January 23, 2009 Mrs. Cook’s Class Dear Parents, A very Happy New Year and welcome to the second semester of kindergarten. It’s hard to believe January is already almost over! Our first semester ended on a festive note with our classroom Winter party. Thanks to our head room mom, Joannie, and her able group of assistant room moms for organizing this fun party, and to so many parents who lent a helping hand. This week we celebrated the coming Chinese New Year of the Ox with our even more exciting all- kindergarten Red Market. A big thank you to our volunteer parents for your cooking, shopping, and assistance in making this such a fun event for your children. I know this is a busy time of year for all of you and I appreciate your willingness to help out. (Please see our latest photo gallery for pictures of all the fun.) The next few weeks will be busy ones. Here are some of the highlights… Jan 24-Feb 1… Chinese New Year Vacation Have a wonderful time celebrating the lunar new year with your family. (Special wishes for you are in our latest ebook, “Gung Shi Fa Tsai”) Feb. 6… 100th Day of Kindergarten Each child will bring in a display of 100 objects from home our first week back to school. Then on Feb. 6 the entire kindergarten will participate in a full day of fun ‘100 Day’ activities as they rotate through all classrooms to celebrate our 100th day of kindergarten. If you run out of exciting things to do over the lunar holiday, your children can start assembling their 100’s collections. Feb 14… Valentines Day Your children may bring Valentines to class for their classmates on Friday, February 13 if they wish. (This is totally optional and we are not planning a special party.) We have begun our exciting new Foss science program “Animals Two by Two” with a study of goldfish and guppies. The children LOVE our new pets and are keen observers. (Our next “pets” will be snails!) Another exciting class activity is our more formal Guided Reading program. I know your children are very proud to read the books they bring home to you and that you are equally proud of them. They also love reading their books to each other. Before Christmas, our class gathered together with Mr. Jacob’s class for each of our second Writers Celebrations. Our current focus is trying to make our writing more readable. Our regular Everyday Math program continues in addition to our upcoming fun 100th day of kindergarten activities. There’s always something exciting in 1A34! (More…)

Andi was our parent volunteer! We celebrated Mrs. Huang’s birthday! Nicholas turned six! Mimmi’s aunt Maria came to visit us all the way from Sweden! We LOVE our new goldfish! (And more…)

We like to write poetry. Here’s our favorite so far…