Pacific Ocean Market and King's Land Restaurant

Wow! What a great day! We saw and experienced so much today. I will let the photos and your child speak for themselves. Thanks to all of the chaperones for coming along and helping us out. The link to our new photo album is below. Chaperones, please feel free to add your photos to the album.

Pacific Ocean Market and King's Land Restaurant Photo Album

More Photos from Ms. Cate

I have updated the photo album of photos that Ms. Cate has taken of our days at school.  Added photos include photos of us during archery, photos of us programming the BeeBots and a few others.

More Photos from Ms. Cate

One-Sentence Journals

One idea to help your child practice writing skills is to have them start a one-sentence a day journal. It is a trend that is popular for adults right now. The idea is that one-sentence journals are a great way to keep track of happy memories or to remind yourself of those things you are grateful for but in a short and sweet way. You are more likely to write if you only feel like you need to write one sentence. (Google "one-sentence journals" for more about this idea for adults.) This idea would also work very well for kids. Have them pick out a notebook and writing utensil that they really like or give them these items as a gift and ask them to write just one sentence a day. The sentences can be similar to these:

Today I found a blue feather.
I helped my mom bake cookies.
My dad read a chapter of Clementine to me tonight.
I fell off my bike and scraped my knee.
I saw a ladybug in the backyard today.
I learned that hummingbirds can fly forwards, backwards, sideways and upside down today.

The sentences can be on any topic. Doing just one sentence a day can help a child practice handwriting, spelling, spatial layout on a page or line, using punctuation and capital letters correctly and much more. Some children might want to draw a picture or tape an item into the journal as an illustration. Some children might want to write more than one sentence. Anything goes as long as the child enjoys it and writes (at least) one sentence a day.

This could also be a great family idea. You could have a family journal and take turns writing sentences in it. Then you would have a great family memory book. The sooner you start, the more memories your child will collect and the more their writing will improve.

Library tomorrow!

More Math

Today we worked some more on addition and subtraction. Our activity was a math card game. We were trying to match pairs of numbers that equaled ten. Some students took on additional challenges and tried to use more than 2 cards to make ten or tried to choose cards that added up to 20. We all enjoyed the game.

Addition

We are currently working on addition and subtraction along with place value in math. One day last week, we combined these and worked on adding 2-digit numbers using our base ten (place value) blocks. We had some animal cards and we selected 2 cards at a time and added the weights of those animals together using our blocks. We were all absorbed in our work.

Important Dates
12/21 Fieldwork - Pacific Ocean Market and King's Land Restaurant
12/21 Winter Party 3 pm - everyone is invited
12/24-1/7 Winter Break

Holidays in China

We have been learning about some of the holidays that people in China celebrate. The most recent holiday we have learned about is Chinese New Year. Today we made a lantern that is similar to (but not exactly like) the lanterns that children make in China.  Check out the photos below and ask your child to tell you about Chinese New Year.