Leprechaun Traps!

This Friday Mrs. Hice (substitute teacher) will be making leprechaun traps with the class.  If you have any small boxes and/or green/gold glitter you would like to donate to the class it would be greatly appreciated!

March in the Know

Our themes for March are communities, community helpers, families, neighborhoods and transportation. We will have our monthly trip to the library on the 14th, which is a week later than our usual first Thursday of the month visit. However, the library books we checked out during our last trip are due today, so please be sure to renew or return to the High Point Public Library if you haven't done so already.

Because St. Patrick's Day falls on a Sunday this year, we will not have any leprechaun visits at school. 😞 However, we will learn about the history of the holiday and make leprechaun traps for the kids to take home.

The school-wide wax museum exhibit is scheduled for March 15th. Although we are not going to follow the individual wax museum model, our class will be participating. Next week we will start our study of 3 children's book authors, Virginia Lee Burton, Eric Carle & Kevin Henkes. The class will work in groups to research their author, and they will set up a table with books and other artifacts about their author. During the wax-museum open-house the kids will man their tables and share facts about their author. During this time families are welcome to visit. The following are the assigned groups:
Eric Carle- Dane, Arianna & AJ
Kevin Henkes- Ellie & Finley
Virginia Lee Burton- Ben & Henry

This is an example of what our "wax museum" looks like. 

I'm encouraging the kids to read as many books by their author as possible. I will also ask them to bring in some specific artifacts to display on their table.

This is a great opportunity for the kids to practice researching, public speaking and learning about quality childrens' literature. The majority of the work and preparations will be done in class, but if you have any questions please let me know.



It was a pleasure seeing the students take the lead in their conferences this week! It's always exciting to see their growth and for them to talk about their goals for the remainder of the school year.

February In the Know

We had another great visit to the library today! One of our themes/topics for February is weather and changing seasons. The kids made this super cute craft today which we brought back to school and put in our classroom window.

This month we will explore the topic of weather and how it effects both small and large decisions (clothes to wear, kind of shelter to build etc.).

I will send out a Sign-up Genius link soon for mid-year optional parent-teacher conferences. This year the conferences will be student led. Think of this more as a student showcase and an opportunity for your child to share with you what they are learning.

Our 100th Day of School was a big success! I want to send a huge thank you out to Tammy Banas for providing the best 100th day of school snack ever! We did several activities that involved strengthening number sense, went to the $1 Tree with our 100 pennies, and even stopped at Baskin Robbins for some ice cream...just because 😋.

Moving forward my expectations for the class will continue increasing, and I have been very proud to see how most of the students have stepped up to the plate with the new homework outline! Keep up the good work!

Valentine's Day is just around the corner; we will learn who St. Valentine was and how holidays change over time. A sheet will be sent home today explaining how Valentine's will be distributed throughout the school. I am encouraging our class to write a little note and make Valentine's for the kids in our class only. I'm discouraging our class from making valentines for the entire student body; however, this is your choice. In the past it has been much less chaotic and easy to manage when our class stayed together; this also solved the problem of going home with mass amounts of sugar😜!

Important Dates: 
2/18- President's Day- no school
2/25- optional MOY conferences start
2/26- Amelia Earhart play (at school)
2/28- library books are due (I noticed many students have a balance on their account)
3/1-Dr. Seuss Day at school for our class only
3/2- Dr. Seuss Day at the HP library (This is not a school trip or function, but something you may want to do with your family. See the flier to the left for details.)

New Homework

The class is super excited about our 100th day of school on Wednesday! We will use this special day as an opportunity to build number sense in the base 10 system. We will also leave campus around 10:00 for a trip to the $1.00 store. Each day since the first day of school we have been adding a penny to a chart and making change for nickels, dimes and quarters all in anticipation of this trip! Stay tuned later this week for pictures from the day.

I have updated the weekly homework. Please encourage your child to respond to what they are reading each night through writing. I have posted suggestions for writing topics on the back of the homework sheet. Also, please feel free to use another sheet of paper and attach it if your child needs more space. Everything else will remain the same. Please let me know if you have any questions.

Happy New Year!

We are back and ready to start 2019 strong! Thank you so much for reading with your children over the break; it's amazing how much momentum kids can lose over two weeks when they have gotten out of the routine of reading and counting. Today was the 83rd day of school which means that the middle of the school year is in a couple of weeks! I will start middle of year assessments next week, and we will have our mid-year conferences in February.

Our theme for this January is house and home. We will look at how topography affects the kinds of structures that are used for shelter. Please continue to work on homework, and I will send home a penmanship packet next week. Please review this with your child.

Below are a few snapshots taken before the break- we sure did have a good time!

Upcoming Dates:

• 1/17 trip to library 
• 1/21 MLK Day - no school
• 1/30 100th day of school- class trip to Dollar Tree 

Field Trip Time Change and Report Cards

I apologize for the change, but I was just told that we will need to leave school AT 7:45, so I would plan on being here by at least 7:30 😧 on Tuesday (12/4).

Also, I sent home report cards today; there was some confusion with formatting, so you will notice that there are no grades for specials. However, I didn't want to keep holding back the report cards from you any longer, so you will receive a separate report card with the specials grades when we get them.

Field Trips Next Week

Next Tuesday (12/4) our class will join the lower school for a trip to Marbles Children's Museum in Durham. We plan on leaving promptly at 8:00, so we encourage you to have your child at school by 7:45. The only thing kids will need to bring is a bagged lunch, even if you ordered lunch for them that day.  If you would like to join us please let me know!

Library books are due tomorrow, so if you haven't renewed or returned them, today is the day to do so. If you renew, we will return the books when we go back to the library on Thursday (12/6).

Our class Christmas party will be on Friday, December 14th. We will start with an unveiling of our class book "Christmas Is" at 1:00. This is also the time you can receive the copies of the class book that you ordered.