December, 2007 Updates

Mrs. Russell        Library

We are very busy in the library.  Kindergarten are continuing to learn
about how to take care of books.  First graders are reviewing book care and library manners.  Second graders are finishing a unit on the author Tomie DePaola, and are writing the author a letter.  Third grade is studying the four main sections of the library and learning about call
numbers.  Fourth grade began the unit on the Dewey Decimal System and are making Dewey Collages (come by next week and see the  finished product).  Fifth grade is finishing the library organization unit and getting ready to begin a new unit on reference materials and how to use them.  Mrs. Russell's Christmas decorations are illustrations of The Year of the Perfect Christmas, an Appalachian Christmas Story, set in  western North Carolina.

Mrs. Smelcer       First Grade

We had fun making our penguins and glitter snowflakes to decorate our door and hallway wall.  We also enjoyed making Rudolph with our two hand prints and the shape of our feel.  In Reading, we read "Honey
Bees" and learned all about the queen bee, the worker bees and the
drone bees.  We even tasted honey on crackers!  Most of us liked it.  We are looking forward to our Christmas break.  Boy, do we need it!  Merry Christmas everyone and we wish you all a very, happy 2008!

Mrs. Hogsten      Kindergarten

Mrs. Amy's class has been getting ready for Christmas and anticipating
the holiday break.  We have been practicing some Christmas songs for our program during our Christmas party.  We will enjoy a pizza party too
because we did such a great job collecting corn for the can drive.  We collected 117 cans of corn, so we earned some yummy pizza for all our
hard work.  We recently took a fieldtrip to Carson-Newman College to see a play by the Blue Apple Players.  It was called Make Room for Elves.  It was funny and we enjoyed walking on the "Big College Campus"!  (Some boys and girls thought Carson-Newman was  a very big high school.  :-)  )  We are finishing up the 2nd nine weeks and grade cards will go home  when we return in January 2008.  We can't wait for Christmas break.   We're definitely ready for some time off.  Maybe it will snow...

Mrs. Dobyns      Kindergarten

Time sure does fly when you are having fun and we sure have been having lots of fun in Mrs. Dobyns' kindergarten class.  Since Thanksgiving we have been on a field trip to Carson-Newman college to see the Blue Apple Players present the play Make Room For Elves. We also  shopped for our families in the Piedmont Santa Shop.  Mrs. Treva painted our faces, we sure made cute clowns!  On the academic side we are halfway through our reading series, and we are making great progress learning our letters and blending letters to read words.  In math we are counting by 1's and 10's, recognizing pennies and dimes.  We are using our Geoboards a lot and are getting to be experts at creating designs on them.  We are looking forward to nice a two week break.  Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Mr. Horner      Fifth Grade

Well, the year is almost half over and we have been busy during this stretch run before Christmas.  We are continuing through our reading
series and have really improved our comprehension and fluency as the year has progressed.  Our writing continues to improve as the students have worked hard putting more details into their writing.  We are also moving right along in math, science, and social studies.  I think the second part of the year will be just as interesting and fun as my students are always trying to improve and excel in all aspects of school.

Mrs. Morell      First Grade

Mrs. Morell's first graders are moving right along.  Students have just
finished their second reading book, and will begin comprehensive unit
testing.  Students are learning to read and spell at least 15 new words
every week!   In math, students have been working on memorizing plus 2 and minus 2 math facts.  Each student keeps fact cards to study daily.  They have a daily practice and homework fact page.  On Fridays, students have timed tests over math facts.  They have 2 minutes to answer 20 math facts.  Everyone has been doing really well this year.  Students are also learning how to use dimes and pennies to pay items in our pretend classroom store.   Our social studies lessons this month have been focused on holidays around the world.  Students are learning to appreciate traditions and customs from around the world.

Mrs. Greene-McMillan    Pre-Kindergarten

Ms. Ashley's PreK has been very busy the last month. During our Community Helpers unit, we took a trip to the Carson Newman College  post office, took a tour of Pizza Plus in Dandridge (and ate some pizza while we were there), and visited the Dandridge Public Library. We had a wonderful time and saw our community helpers in action, doing their jobs!  During the month of December we have already focused on Polar animals.  These are the animals that live at both the North and South Poles; which include the Arctic and the Antarctic. To go along with this unit, the PreK students decorated their door and hallway with all their hardwork they had created in the classroom. The students made penguins after an in depth study on
the different types of penguins and that they only live in the Southern
Hemisphere. (Hemisphere is a big word, but we got the concept.) Each of our penguins was unique because we created them ourselves and put on some very unique eyes. We also created an igloo to cover our  doorway. The teachers had the idea, but the students took charge  finishing the product.  This is just a glimpse into all the wonderful happenings going on each day in December. Stop by and take a look at all our hard work.

Mrs. Garner     Second Grade

What fun we had from Thanksgiving until Christmas!  Lots of interesting activities and unusual opportunities.  Christmas Around the World really taught us so much about other countries.  We can find Mexico, England, Germany and Italy on a world map now and we think we might like to visit those places for real sometime in the future.  Pajama Day was great fun since all of us met our reading goal.  Keep up that reading.   Mrs. Daley came to our room and showed us how to make a book for our class.  We wrote about something we would like to share with someone and then illustrated it on a large piece of paper.   Hopefully the book will be ready soon. Our school was really pretty during the Christmas season.  There was a door decorating contest and many teachers went way past just decorating their door.  Congratulations to those that won and thanks for all the beautiful scenery to look at while we walked the halls.  Congratulations to Gracie for winning the art contest at the Christmas Place. In January we will start having music class at the time that we had art last semester.  The teachers are  switching places starting in January and we will enjoy having a music teacher at Piedmont for the first time in quite a while. January brings new beginnings and we will be in a new reading book.  Hopefully our stories will continue to entertain us.  It will be fun to talk about all our experiences when we return in January.  Have a wonderful holiday!

