Happy Monday! I hope everyone had a great weekend.
 We are counting each day until we reach 100. We have 17 days left. I sent home their animal cards. Please refer to the note to review the skills, especially more than and less than. Please pay close attention to the Function Machine homework this week. If the out number is larger, the rule has to be addition.
We are working on non fiction in reading and writing. We are writing How To stories and teaching others about, what we or they can learn.

We worked on projects this week, with our planet Earth study. I first asked the students what they already knew about Earth. I was surprised at how little they knew. We worked on the computer, wrote on a graphic organizer, colored and created information that was important to us. Each child's work is different. We will be doing another project shortly, and they will be choosing the planet or topic. They will be working with partners. They will begin their research with Mrs. Baralt in the computer lab on Tuesday. The tricky part, is that they are not always able to read the information independently. The pictures on the web sites help greatly. They will be creating this project in school. After learning how to put a project together they will have the opportunity to work on a project at home in May.
I am in the process of assessing their reading levels over the next couple of weeks. I will be sharing this information with you, in our February conference. Thank-you for sending non-fiction books to school. It is fun to talk about the variety of interests. Have a great week. We will!