Tuesday, September 25, 2018

Donuts with Dad

Earlier this month we got to enjoy Donuts with Dad before school thanks to our wonderful PTO!  
This event was previously a part of Catholic Schools Week but now has its own special day.  We all love our dads very much and we are so thankful for the time together with the dads that were able to come and eat a donut with us.

Look at all of these happy faces!






Reading Buddies!

A very special activity we get to participate in is Reading Buddies!  

On the first and third Wednesdays of the month we are visited by 4th grade students who read us stories before we lay down for nap.  We will complete fun activities together for Christmas, Valentines Day, and other holidays and events throughout the year.  It is so sweet to watch these friendships develop over the year and continue on until our buddies graduate from 8th grade.  This is an especially fun year for me because students from my first class 6 years ago are now the 4th grade buddies!  :)

Let's meet the buddies!

Bode with his buddies Connor and Olivia

Chase with his buddies Christoper (his big brother!) and Stella

Dane with his buddies Matthew and Lila

 Faith with her buddies Gracie and Millicent

Karter with his buddies Bryceson and Zane

 Lainey with her buddies Gabbie and Eleanor

 Lucas with his buddies Sophie (his big sister!) and Alex

 Marshall with his buddies Bryson and Corinne

 Patrick with his buddies Makiah and Sydney

 Tristan with his buddies Beckett and Jack



Tuesday, September 18, 2018

My Special Letter

Did you know that you have a special letter?  It is the first letter of your first name!  
We spent an entire week learning all about our special letters and used them to complete many fun crafts and activities.

We started our week by learning the alphabet song to a slower tempo, this helps us not miss letters in groupings like LMNOP.  After singing the alphabet song we found our special letters on our alphabet chart.  This year we only have two friends, Lainey and Lucas, who share a special letter, L!


Next, we learned that all letters are made by combining big and little lines and big and little curves.  After identifying each of our four pieces we practiced building our special letters using the directional words up, down, and diagonal.  




  
 


After our activity we worked as a group to clean up and sort each of the pieces back into their four types, naming them as we sorted. 


We had so much fun sharing our special letters that we decorated at home!  So much creativity went into each decorated letter, thank you parents for your help!






After sharing our special letter, we learned how to use round paint dotters and "dotted" the letters in our names! This was a fun activity with our shape of the week, circle.




Our favorite Special Letter craft of the week was painting our special letter with watercolors!  They make beautiful additions to our classroom decorations.





We took time to practice our handwriting skills and wrote our Special Letter on our class chart!
 

 


This week our fine motor focus was on cutting.
First we practiced cutting straight lines.  Next, we practiced cutting curved lines and circles.  We cut out circles in rainbow colors and made silly circle caterpillars!


  






 We had so much fun at our first pep rally and participating in the first Red and White day.  We learned that Holy Souls School has three special letters and we use them in many of the cheers for our sports teams.  Go HSS! Go Wabbits!

We were all very impressed with the cheerleaders' performance.  We loved the tumbling so much, we couldn't look away!