Welcome Back From Winter Break!

A picture take today in Ms. Alseri's art class.

Introducing Ms. Thomas
A the end of December a full-day assistant teacher was added to Room K-3.  Ms. Thomas will be in our classroom and will follow the students to most of their special classes.  She is a great teacher, we are lucky to have her.

Cold Weather
It is supposed to get colder this week.  Keep sending kids with what they need to stay warm.

Birthdays
I had a couple of parents ask me about birthdays.  I realized that I haven't addressed the subject since the first week of school.  Here is what I wrote in September:  We love celebrating birthdays at school, but at Ann Arbor STEAM we do not celebrate with cupcakes and sweets.  On the day of your child’s birthday I will make him or her a crown and the class will sing to, and celebrate, their birthday.  If you would like to bring something to share we ask that you bring non-food items such as fun pencils, erasers, stickers etc.  Please keep it small and be sure to send in enough for every student (right now we have 23).  If you are having a party outside of school, birthday invitations can only be passed out in class if all the students are receiving an invite.  You can always contact me if you want the email address of another student's parents.

NWEA
Students will be taking the Northwest Educational Assessment or NWEA this week.  The NWEA is a pair of assessments students take on their iPads to assess their understanding of reading and math. 

Home Reading Book Bags
Bring in those blue and clear bags back so we can get out some fresh books to you.

Curriculum Overview
STEAM Project - Next week we will begin a new project on forces.  We will study pushes, pulls, and other aspects of basic physics.

Reading - We are reading books that feature rhyme.

Writing - This week will begin an opinion writing unit.  More information to come as we get going.

Math - We were not able to complete this before break: I am hoping that this week students will build and photograph numbers up to 15.  We will also work on writing numerals and correcting any reversals.

Word Study - We are covering the concept of rhyme.