Night
2/2: 100 Day