We had a wonderful Parent-Teacher Conference Day. The kids loved preparing for parents to view their work and to visit. Currently, we are working on how to Multiply Using The Distributive Property to break apart numbers and make them easier to multiply. We are using graph paper to apply this concept. This also allows us the opportunity to discuss geometric plane shapes, as well as reviewing formulas, such as perimeter and area. If anyone would like to help their child learn part to whole concepts, which leads to better understanding of fractions, ask your child to help you make Christmas cookies! That rewarding activity also assists the learner in identifying units.
We are super excited to be reading Frindle! We are on Chapter 8 already and loving every bit of it! The kids are keeping notes and journal entries in their google doc, as well as discussing figurative language, summarizing, if/then statements and more! Supporting these literary elements helps the students write better too! They learn to use strong words for their persuasive writing, and many adjectives and adverbs for their descriptive writing. They had enormous enjoyment writing their most recent work about a Thanksgiving Day Parade. We definitely want to support all of their efforts to spell correctly and to use good grammar. The kids love to play Thumbs Up Spelling and could really use opportunities to practice their printing and cursive whenever possible.
In Social Studies, the students are learning all about the Columbian Exchange. They are discovering what goods were exchanged between the East and the West. After a little bit more discovery about the Age of Exploration, we will dive right into the American Revolution. Now is a great time to discuss items in stores as goods. With Christmas shopping in full swing, the kids should have a stronger understanding of merchants and goods this year.
The kids love joining their family at 8 a.m. mass on Tuesdays. They are welcome to sit with you during mass, which makes it truly so meaningful. We added a few “Holy Moments” to our class this season with a blessed Book of Intentions for the children to write a private prayer. At the end of the day, we all pray over our Book of Intentions. The students love it!
This is an exciting time at St. Cletus. As a parent here, I have always adored seeing the Christmas Sleigh in our hallowed halls! Information will be coming home to you about the Holiday events here at St. Cletus, including our Holiday Shop. The students are always abuzz with excitement on those days! We look forward to warming up the room with Christmas decorations, and will be inviting some students from the Center for Independence to help us spend a few moments preparing holiday decorations for the hallway.
The kids learned at this week’s morning mass about the book Holy Moments. Fr. Elmer invites us to send him a paragraph about our own holy moments. It is our most sincere wish that your holiday season is filled with these moments and with many blessings!