December 7-11

We have several coats and sweaters in our classroom that seem to stay here day after day. There are are also many coats in the lost and found barrels in the cafeteria. It would be much easier for us to return these items to your child if you could write their name in the collar with a permanent marker. Many coats look the same, so this would be a big help to your child and to us.

Please make sure that you have given us instructions as to what we should do if we have to close the schools early because of a weather emergency. We need to know if your child will go home in the usual way (ride the bus, wait to be picked up). If snow seems likely, please listen to your radio to find out about early school closures. When the weather is bad we cannot call everyone to let them know that the school is closing.

Here's what we've been doing this week:

• I put a total of 12 little plastic bears in a bowl and showed them to all of the children sitting around the circle. I then asked them to guess how many bears there were all together in the bowl. They didn't have enough time to point to and count each of the bears. They had to look at the group and come up with an estimate of how many they thought were there. We had guesses going all the way from 3 to 18, but the most popular number was 5 (could it have anything to do with how old most of the children are?). There were a few exact guesses. Next I showed them the same bowl again and asked them how many red bears there were (3). Many children still guessed their favorite number (5) and there were a few guesses of 12 (it worked last time), but most of the children thought there were 3 bears. We will keep working on estimating throughout the year. You can try the same thing at home. Just take a small number of objects and ask your child to guess how may things there are.
  

• We spent a day reviewing our class rules. Reminders help the children remember how to conduct themselves: raise your hand and wait to be called on in the circle, walk in the classroom, walk up and talk to someone quietly instead of shouting across the room, and clean up your area after working on a project.

  
  

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