The Gingerbread Man

Here's our guy!

Here's the note he left us when he ray away!

Each day we came to school and had a new note from him!

He brought us a special cup!

When he came back we were running around the room. On our desks were special treat bags! The Gingerbread Man was trying to escape and we spotted him in the tiles of the ceiling. We decided to tape him down this time so he wouldn't run away again. What a special Gingerbread Unit. Now we are going to celebrate with our Winter Party with a gingerbread theme. School is so much fun!!!

Book Buddies Science Experiment

We had a special invitation by our 2nd grade Book Buddies to come down to their room and do a science experiment with them. They have been studying living and nonliving things and were glad to show us their worms! You can tell by the pictures the kids always have a great time with their buddies!

Nonliving worm & real worm!

Group work

Blubber Experiment

We learned so many cool things about polar bears this week, but our favorite was blubber! Polar bears have to be able to survive in the cold temperatures of the Arctic. They have about 11 cm of insulation called blubber. We made some of our own to see how warm it keeps the bears. First, we watched a video of polar bears and then took some notes on them. Then, we stuck our bare hands in ice to feel what they temperature might be like where the polar bears live. Next, we used some shortening (Thank you for the donations!) to pretend it was like the blubber on bears. Last, we put our hands back into the icy water using our blubber glove. Our hands never got cold!

We hung our notes in the hallway!

Look at us taking notes!

Blubber glove!

Gingerbread Man Science Experiment

Today we learned a new science word - dissolve. We took gingerbread men and put them in water to see what would happen. In scientific terms, we observed their changing properties.

Using the document camera, I modeled the recordings on the observation sheet.

Here are some examples of our work:

The kids love learning new science words! They did such a great job with this experiment!

Week of Dec.14 - Dec. 18

Only 4 more days until our winter break! We are all so excited!! :) This week we will be learning about winter animals such as polar bears and reindeer (also called caribou). We will be learning some great science words like migrate, active, and hibernate to describe what animals do in the winter. We'll also add the word "it" to the word wall and talk about the word "three."

You might notice your child being a little more on the grumpy side this week, or perhaps a little more hyper than usual. This is completely normal! It's so hard to focus on your work when all the adults are busy getting ready for the holidays and you have a party coming up!

Where is our gingerbread man? We made posters asking people to help us find him! He's left us a few notes in class. We have several more activities from our Gingerbread Unit to complete. Maybe he'll come back as soon as we're done! Stay tuned for pictures...

Winter Party

December 18th is our classroom Winter Party! It will be in our room at 2:00p.m. The room moms have put together great activities and fun things for our class to do!

You are more than welcome to attend the party! While everyone is invited to attend the holiday party, room moms may not enter the classroom until 1:50 and all other parents may come in at 2:00pm. Thank you for your cooperation!

Similar to the turkey parade, there will be a sign out sheet in the hallway after the party if you choose to take your child home with you then. The party will last until 2:40pm.

Thank you! We have a fun week ahead of us!
Mrs. Dooley

Guided Reading

We are trying to collect all of the guided reading books before the winter break. For this reason, we will not send GR books home Wednesday or Thursday. Please check around your house for any guided reading books. We really appreciate your help with this!

Can you believe how fast this year is flying by? I have such a great group of kids! I have a ton of fun activities to help keep them engaged for the next 2 weeks. I know they are antsy and energetic. Hopefully the weather will warm up some so we can go outside and play!

We finished up our unit on the author, Laura Numeroff, on Friday. Through her books, we were able to put our listening skills to the test! We also worked on our creative thinking and writing. In science we wrapped up our discussion on balanced scales. In math, we worked more on our positional words and ordinal numbers.

Today we started our unit on The Gingerbread Man. It is one of our all time favorite units! We made Gingerbread Man Journals for the kids to have at home to draw and write about their experiences at school as well as use it for their homework. There is also a gingerbread boy or girl attached to the homework assignment sheet for the homework activities. The new word wall word is “is”. Speaking of word wall words, have you ever thought about taking them off of the homework sheet and turning them into flashcards? The kids love to see if they are faster than me at saying the words. I bet they would love to try it out on you! (Hint: You can also add in flashcards of words they see a lot around our room like the days of the week, months of the year, names of math manipulatives, etc.)

