Happy New Year!

I hope you all had a restful and fun vacation with your families!  I hope that you are enjoying your family calendar that your child made.  This was a project that took the whole month of December to do and was quite labor intensive.  The kids were very proud of their end product and enjoyed wrapping them with me and picking out the perfect bow.

My family had a fantastic vacation together- we went to the Aquarium, saw lots of family & friends, celebrated my grandmother's 95th birthday, my cousin announced she is having a baby and I attended beautiful wedding in New Hampshire.  I also got engaged on Christmas Day!!! There was lots of happiness and excitement this holiday season!

Hopes and Dreams/Goals
At our Parent/Teacher conference in December, I shared your child's self assessment with you and gave you a copy to take home and discuss with your child.  At the bottom, your child identified something they would like to work on in first grade.   This has become your child's new goal for the second trimester.  Your child drew a picture of themselves achieving their goal and have hung it in the classroom.  We will be holding them accountable here in our classroom!  Does your child remember what their goal is?

Animal Reports
As a final project for our literacy unit on animals, students worked in pairs to write an animal report.  They needed to read a book to gather their information, take notes and then write a report that included a table of contents, headings, illustrations and a cover.  This was a big undertaking for a mid year project but they all worked very hard on this and they came out wonderfully!  I will be hanging them up in  the hallway soon.

Julia and Ashley taking notes on pandas

Timothy, Hunter and Mary working on their illustrations

Saul, Ashley and Sophia's final report (sorry about the upside down picture...technical difficulties!)