Happy Fall!  I hope everyone had a wonderful weekend.  Thank you so much to all of the parents who were able to come to the Open House this past week.  Also, thank you to Yana’s mom for volunteering to wash the tables at the end of each week!  I am planning on putting a volunteer sign up sheet on the bulletin board outside of the classroom.  We will start volunteers in the classroom sometime in late October.  If you are interested in volunteering in the classroom on a regular basis- please pick up a volunteer packet in the office.  A few notes and reminders for the week:
<ul>
	<li><span style="text-decoration: underline">Please send lunch money for the entire week on Monday</span>.  Please put the money in an envelope and specify the days that your child will have school lunch.</li>
	<li>Please return the consent forms and other paperwork ASAP.</li>
	<li>Gym Day is Friday.  Please see that your child wears gyms shoes on that day.</li>
	<li>Library Day is Monday.  Your child should return their <span style="text-decoration: underline">green library</span> bag with the one book your child checked out on Thursday.</li>
	<li><span style="text-decoration: underline">Clear</span> traveling book bags should be returned on Tuesday of every week!</li>
	<li>October is the girls’ month for snack.  Please send a snack for 32 children.</li>
	<li>We are going on our first field trip this Thursday to see “The Hundred Dresses”.  We have plenty of chaperones for this trip.  Consider volunteering on our next trip to the pumpkin farm.  Please send a sack lunch with your child on that day.</li>
	<li>Check out room 115’s blog on the Ray School website (ray.cps.k12.il.us)….it is up and running.</li>
	<li>I could use a donation of black felt tip pens or the fine tip permanent sharpies.  I would like enough for the entire class for upcoming art projects.</li>
	<li>Picture Day is this Wednesday.  Please return the picture envelope in your child’s green folder.</li>
</ul>
This week we will continue working on developing independent practices during Reading Workshop time.  During this time I will have each child read for me to determine their reading level for Guided Reading groups.  We will start reading the chapter book “The Hundred Dresses” this week, working on making predictions and connections to real life.  We will also read several books about the alphabet including: “<strong>Animalia</strong>”, “<strong>The Alphabet Tree</strong>”, “<strong>Anno’s Alphabet</strong>”, “<strong>Tomorrow’s Alphabet</strong>” and “<strong>City Seen A to Z</strong>”.  The students will learn the following poems and add them to their poetry journals: “Three Elephants” and “There was an Old Lady”.  During phonics this week we will practice hearing the sounds in words, changing the first letter to make new words and identifying the number of syllables in words.  In writing we will work on stretching the sounds out in words and using the alphabet chart to help us write.  In math we will finish unit one by learning the weather and temperature routine and practicing simple number stories.

Our science unit is progressing wonderfully.  The kids have really enjoyed looking at the many solids in our solid collection and describing those using words from the “Solids Word Bank”.  This week we will continue sorting the solids using their properties. Have a wonderful week.