Fingers Crossed For Good February Weather!

January has been a whirlwind of snow days, late starts, and an early release thrown in there too.  We have our fingers crossed for good February Weather so that we can start to get back into the routine of things!

Upcoming Events

• February 4 - Parent/Teacher Conference Request form due
• If you have not already sent back in your request for the best times for your P/T Conference please do so on Monday.  We will be scheduling conferences & sending home dates in your child's Friday Folder next week.
• February 8 - Decades Day
• February 14 - Valentine's Day Party at 1:45
• February 15 - No School (Teacher Work Day)
• February 18 - No School (President's Day)
• February 20 - Fuzzy's RBE Eat Out 5-8

• February 20-28 - Moss Team P/T Conference Weeks
• February 26 - Special Family & Friend's Day
• You are invited to come and visit your child during specials (1:35-2:25) for Special Family & Friend's Day!  The Book Fair will be open on this day.  If you would like to come early or stay late to take your kiddo this would be a great opportunity.  We understand that 2:25 is really close to the end of the day.  If you would like to pick up your child early we understand.  However, if someone, other than parent, will be picking up your child early, you will need to write a note giving permission.
• More information will be coming out closer, but we wanted to make sure that you had the date! :)
• March 1 - No School (P/T Conference)
• March 4-8 - RBE Read Week
• March 4-8 is Read Week!  This is a week dedicated to celebrating the love of reading and sharing our love of reading with the students.  We always invite parents, grandparents, family members and family friends to come read to the students.  If you would like to bring in a snack related to your book as well, the students always love snacks.  :)  
• If you would like to read to the class, please click here to sign up for a time using SignUpGenius.  
• In the past, we have heard some childhood favorites from our readers or stories that are near and dear to their heart.  

What's Happening in Moss World

• Math
• We are continuing to work on solving word problems.  Our goal is to be able to solve 2-step word problems.  This week we learned about making ballpark estimates when solving 2- and 3-digit addition problems.  Coming up with an estimate allows us to check to make sure that our actual answer makes sense.  When solving the problem, we also practiced a strategy called partial sums.  Ask your child how they can use partial sums to solve the problem 54 + 29 or 389 + 462.
• Writing
• This week, the students had an opportunity to do some fun writing about "Our Teachers Are Missing" and also "What Will You Do When You Are 102".  The students had fun with these writing assignments.
• We also continued to finish publishing our informational book on the animal we researched and write a speech for our book trailer that we are making.  Next week, we will start recording our book trailer.  As I have been listening to their speeches, I have been super impressed with their expression that they are using.  They have been working INCREDIBLY hard with making sure that their speech has their voice in and they are succeeding!
• Next week,
• Fundations
• We are continuing to talk about r-control vowels.  We are now focusing on er, ir, and ur.  These are tricky because they each make the same sound.  We have learned that it is okay to try our each pattern to see which looks familiar, and we also have a section in our Fundations's Monster Book that has different "Spelling Options."  The students are doing a great job utilizing this resource in their writing!
• Reading
• We are continuing to work on comparing fiction texts.  We will be reading fractured fairy tales and comparing those stories to the original fairy tale.  The fairy tales we will be focusing on are "The Three Little Pigs" and " Goldilocks and the Three Bears".  
• Social Studies
• We started to introduce maps this week.  Students learned that a cartographer is a person who draws and studies maps.  We have learned that there are seven continents on Earth.  We introduced Africa last week and located it on a world map.  
• Next week, we will talk about Asia, Australia and Antarctica. 

I am looking forward to enjoying the beautiful weather this weekend...only in Missouri can we go from a polar vortex on Wednesday to 64 degrees on Sunday!  Enjoy your weekend and we are all looking forward to a 5 day school week next week!