Dear Parents,

I hope you had an enjoyable weekend.  Last Friday our teacher in-service began with a building briefing from Mr. Frank Figgels, our construction manager.  Our administration hopes to create a letter communicating the construction updates soon.  Here are the few highlights.  The project is on budget.  The timeline has changed due to the cold temperatures and vast amounts of snow.  It should be completed around Christmas.  Once the construction is finished our old driveway will be used for traffic again and the parking lot will have some layout changes.  In any construction project there are growing pains, but there will have so many wonderful benefits once it is completed.  Hang in there!!  Also I’ve learned that we have two snow days left. 

 Today we walked to the Onekama Public Library.  Students were able to check out three books.  They are due on Friday, February 20^th.

Enclosed is your child’s report card. Please look it over carefully.  If you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to contact me at 889-9674 ext. 436 before or after school or via email sniederstadt@manistee.org .

Last Wednesday students took Unit 4 Written Assessment covering our last math unit.  You’ll find two copies of your child’s test.  The first paper is a copy of your child’s test.  It was graded according to their abilities without support.  The second is your child’s test that was corrected together in class. Students did very well.  The most missed questions were the telling time.  This is a new skill.  We’ve learned telling time for o’clock, quarter-after, half-past and quarter-to.  We’ll continue to practice throughout the year, but this is a difficult concept for most students. 

Our new unit is Place Value, Number Stories, and Basic Facts.  Students are beginning to use larger numbers.  They will begin to explore the system we use for writing larger numbers by focusing on the idea of place value.  Students will use base-10 blocks to represent numbers and to find the sums of two numbers.  They will also use place value to determine “greater than” and “less than” relationships.  Later in the unit, students will continue to work on addition facts.  Shortcuts for learning facts will be introduced.  Enclosed is a parent letter that gives more detailed information.

Enclosed are January & February’s book orders.  They are due on Friday, February 5^th.  Please make your check out to Scholastic Book Club.  Usually I like to give two weeks to preview the book orders, but I hope to have the books in before Valentine’s .

The following are dates that you may want to add to your calendar:

• Book Orders Due – February 5
• School Store – February 6
• Good Behavior Ski Day– February 10

• Valentine’s Day Party – February 13

• Winter Break (No School) – February 16
• Onekama Public Library field trip – February 20

• Manistee Public Library/Pizza Hut field trip – March 13
• Substitute – March 26 & 27
• Spring Break – March 30 – April 6

Our Main Class Page for 2008-2009

The Main Elementary Page for 2008-2009