December 4, 2008 Newsletter

Ray’s Ramblings
December 4, 2008

Dear Parents,
It is so hard to believe that we only have 11 days of school left before our Christmas Break!!! Where is this year going?

Our Christmas Party will be on Thursday, December 18 at 9:30 and 1:30. At 10:30 and 2:30, the children will go to music. Remember, all children need to send in a SHOPPING SIZED Christmas bag to collect all their presents. Make sure your child’s name is on the bag! Many children have already sent in their presents. Each child will pass out their gifts that day. The big entertainment will be looking in our goody bags. However, if someone wants to send in juice boxes and/or a treat, let me know. We won’t need much! If you have not sent in presents, remember, each child is to send in 24 like things to give 1 to each child.

Friday, December 19 – we will end our Polar Express Week with a pajama/hot chocolate party. We will re-read the story and take it easy!!! If you want to help with the hot cocoa and maybe cookies, let me know.

Holiday Central – We have received $50 so far to shop for 4 children. We need more money! If you are able to send in a dollar or two, please do so.

Next week: Gingerbread Week (stories and activities related to the Gingerbread Man/ Gingerbread Baby/ Gingerbread Girl)

Week of 12-15: Polar Express Week (stories and activities related to the Polar Express!) Remember, party on Thursday – Pajamas on Friday!

HOMEWORK: Since we were not in school the last Friday of November, all children turning in their November homework packet will receive double treasure box tomorrow. I had a number of children who did not complete or turn in this packet. If you have it at home, please do so tomorrow. I would like to have the December homework packets turned in on our last day – 19th if possible. New January packets will go home after Christmas.

December 19 is the end of our second 9 weeks. Report cards will be going home the first week after Christmas. Remember, this 9 weeks, we will be assessing more things. Those items that were grayed out last time but are white boxes this time will be the new assessments: skip counting by 2, 5, 10, one to one correspondence, more/less, This marks our half-way point in the year. This means your child should know ½ of the vocabulary!!!! Don’t wait until the last nine weeks to start work on this! Letters and sounds should be pretty much under their belt. We will test writing numbers to 20 as well as recognizing the numerals 0-20. These are all things that you should be working on nightly!!!!

We wrote letters to Santa this week (using kidwriting). These letters will go in our portfolio and on to first grade AND, they will be published in the Jessamine Journal!!! Look for the special Santa Letter edition of the paper!!!

BOOK ORDERS: I sent the orders home on Monday (AM) and Wednesday (PM). Please send orders to me by tomorrow or you may order online through Sunday in order to receive the orders by the 19th. Let me know if the orders are for Christmas and I will ‘conceal’ them before sending home!!! 