Two Mid-Week Reminders

Good Afternoon Everyone-

There are two important reminders for this week.

1. Swimming begins tomorrow.  Your child will need a suit, towel and a bag to bring these items back and forth from school.  If your child has a cap and goggles they may bring those as well.  If you child would like to wear their suit under their clothes to school that is fine, but please make sure a pair of underwear is in their swim bag.

2. Please return your monies for recorders by Thursday if at all possible,  The cost for the instruments is $5.00 per recorder.  It is suggested that the children have one recorder at school and one at home for practice. 

Thank you for your attention to these items.  Let's hope that we can make it through the rest of this week without any more weather interruptions!

Unexpected Surprise

Good Morning Everyone-

What an unexpected surprise it is to have a day off today.  I hope everyone will enjoy the time together and fine a couple of minutes to practice multiplication facts!  : )

As this is the third day of school closures, I want to take a minute to remind everyone how we will make this day up.  The following Early Release days will now be full days of school, Wednesday February 20th, April 10th, and April 24th.  Please adjust your calendars if at all possible.

Again, I hope everyone enjoys today.

Savanna 1-25-13

Dear Parents,

            With the shortened week, I have just a couple of housekeeping items to share with you.

1.     The children will begin their swim program on Wednesday, January 30^th.  They will need a suit, towel, goggles (if they have them).   If they choose to wear their suit under their clothes in the morning, please remember to put underwear in with their swim gear.

2.    We are still in need of a couple of volunteers to help the girls locker room during this week of swimming.  This would be from 10:15-10:30, and 11:30-11:45 at Yorktown Pool.

3.    Please help your child practice their multiplication facts for 10 minutes each evening.  We are working on fact fluency and this focused practice will help.

4.    Please return all money for recorders by Friday, February 1^st.

           

Below are a couple of important dates to put on your calendars:

Friday, January 25- Disco Dance-7pm

Wednesday, January 30- Tuesday February 5- Swimming at Yorktown Pool

Thursday, February 7- Report Cards Issued

Friday, February 15- Outdoor Lab- More Information to follow

Monday, February 18- President’s Day Holiday- No School

            As always, I appreciate your help and support.  If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me. 

 

1-18-13 Savanna

Dear Parents,

            Here we are at the end of the second quarter of school.  It is hard to believe that that the year is about half over.  All the children have shown gains since the beginning of the year, which are exciting to see.  It is always around this time of year that the children move from being second graders to truly being third graders.  Their confidence and skill begin to solidify and they start to take off as independent learners. 

            Academically this has been a full week.  We continue to work on creating Multiplication folders that focus on a different group of facts per page.  In addition the children are practicing their knowledge through games like “Around the World.”  Please remember 10minutes of practice at home each night is essential for mastery of these facts.   In Language Arts this week our focus was on writing paragraphs.  The children worked on creating topic sentences followed by details, reasons and concluding sentences.  They enjoyed the example of “Tell your readers what you are going to tell them.  Tell them. Tell they what you told them.” It will be fun to see how they all incorporate these new skills into future writing pieces.  In Social Studies we began our Unit on Ancient Rome and will learning about this civilization over the next couple of weeks.  In Science we wrapped up our study of Living Things and will begin learning about the Water Cycle beginning next week.

            In addition to our regular curriculum we took time this week to talk about Dr. Martin Luther King and his accomplishments.  We read the book Martin’s Big Words and followed up our reading with a discussion of the Civil Rights movement.  This led to further talk about fairness and what vision the children have for their future.  They chose their own “big words” to create books to express their dreams.

            We also discussed the upcoming Inauguration of President Obama.  In Language Arts the children took time to read the Oath of Office and rewrite it using synonyms for many of the key words.  We also used the age of previous Presidents at the time of their Inauguration to create graphs. It was a fun way to review different graphs and learn a bit about the past Presidents.

            As you know, the children will be swimming at the new Yorktown pool beginning on Wednesday the 30^th.  Each child will need a suit and towel in a separate bag to take to the pool with them.  Some children do prefer to wear their suits under their clothes as they come to school as we have swimming in the morning.  If your child chooses to do this please make sure there is underwear in their bag for them to change into before coming back to school.  As the children will be coming back to school with wet heads, please be sure they have a hat or hood on their coat to cover up for the ride back to Tuckahoe.  We are also in need of a couple  volunteers to help the girls in the locker room.  As I mentioned last week this would entail meeting the bus at the pool at 10:30 to assist the girls in changing and getting onto the pool deck with their towels, and then again from about 11:30 to help them change back into their street clothes and make sure nothing is left behind in the locker room.  If you can help with any part of our swimming week with this please let me know. 

Below are a couple of important dates to put on your calendars:

Friday, January 18- End of 2^nd Quarter

Monday, January 21- Dr. King Holiday- Schools Closed

Tuesday, January 22- Teacher Workday- No school for students

Wednesday, January 23- FULL DAY OF SCHOOL/NO EARLY RELEASE

Friday, January 25- Disco Dance-7pm

Wednesday, January 30- Tuesday February 5- Swimming at Yorktown Pool

            As always, I appreciate your help and support.  If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me. 

 

Planetarium Activities for Families

Good Morning Everyone-

I wanted to pass this information about the Planetarium on to you.  It sounds like a fun activity if you are looking for something to do this Saturday evening.

There are shows running Sat. at the Planetarium from 6 pm and beyond.  Tickets can be found (free) at the Friends of Planetarium website.  There are likely to be astronauts there to offer lectures and answer questions. They love to have kids in the audience and I'd love for those kids to be Tuckahoe All Stars!

http://friendsoftheplanetarium.org/  - visit here to register for free tickets to shows.


Mrs. D.

January 11, 2013 Savanna

Dear Parents,

         We spent this week getting back into the full swing of school.  We took some time to review school and class rules, as well as to talk about expectations for the coming months.  Academically, the children participated in the first Continental Math League competition, learned about food chains and energy pyramids, patterns, and groups, prefixes and suffixes.   We also celebrated all the children who participated in the Reflections contest.  We are so proud of our contest winners Anne, Sophia and Katie!  Overall it was a busy week.  

         We have begun our unit on Multiplication. In this unit, the children will learn their multiplication facts from 1-12. To help with this unit, each child will need a set of multiplication flash cards at home to help with the daily review of these facts. I am assigning an additional 10 minutes of practice of facts each night as part of the daily homework.  This practice can be with the flash cards, a computer game, or with an app on a hand held device.  A great resource for computer games is the Tuckahoe web site.  Under the “Links” tab there is a list of Math sites.  One site the children enjoy is both AAA Math, and Gamequarium.  If you and your child find a site you particularly like, please share it with me and I will pass it along to the others in the class. 

In the Friday Folders you will find a permission slip for our week of swimming at Yorktown pool.  This is part of our PE curriculum and a fun week for the children.  I would like to ask that these slips be returned no later than Tuesday January 15^th.  We do need some help with this activity.  We need a couple of parents to meet the bus at Yorktown at 10:30, and then again at 11:45 to assist the girls in changing in the locker room.  This task can be shared between individuals throughout the week.  If you can help with this, please let me know. 

Below are a couple of important dates to put on your calendars:

Friday, January 18- End of 2^nd Quarter

Monday, January 21- Dr. King Holiday- Schools Closed

Tuesday, January 22- Teacher Workday- No school for students

Friday, January 25- Disco Dance-7pm

Wednesday, January 30- Tuesday February 5- Swimming at Yorktown Pool

        

         As always, I appreciate your help and support.  If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me. 

 

                                                               Sincerely,

                                                               Mrs. DiNardo