MADISON NEWS CORNER

NOV/DEC 2005

KINDERGARTEN
Happy Holidays from Miss Kaytor's kindergarten class! We have been hard at work preparing for our holiday concert & writing letters to Santa Claus. In Reading, we have been using our Letter People friends to form words and we are beginning to read their books on our own. We can count and write numbers now, too. We are also good at making and reading graphs. Happy New Year!


FIRST GRADE
The first grade has been very busy the past two months. Our pumpkin seeds have finally begun to grow and the class is so excited to see their daily growth. We have now mastered many of our past spelling words and are preparing for a class Spelling Bee which will happen the first week in January. We practiced very hard for the music performance and it really paid off. Everyone did so wonderful! The first grade woulld like to wish everyone a very happy holiday and a wonderful and safe New Year.


SECOND GRADE
We have been learning about dinosaurs and how scientists study fossils. We also have been counting money in Math. Coming soon to our bulletin will be an activity about counting coins. See if you can find out the amount of money in each cup. We are sad to report that our student teacher has left us. She will be greatly missed but we are going to record messages for her to keep in touch. The music show was AWESOME!! You all did such a wonderful job! Congratulations to everyone who received awards after the show. It's nice to know that your hard work and dedication to school is recognized and appreciated. Happy Holidays to everyone and we hope you have a Happy New Year!!!!

SECOND GRADE
Happy Holidays to all!! We wish you a safe, healthy and happy holiday season. The second graders have been busy learning and creating many new and exciting things. We are emerging as fantastic readers and are enjoying many interesting chapter books. Stop by our room to see our fantastic book reports. In science, we studied the life cycle of a butterfly. We made our own caterpillars in the classroom out of cotton balls and pipe cleaners. These cute caterpillars changed into beautiful butterflies over our Thanksgiving break. The students were anxious to come back to school and see the transformation. Keep up the great work second grade!!

THIRD GRADE
The third grade has been very busy. In science, we did a project about habitats. We are reading about the author of "A Christmas Carol", Charles Dickens. We made bells to decorate the Christmas tree and gingerbread men to decorate the gym. Our teacher made a timeline that shows important things that happened in school. We are going to add to it every month. Our student teacher, Miss P., left. We will miss her. Congratulations to everyone who is on the Honor Roll for the first trimester. Happy and healthy holidays to all!!


FOURTH GRADE
Students read, "Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing" and completed a storybook as our 1st mini-Co-Nect project. The storybook included a paragraph of each chapter and illustrations- come chck them out on the 4th grade bulletin board! In math, we have been learning division with remainders and using flashcards to play the game, "Math Around the World", to reinforce multiplication facts. The fourth grade class is working towards reading 100 books as a class, and in turn, 100 books will be donated to a charity. We are looking forward to completing our goal and making other children as happy as us by reading. Mr. Gall is completing family trees with the students for social studies and in science the practicum teacher completed a food chain web with paper links. Happy Holidays to all!!! Have a healthy and happy New Year! :-)


FIFTH GRADE
The fifth grade has been buys completing their first Co-Nect project. We studied about the lives of the ancient Aztecs and learned how talented they were. With Miss Wich's help, the students designed Yarn Art, just as the Aztecs had done. We are also busy preparing for our Holiday Concert this month. Our class will be performing classics fron Germany such as Silent Night and O Christmas Tree. The class made ornaments to decorate our school Christmas tree. It seems everyone is ready for a much needed rest. Congratulations to all the Student of the Month! We wish our friends and families a happy, healthy New Year!


SIXTH GRADE
The sixth grade had a great time at the Holiday Music Concert. The especially liked singing Feliz Navidad. Congratulations to all 6 students who made the Honor Roll for the first marking period and those 3 students, who had perfect attendence, keep up the good work. Also, congratulations to all the students of the month. Great Job! We would like to wish everyone a Happy Holiday and a Happy New Year!!



SC-LLD
With the holidays around the corner, we've been very busy trying to get things done before Christmas break. Yesterday we had our Christmas show and everyone did such a fantastic job putting it together and singing. Our class just recently filled up our class pizza due to all of our "A's" on tests and all of our homework completed, we are soon going to have a pizza party and are very excited. Congratulations to the month of November's student of the month. Our class would like to wish everyone a safe holiday and a Happy New Year.
RESOURCE
The students read about Thanksgiving, brainstormed words, made a web, and wrote a paragraph about the First Thanksgiving. They also made Thanksgiving and December Haiku Poems.

READING SPECIALIST
The fifth and six grade classes are reading, Shiloh, a classic by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor. So far, we are enjoying it tremendously. The third grade has been reading The Boxed Car Children Series title, The Stuffed Bear Mystery, by Gertrude Chandler Warner. We will be doing some great writing activities following the novels. Have a safe and wonderful holiday. See you next year!!!

ART
In November & December, each grade has been working hard creating costumes or props for the different countries they are representing in the Holiday Music Show. In addition, the children have also been making different holiday decorations for the gym. Reindeer, wreaths, candy canes and snowmen will brighten up the gym and get everyone in the holiday spirit. Finally, I'm very prud of the 4th grade students. They have been studying the artist Keith Haring and they have created artwork in the same style. Haring would create drawings in the NYC subway stations and I have turned part of the school into a Subway Station just outside the 4th grade room. Please take a look at the wonderful artwork the students have created!

WORLD NEWS
"Hi, we meet again". This is your "World News". Large explosions have rocked a fuel depot in Hertfordshire shooting flames hundreds of feet into the sky and creating a huge cloud of smoke. Police say there are 39 casualties, with two people seriously injured. This explosion happened in London on Sunday, Dec. 11,2005, 1:45 AM. The other 37 people were treated for minor injuries and released from hospital. There are a lot of accidents happening around the world. That's all. "Merry Christmas, School #10. See "ya" next time."

LOCAL NEWS
Ho, ho, ho Merry Christmas looks like Santa's coming to see who's naughty or nice. On December 4, 2005 the Garfield council just had a parade for old Saint Nick. Well Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!!!!

SPORTS
In sports, it's basketball time. If you want to sign-up for basketball go to the Boys and Girl's club. To check out more go to www.boys&girlsclubofgarfield.com.

HUMOR
Q-Why was Santa's helper depressed?
A-Because he had low-elf esteem!
Q-What did Mary say to Mary?
A-Merry Christmas!
Q-What do you get when you cross a vampire with a snowman?
A-Frostbite.
Q-Why do birds fly south for the winter?
A-Because it's too far to walk!!







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MRS. DEFINO'S C0-NECT PROJECT