Books We Love:

The BEST thing you can do for your child is to read to them!!  It's a wonderful way to spend time together and something that your child enjoys SO much! When children are read to, their sense of book awareness grows and they begin to understand the relationship between print and the spoken word.  If it's a predictable book that they've heard read many times, they may even memorize the language of the book and be able to "read" it back to you!  That's wonderful and it's the first step to reading. :)

As you're reading together, talk about the cover of the book and see if your child can guess what it'll be about.  You may want to discuss the characters in the story and what is going on.  If it's a really good book, your child may want you to reread it.  This is a wonderful thing to do because they are learning the language of the book and understanding new things along the way.  

I wanted to share some of our FAVORITE classroom books with you.  There are so many good ones, but these are the ones that we read again and again!  You may have some of these books at home or you may want to start adding them to your collection.  So gather a few good books, sit your child on your lap, and let's get reading!!!

Teddy Bear Picnic

We had such a fun time at our Teddy Bear Picnic!!  We gathered up our favorite teddy bears from home, put on our bear hats, and headed outside for a story and snack.  Luckily it was a beautiful, 70 degree, January day!  After that we came back inside and measured our bears from largest to smallest. We even took a picture lined up to see the size differences.  It was a lot of fun to sleep with our bears at nap time!  And to top off our great day, we got to meet our newest friend, Kylie, when we woke up!  We are so happy that she is in our class and we look forward to having tons of fun together! :)

Welcome Kylie! We're so happy you're at Trinity with us!

We're Going on a Bear Hunt

We had such a fun time with our bear unit! We learned that bears eat a lot in the fall and hibernate during the winter.  We had so much fun going on a bear hunt today!! We will wrap up our week tomorrow with a Teddy Bear Picnic.  All of our friends are invited to bring a teddy bear from home to play with at school.  It should be a "beary" fun day!!! :)

Our hibernating bear artwork

We worked a bear puzzle with a 5th grade buddy before morning meeting.

Making patterns with teddy bear counters.

After we read Going on a Bear Hunt, we had so much fun retelling the story with a play tray. 

It was always fun to lift up the cave and find the bear inside!

Catherine enjoyed rereading the bear hunt book.

Our Bear Hunt play tray

When we came in from recess, all of our care bears were hiding in the classroom.  We had to use our binoculars to hunt for them!  They were hiding in many funny places!!

Luckily we found them all!  Boy, it was a fun day!!