Welcome Back!

We hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas break! It will be great to see all our friends and get a new start in the new year. We hope everyone is well and ready continue in our adventure of learning in kindergarten.

It's a short week to get our feet wet, but we will enjoy every minute of being together again. In the new year we add several changes to our routines and materials, because we're growing up and ready for them. Students will begin using standard pencils and erasers when they write. We still like to see mistakes and encourage students to learn from them, but now students can correct their work using erasers. We'll learn how to head our work with our name and the date starting this week. And we'll welcome two new friends to our classroom! We have pet mice that will become our special classroom pets for the rest of the year. Students will learn how to take care of them and communicate with them (they have their own mailbox). I will be the cage cleaner and the only one who directly handles the mice. (Don't worry, but do ask questions if you have any concerns).

At Bible time, we'll review the Christmas story and set the scene for the story of the Magi next week. Students will learn what our January Bible verse means and begin memorizing it with hand motions. On Friday we'll check in on our prayer requests from December and thank God for all He has done.

We'll review letter writing in sand, on LED boards and on paper. Students will write about what they want to learn in the new year. We'll practice reading our decodables and write dictated words and sentences. At story time we'll begin to learn how to compare and contrast characters and story events.

For math, we'll be wrapping up module 8 with a review and then a test on number order and counting.

In science we'll discover if our experiment to recycle paper worked and explain the results. Students will learn about the wants and needs of mice. We'll learn how to make a good shelter for our mice and make plans to build one.

We'll have time to begin decorating our classroom for January with colorful snowflakes on the windows. Students will make portraits of our mice to hang in the hall gallery to introduce them to the school.

It will be a short and happy school week. Mrs. Arnold and I are excited to see everyone again and get back to learning!

Mrs. Luoma