Week of 1/7

Dear Polar Bear Families,
Reminders:

• January Scholastic book orders are due on Monday January 14. If you are ordering Valentine books for your children I recommend ordering them from this months catalogues because next month may be too late to get them in time for the holiday.
• The Montclare Children’s School Auction is Friday the 25th. The Polar Bears created a lovely piece of art to auction off. We hope to see you all there!
• There is no school on Monday January 21st and Tuesday the 22nd for the Martin Luther King holiday weekend.

Theme: Winter
Letter of the week: G

Some books we read this week:

• The Seasons: Winter, by Barrons
• Let it snow, by Maryann Leffler
• The Seasons, by Ian Smith
• Snow, by Miriam Dane Bauer

Classroom Activities:

It was so wonderful seeing our friends after the long break and they all transitioned perfectly from vacation back to school. 

• We began learning about Winter. On Monday we reviewed all the seasons and then started talking about how we know it’s winter rather than fall. We discussed the different clothes we wear, what the temperature is like outside, how the trees and ground look in winter, and how dark is becomes. 
• The Letter of the week was “G”. We practiced making the letter “G” with our Handwriting With Out ‘Tears materials and read our scholastic phonics book “Gorilla be good” by Maria Fleming
• On Thursday we played a singing game called “see the little animals sleeping”. To play the game the teacher sings the song while the children pretend to sleep as whatever animal is chosen. Then when the songs says “wake Up” the children get up and move like that animal. This week we played it using “G” letter animals. The children moved and jumped like gorillas, goats, geese, giraffes, and gophers. 
• We began our January bulletin board this week. We painted a winter sky and then spelled out our names using alphabet stickers and placed them on some snowmen. The snowmen are up on the board , but please keep looking as we will add more winter elements soon.

Enjoy your weekend 

Karen, Rebecca, and Marvin