11.30.12

well, it's the last day of november folks....can you believe THAT?!?  Holy moly!  I guess I should go ahead and say, "rabbits, rabbits, rabbits" for the first day of the month tomorrow.  Have you heard of that?  For you superstitious folks out there, saying "rabbits, rabbits, rabbits" as the very first thing when you wake up on the very first day of a new month is supposed to bring you good luck for the entire month.  Pretty nifty huh?  And pretty silly?  But I always still say it.... tee-hee :)
Thus, HAPPY DECEMBER tomorrow!  Won't be much December-like weather this weekend so I hope you are able to get out and enjoy!

MATH:
We worked on breaking whole numbers into equal groups which is the start of division.  We did this with cut-outs of cookies.  We didn't get too very far into this activity because we had a multiplication/ division match-up faceoff and HAD. A. BLAST!  Taybelle won in our class and Tyler in Mr. Featherston's class.  It was so much fun and the kids really got some great practice with related facts and fact families.
HOMEWORK: none, except practice, practice, practice those multiplication facts!!!  We have a few students who will be earning their sundaes by Monday or Tuesday!!!!  YAY!!!!

READING:
Students took their reading comprehension test over, "Tops and Bottoms" with Mr. Featherston and their spelling tests.
HOMEWORK: none

ANNOUNCEMENTS:

**New NEWSLETTERS were sent home this afternoon and have some EXTREMELY important information about the 2nd and 3rd grades' Christmas program on Tuesday, December 18th at 6:30PM at Georgetown College.  The students will need to be there no later than 6:00 and the info today details ideas about animal costumes.

**Garth Storybook Night is Thursday, December 6th at 6:00PM.  Please make plans to attend and send back your RSVP ASAP!

**The week of December 10th - 14th is SANTA's WORKSHOP!!!  Our class will go during our Library time which is on the 12th. 

**Winter Break begins December 19th and lasts until Jan. 1st.  See you back at school on Dec. 2nd! 

Have a terrific weekend in the BEAUTIFUL weather and then...would you please send well wishes for some snow?!?  Mrs. Thomas is ready for some winter over here!
xoxo,
Mrs. Thomas

11.29.12

Hello all and Happy Thursday!  I hope I am finding you well and wonderful!  We had a day full of learning here up in the GES!

MATH:
We worked on fact families as a means for understanding multiplication and division.  Sincewe have been working so hard on multiplication, we are now realizing that we can use it to solve division problems by simply working backwards.  We built houses for our fact families consisting of 4 facts: 2 multiplication and 2 division.  Students are really getting the hang of it and I am so excited to see their minds making the connections!  We even made this wall of tons and tons of fact families...we have some fun!

HOMEWORK: none

READING:
Students worked on sequencing stories today with Mr. Featherston.  It is important to recognize the events in the order that they happen so that optimal comprehension is obtained.
HOMEWORK: READING LOGS!  MY READING GROUP: please complete your sequencing game cards.

PM Activities:
We had a few things to get caught up on from math and then Mr. Andes came in and awarded Jesse for having such AWESOME BEHAVIOR THIS ENTIRE PAST WEEK!  Jesse's name is now in a drawing to win an iPad mini!  How cool is that?!?  Way to go, Jesse...we are SOOOOOO proud of YOU!!!!!!!

ANNOUNCEMENTS:

Dec. 4th - Garth Singers will be performing at 6:30PM

Dec. 6th is Storybook Night here at GES at 6PM

Dec. 12th is our day for Santa's Workshop

Dec. 17th - our Class's WINTER PARTY!

Dec. 18th - 2nd and 3rd grade Christmas production at Georgetown College (1:30PM and 6:30PM)

Hope you have a thrilling Thursday evening!

xoxo,

Mrs. Thomas

PS, did you know we only have 13 more school days until Winter Break?!?

