January greetings from Scarborough, Maine.

 We have had lots of COLD weather. In fact, we have been studying the weather and just had a meteorologist come to teach us about weather. In class, we have kept track of the temperature and have been as high as 49 degrees and as low as 2 degrees. The wind chill has made it below zero on many days. We have had to have lots of inside recesses. At inside recess, we like to play with blocks, legos, checkers, and to draw on whiteboards. When we did get to go outside, we had fun in the snow or just running around. We are looking forward to warmer days.In January, we took the Cognitive Ability tests which was our first time taking a standardize test. Some of us thought it was fun to work in booklets.We did measurement activities in math which got us up and moving around. Now, we are doing mental math and estimation. In two weeks it will be our February vacation. Do you have a February vacation too?

Sunny Fun in January

In Santa Clara, Utah our weather has been in the 60's.  We only need to wear jackets.  It has been very sunny outside.  Our after school playtime has been spent pretending in the backyard, baseball practice, tag, and playing softball. That must be because we live in the desert.  (ha, ha) The farmers are getting concerned that we don't have more snow in the mountains.  Without the snow we won't have enough water to melt and fill our lakes and reservoirs for the summer to water our crops, gardens, and lawns.

We have been talking about bullying and played some games that helped us understand more about bullying.
We are very concerned about our Computer Teacher.  She is very sick.  We learned about writing friendly letters yesterday and we all wrote her a friendly get well letter.

HAPPY HOLIDAYS FROM PONTE VEDRA

We are in high gear here for the holidays. The weather has been back and forth between hot 80 and cold 45.  Our students have been busy doing service projects.  Our classrooms collect pet supplies to give to the Humane Society.  We had a service dog come and visit the other day.  We collect dog toys, food, crates, paper towels, bleach and many other things that they need.  We will soon be off for the holidays.

Howdy and Happy Holidays from Utah

We finally had snow.  We hardly ever get snow before Christmas.  It snowed about 6 inches.  It has been very cold for our desert blood.  Our playground was a winter wonderland too.  But, after a week most of the snow has melted.  Now we are playing in the leaves again. We have been learning about subtracting 2-digit numbers, place value and a little addition with 3-digit numbers.  We learned to write numbers in expanded form and the word form.  We have been learning about working together.  It is better to work together than to work alone.  Last Friday we had a t-shirt party.  We have worked very hard to be respectful, responsible and safe to earn this party.  We made designs on our shirts with masking tape.  Our 4th grade buddy class helped us.  Then our mothers sprayed bleach on them and it made cool designs.  We are all looking forward to the Christmas Break.  We will be back in school on January 2nd, 2014.  Have a Hi-Ho Happy Christmas and a Howdy-Doody New Year.

Snowy December, by Mrs. Conwell's Crew

People all over the world celebrate many holidays in December. Do you celebrate Christmas? We do! Christmas is here in six more days! Yesterday we made snowmen out of milk containers for our holiday party. Everyone is bringing a treat and we are going to add them to the snowman buckets. Then we are going to take the snowmen home to use as decorations and give as gifts. Yesterday we also went to see a holiday concert. It had instruments and singing.

Some people celebrate Hanukkah. Every night for eight nights, people light a candle on the menorah. When you celebrate Hanukkah, you eat potato latkes. We ate them in our class! There is a spinning top that is called a dreidel. To play dreidel, you need gelt, which is chocolate coins.

We read about Three Kings Day. On this day, January 6, the Three Kings have three cakes, and there is a crown on each one. On Three Kings Day, the children find presents in their shoes! Do you celebrate Three Kings Day?

Mexican and Spanish people celebrate Las Posadas. There is a red flower called a poinsettia. The piñata is made out of clay and has special candy and toys hidden inside. You get the candy out by breaking it with a baseball bat.

We had a lot of snow this month. We can make snowmen. We have a break from school for two weeks. It starts on Monday. It also is the last day of the year on Friday. When we come back from break, it will be 2014! We wish you Happy Holidays and a Happy New Year!

Greetings from Scarborough, Maine

In Scarborough, we have been having snowstorms. We got 12" of snow on the weekend and 8" on Tuesday. There was so much snow, we can play that we are swimming and diving in it. It was soft and fluffy so it was easy to fall in it. It was not good snow for building snowmen. Our playground is a winter wonderland!! We don't always have snow for Christmas. The first picture is our upper playground area. We have a fire truck that is fun to climb on, swings, a natural play area, and to the left of the picture there is a walk way where we can play Four Square, and have movable hoops to shoot baskets. The second picture is the lower playground area that is nearest to our classroom. We can sled on the hill, play on the equipment and play in the ball field. The ball field area is where we have been swimming and diving in the snow. Tuesdays and Thursdays we are on the upper playground and the other days on the lower. We mix classes and split the recess times with the kindergartners, first graders, and other second graders. We have been studying about neighborhoods and learning about the different kinds. We live in a suburb of Portland which is urban. Scarborough has some rural areas. The farms in the rural area grow fruits and vegetables like blueberries, strawberries, potatoes, corn and tomatoes. We are studying multiplication and division and we count by 2s, 5s, and 10s. Are you doing multiplication now, too? We look forward to learning more about your area in the New Year. Happy New Year!!

The Land Around Buffalo, NY (Mrs. Conwell's class)

We live in Cheektowaga, NY, and where we live the land is flat.  When it's wintertime, we get to go sledding on the big snow piles and build snow forts.  Since Buffalo gets so much snow, we also make many snowmen.  If you go north of Buffalo and Cheektowaga, Niagara Falls is there.  Niagara Falls in the winter has lots of cool holiday lights.  It has big waterfalls everywhere.  You can go on a helicopter ride and see the big icicles that are starting to freeze.  If you go up on the Rainbow Bridge, you can see rainbows and Canada.  Our county is named after Lake Erie, which we live very close to.  If you go west, you find Lake Erie.  There are lots of beaches near Lake Erie, and we like to play in the water and build sand castles in the summer.  In the winter the lake freezes and some people skate on it--they have a "pond hockey" tournament!  If you go south, you come to Allegheny State Park.  It is a great place to camp because you get to go hiking in the big hills.  If you travel southeast, Beaver Meadow is a forest with many different kinds of trees where you can see beavers and lots of wild animals.  Many animals are hibernating right now.  As you can see, the land around Buffalo, NY, has many activities to do, even when it's cold and snowy.