Ms. Trainer will be back this week to sub for me. I'm leaving tomorrow after school for the sunny beaches of St. Lucia with some friends. She knows our grade level very well and will take great care of the kids. She will check the children's red folders each day for transportation changes and notes from home. Should you need to get a message to your child or to Ms. Trainer please call the front office. She will not have access to my voicemail or e-mail. I will only send Guided Reading books home today and tomorrow. We will have library on Thursday as usual and the Spear's Annual Holiday Sing Along Friday afternoon for the entire school. I've also scheduled my Room Moms to come in and read and do a special project with the kids. It's going to be a great week! Your kids will LOVE the Gingerbread Unit!

Thank you

Soldier Donations

Hi~Please read for a special event sponsored by the Spears Music Groups!

I would like to introduce you to two special people, SSG Damon Peyton and SSG Rodrigo Arvizu. These two men are deployed soldiers the music groups have adopted through the Adopt a US soldier organization. The Spear-it Choir and Percussion Group will be greeting these two men with special hand written cards and gifts this next month in hopes to bring a little joy and happiness to these men and their fellow troops. If you would like to contribute to the giving, please gather any items to send and give them to your child's teacher. The soldiers LOVE cards, handwritten letters, and of course items to remind them of home.

Here are general items they love to get:
*personal hygiene items (non aerosol deodorant, body wash, razors, toothbrush and toothpaste, etc)
*candy and food items (LOVE Cheezits, Gardetos, beef jerky (no pork items allowed), crackers, nuts, Gatorade or Kool-Aid packets to put in water, microwave popcorn, etc
*books and magazines
*power strips, blankets,
*movies
**No American flags as we are not the occupiers.

Thanks so much for your generosity!
Mrs. Roden

Welcome back!

I hope you all had a nice, relaxing break with your family! We are back in the swing of things up here and have a few reminders for you…

1. Please read below for a quick note from our Principal….
Parents- If your child is a car rider in the mornings, you must wait in the line to drop off your child next to the curb. There is no other drop off area and no crossing guard in the parking lot. As an option, parents may park their cars and walk with their children into the school. Please do not double park on Wade or park close to or in front of the entrance/exit to the parking lot.

Also, it is a State Law that no hand held cell phones may be used with in a school zone. This includes the parking lot at Spears Elementary in the mornings and afternoons.

These procedures are in place to ensure the safety of all students at Spears. If you have questions, please call the school office, 469-633-2900. Thank you for your cooperation.

2. Picture retakes are tomorrow!
If you are getting retakes, please send the original picture packet with your child tomorrow to school (complete with cd if you bought one!). Make sure and let them know to tell me or stick a note in their red folder if they are taking retakes so I will know! Thanks! There are more picture packets in the office if you need to order some more or order retakes.

3. The deadline for our Angel Child is on Wednesday, December 2nd.
If you have gifts or clothes at home please send them with your child or bring them to the office.

4. Only 15 more days until Winter Break!
Can you believe it? We are on the countdown up here!

Mrs. Dooley

Thanksgiving Feast

Whew! What an incredible day we had in Kindergarten! I have so many pictures to share with you. The first set of pictures you'll see are from our Thanksgiving Feast this afternoon. Each child chose whether they were a Pilgrim or Indian, and wore the headband or hat they made. I read them a story and we talked about all of the people and things that we are thankful for this year. It was absolutely precious!

The next set of pictures is from a special writing lesson we did this morning. I invited Camille Bryant from the Literacy Department to come and talk to the kids about organizing their ideas in order to write a story - the very beginning stage of writing. We've talked in class about how stories have a beginning, a middle and an end. Today the kids made up a story and then wrote down (in pictures) the beginning, middle and end to their story. Tomorrow we will finish up the lesson by writing our stories and sharing them with each other. The kids were excellent listeners for our guest!

Enjoy the pictures! I hope this gives you a little glimpse into our day! See you tomorrow at the Turkey Parade! If you want to take your child home after the parade just let me know by writing it in their red folders. I plan on packing the kids up before the parade to help with dismissal. We plan to be done by 2:30 in order to come back to the room and get our things together to take home. When it's over I can send your child to the office to meet you, or have them walk out in the carpool line. If you think your child will need help gathering up all of their things you can come down and help them. Please help us out by not staying in the hallways for too long during dismissal so that we can get all the kids out effectively. Our little friends can get nervous in big crowds and easily get into the wrong line to go home. Again, there will be a lot of people attending so you'll definitely want to be here by 2 to grab a spot against the wall in the hallways. The other grade levels will be sitting against the walls in the cafeteria cheering us on! I can't wait for you to see all of the floats! I have some very creative parents!

Happy Thanksgiving to all of you! The holidays are so much fun with little ones!

Pilgrim Stew :-)

Writing Lesson