11.27.12

I finally get to say WELCOME BACK after our break!  I hope your Thanksgiving with your friends, family, and loved ones was sensational!  Mine sure was :)

MATH:
Our Learning Target for the day was 3.OA.3: I can identify the unknown whole number in order to solve a multiplication or division equation.  This is more on the lines of algebraic thinking and students were given a multiplication product with a missing factor and they had to identify that unknown number.  This is a higher order thinking skill and is virtually impossible without background knowledge of basic multiplication facts.  With that said, I cannot stress enough how very, very important it is to be continuously practicing at home.  I certainly will not be naming names, but I CAN TELL who is and who is not practicing at home.  It REEEAAALLY shows here.  On the same tune, some students are really doing quite well with their facts and I am very pleased!  Thank you to all who turned in their flashcard projects that were due today (7s, 8s, 9s)!  I put the sticker of completion on the bag and then sent them back home with your student so he/ she can practice, practice, practice away!  The reason for this project is for the students' benefit and I'd like to see them utilizing these fun and friendly flashcards!
HOMEWORK: timed test, GET. IT. SIGNED.  6s and 12s (the last of the flashcards) are DUE MONDAY, DECEMBER 3RD.

READING:
Students are reading from the reading textbook the story, "Tops and Bottoms" and are focusing on the skill of identifying the Author's Purpose and locating details within the text to support their reasoning.  They will also be looking at how the animals are personifying humans.
HOMEWORK: READING LOGS!

PM activities:
We are beginning work on our personal narratives!!!

ANNOUNCEMENTS:

Picture Retakes are TOMORROW!

Midterms will be coming home TOMORROW!

6s and 12s of FLASHCARDS are due Monday, Dec. 3rd.

Garth Storybook Night is Dec. 6th.  Please send back RSVPs ASAP!

Have a tremendous Tuesday!
xoxo,
Mrs. Thomas
 

11.15.12

It's been a thrilling Thursday all!  Hope yours has been dynamite too :)
It was nice to see all the friends/ family/ loved ones here for our Thanksgiving lunch!

MATH:
We are catching up on the properties of multiplication (associative, distributive, identity, and commutative) and are also learning about patterns found in multiplication.  Ask your child/ tell your parents about our zeros trick! 
HOMEWORK: timed test - GET. IT. SIGNED!!!  Remember, 3s, 4s, and 11s FLASHCARDS are due on MONDAY, NOVEMBER 19TH!!!!!!

READING:
With Mr. Featherston, students talked about connections they can make with the text through text-to-text, text-to-world, and text-to-self
HOMEWORK: reading logs!!!

This afternoon, we had Guidance with our school Social Worker, Mrs. Hanser.  We learned about the different between telling and tattling and how to deter bullies and bullying.

Have a thrilling Thursday evening!
I love you!
xoxo,
Mrs. Thomas

P.S. Thanksgiving is ONE WEEK from today!!!!!!!

11.14.12

Hello all and Happy Wednesday!  Sorry to be out for the past few days, but I'm back and I'm feeling better!  It sure was nice to see all these sweet, smiling faces today...they were so excited to see me and so sweet about everything...makes me thankful for what I do and grateful that I have such amazingly wonderful kiddos to interact with daily!  If I missed you at the conferences, I am terribly sorry.  Can we please reschedule if you'd still like to meet with me?  I will be sending home information regarding rescheduling if that is something you wish to do.  Thank you for your cooperation!

DO NOT FORGET: OUR CLASS HAS LIBRARY TOMORROW SO BRING MONEY FOR THE BOOK FAIR!!!!

Thanksgiving Lunch is TOMORROW!!!

MATH:
We reviewed all of what the substitute started with the students which are the properties of multiplication.  We also tooked our timed tests and we have several students onto their 5s and 6s and even 3 onto their 7s! 
HOMEWORK: none, but 3s, 4s, and 11s FLASHCARDS are due by Monday, Nov. 19th!

READING:
Students are reading Thanksgiving themed passages through the week with Mr. Featherston and are working on reading comprehension.
HOMEWORK: READING LOGS!!!

I hope you have a wonderful Wednesday!
Gahhhhh, I MISSED YOU!
xoxo,
Mrs. Thomas

Again, don't forget...THANKSGIVING LUNCH IS TOMORROW!!!

