Polar Express Day was a huge success. The children arrived in pajamas and brought their imaginations. We went to the wiggle room to have the conductor (Mr. Steve) punch our tickets. Then we entered the wiggle room which was magically transformed into a train ride, with wrapping paper lining the walls and holiday lights overhead. We took our seats and sang along while first grader Grace played songs on the keyboard. We listened to Miss Andrea read the Polar Express book while we drank chocolate milk, ate candy canes, and snacked on chocolate and pretzel cookies. We were visited by Santa who gave each child a bell. We finished off our adventure by singing some carols with Mr. Steve. The children had a wonderful time!

Earlier this week, we concluded our patterning unit in math. We built pattern trains and broke the train apart into separate “cars” (or pattern units). This concept of breaking apart our patterns really helped strengthen our understanding of all different types of patterns. When we return from break, we will be working on strengthening our number sense and operations at each child’s individual learning level. Some children will be working on counting with one-to-one correspondence and numeral recognition, while other children will be adding and subtracting with numbers to 20.

Writer’s workshop has been going very well. Children are continuing to make improvements on their writing. This week we focused on putting spaces between our words and adding several sounds to each word. We practiced sounding out our words and stretching the word. We pretended to whisper our word into a piece of bubble gum in our hands. Then we stretched out our bubble gum and said the word very slowly to hear all the sounds. This visual helped students to try and hear more sounds per word before recording it on their paper.

I hope everyone has a wonderful holiday break! I look forward to seeing everyone after the new year as we start our theme on Aquatic Animals. (We will be scheduling a field trip to the Cleveland Aquarium in January.)