11.9.12

Well, we started off our day a little rough...SEVERAL of our friends did not do their multiplication projects!  Booooo.  Then, SEVERAL of our friends did not do their homework packets.  Double BOOOOOOO!  Mrs. Thomas was not happy, happy, happy and well, we had a leeeennnngthy discussion about responsibility, accountability, dependability, and respect.  Those students who did not have their 2s, 5s, and 10s projects MUST HAVE THEM COMPLETED BY MONDAY, NOVEMBER 12TH...WITHOUT EXCEPTION!!!!  I sent home a new packet and a Ziploc bag full of supplies ready for completion.  Please see to it that your student has this complete.

NEW portions of the multiplication projects (3s, 4s, & 11s) were sent home today and are due by November 19th. 

Here are some pictures from RECESS today:

she's a HOOT!

this dollbaby is SUCH a sweetheart!!

Willow and I were dressed almost exactly alike!  Same color dress, same color socks/ tights, and headbands...ahhhh!!!!

sweet, sweet girlies

just love my fabulous gals so much!

11.8.12

Happy Thursday all!  I hope we find you well and wonderful!

MATH:
We had a special visitor with us...Mr. Andes!!!  He had heard about all of the outstanding things we've been doing and he wanted to come and check it out for himself.  We had a great time having him with us!  We practiced more in-depth with the strategies for multiplication in which we've learned: repeated addition, grouping, arrays, etc. and had some fun activities.
HOMEWORK: 2s, 5s, and 10s of the MULTIPLICATION PROJECTS are due BY TOMORROW, NO exceptions!!!

READING:
Students finished their unit of study of nonfiction about the election. 
HOMEWORK: READING LOGS!!!

ANNOUNCEMENTS:

Book Fair is NEXT WEEK (Nov. 12th - 16th)

THANKSGIVING LUNCH is NEXT Thursday, Nov. 15th

THANKSGIVING BREAK is Nov. 21st - 25th

Have a tremendous Thursday evening!

xoxo,

Mrs. Thomas

Thanksgiving is only 2 WEEKS from today!!!

11.7.12 - a webbing Wednesday!

Today, we went to see CHARLOTTE'S WEB at Scott County High School and let me just tell you...it was WONDERFUL, to say the least!  Or as Charlotte says in her web, it was TERRIFIC and it was RADIANT!!!  We had such a great time and the kiddos were so excited to see one of their very most favorite stories in action.  They even got free tickets so their parents can take them bacm for an encore performance free of charge!  Believe me, it is worth your while, they really put on a great show and the set is absolutely BEAUTIFUL.  Here are some a bunch of pics I snapped during our time there...

friends :)

audience members waiting on the production to start!

bus ride there!

on the bus on the way there!

bus ride there!

bus ride there

loooooooove my sweet girls!

wasn't the scenery AMAZING?!?

Charlotte with her web

"SOME PIG" in Charlotte's web

"TERRIFIC!"

"RADIANT"!



The fair backdrop...isn't it GREAT!?!!?



love my sweet Abigail!

terrific Terri!

Cool Chloe!

Tremendous Tay-belle!

Willow got to have her picture taken with Charlotte!

Many peeps were inquiring about how Baby Jack spent his extra time with his Mommy on her day off yesterday.  Well...

he ate his BFF, the lion :)

he went voting with Mommy

he did a little work at Daddy's office

he met with some clients...

he caught up on his emailing

he took several business calls

and he did some light reading while at the doctor's office :)

How did YOU spend YOUR day off?!?  What was your favorite part about the play today?!?  I sure thought Charlotte did an awesome job!

HOMEWORK TONIGHT: READING LOGS.  Fill in the ice cream scoop organizer on the back of your log.  NO EXCEPTIONS, this MUST be done!!!

Have a wonderful Wednesday evening!
xoxo,
Mrs. Thomas

PS., Since he was sick and unable to visit you guys on Halloween, here is my little chicken.  CLUCK, CLUCK, BOCK, BOCK...he says!