Mrs. French      Third Grade

Piedmont School had a contest for the best Christmas door decoration. The first person I thought of was my daughter, Celia Beth. I had not been feeling good and had not received the news I wanted to hear from my doctor. I was stressed! But Celia can always pick me up and keep me going. I called her and said "The door decoration war is on, can you help?" We started a project that lasted at least a week. Side by side we went to work planning and getting our thoughts together to make a masterpiece. The students learned about lines of symmetry, fractions, and that following directions are important, even in making snowflakes. They also learned what fun it is to work as a team. The children learned that you can do interesting things using Photo Shop. They learned about putting a focal point in your art work. Celia shared with them how using math and art can someday get you into a great profession, such as architecture. The students learned that you should give it your best try on whatever you are doing. They also saw what a special relationship a mother and daughter can have. Celia is getting married in January and I am sure we want have time to do any more projects together. She will be designing houses or other buildings somewhere in the world. She has been helping me do projects since she was in kindergarten (dinosaur dances, school sleepovers, art projects, Gift of Reading, Read Across America, etc). Thanks to teachers who made school special for Celia Beth. Just to name a few: Mrs. Marilyn Barr, Mrs. Isabel Haigh, Mrs. Karen Bible, and Mr. Raymond Lindsey. For those of you who have enjoyed this kind of relationship, you understand. For those of you who haven't I hope that you will one day be so blessed. Thanks to the parents who are so supportive each day and to the children for their enthusiasm for learning. You make my day bright and teaching a fun experience..

Mrs. Strange      Guidance

Guidance activities will be emphasizing CARING for the months of December and January.  December activities have included The  Berenstain Bears' Christmas Tree video for grades K-2.  Those ever popular Bears discover the true meaning of Christmas which is... IT IS BETTER TO GIVE THAN TO RECEIVE; in 5th grade we watched the Legend of the Candy Cane and how caring was displayed through out this story; other grades enjoyed Christmas sing-along songs!
 

Mrs. Ogle     Art

Piedmont Elementary Art will wind down for the year by Christmas break.  After Christmas break, Mrs. Lindsey Walters will teach music at Piedmont Elementary School during art time.  She has been instructing music at Talbott Elementary since August.   Mrs. Ogle will teach art at Talbott Elementary for the remainder of the school year.   There will be an "Art Wall of Fame" on display at Piedmont Elementary School .  This artwork will be the work going to the Dogwood Arts Festival in the spring.   Gracie  won grand prize and Mercedes  won runner-up at "The Incredible Christmas Place" art contest.  They received prizes and P.E.S. received $250.00 for the art department.  Thanks girls.

Mrs. Whitley     Second Grade

December is always an interesting and fun month at school.  One tries to work in Christmas activities while still teaching the subject matter that needs to be taught.  We are in the midst of our Second Grade Christmas Around the World unit and, when finished, students will know how to say Merry Christmas the way children in Mexico, Germany, Italy, and England do.  Ornaments were made focusing on each country and a food was tasted.  In Mexico we tasted Mexican Wedding Cookies.  Yum, yum!  We have made snowman ornaments for our tree as well as a photo ornament.  In the hall we decorated our wall with a poinsettia tree and Ojos de Dios (God's Eyes) yarn ornaments, both with Mexican Christmas significance.  Our door decoration was Santa coming down the chimney and students decorated the fireplace and added stockings and gifts.  We had fun.  We continue on our reading skills, the latest being compound words and comparative suffixes -er and -est.  Spelling words were based on those skills.  We have finished our reading book and will start a new one when we come back in January.  Happy 2008. 

Measuring distance using our feet.

Our feet did NOT measure the same.  Rulers do!

Mrs. Doan      Kindergarten

Mrs. Doan's class has been working hard.  We are learning to count to 100 by 1's and 10's.  We are learning about pennies and dimes.  All of the students love to read!  Along with the 21 popcorn words we know, we can sound out lots and lots of other words.

Mrs. West      Second Grade

The month of December has been very exciting!  We have read  several of Aesop's Fables this year.  A fable is a story that teaches  a lesson.  Our favorite fable was The Crow and the Pitcher.  We can learn a lot from what we read.  We may even write some of our own fables.   Speaking of fictional stories, we've also read several different versions of the German Christmas story The Nutcracker.  The story has been told in the form of a ballet.  The story is told through music and beautiful movements.  Our class made a book with Mrs. Daley.  The book is called, The Places I Would Go.  We wrote about a place we would love to travel to and why.  I think we have some world travelers.  Speaking of world travelers, our class will visit Mexico, Germany, Italy, and England as we learn about world Christmas traditions.  We've got our passports ready and our bags packed.  We can't wait to tell you about our trip next time.

Mrs. Barbee     Third Grade

We are eagerly anticipating Christmas Break, but it's so hard to believe
the first semester is already over!  We've been very busy in class.  Our class just read a story about volcanoes in our reading textbooks.  We
practiced comparing and contrasting earthquakes and volcanoes.   This week we are enjoying reading and discussing a couple of  Christmas-themed trade books.  We are completing an English unit on verbs.  We've enjoyed writing some winter poems which we plan to publish as a class book.  We are completing a science unit on the solar system.  We're using research and creativity to develop travel brochures for individual planets.  Merry Christmas!

Mrs. Wiles    Second Grade

December is flying.  School is almost out for Christmas. We have been working hard.  Our first book in our new reading series is finished.  When we return in January we will be ready to start our second book.  WOW!!!  Second grade is doing Christmas Around the World.  We are visiting four countries England, Mexico, Germany, and Italy and learning different traditions from each country. In  England, Santa Claus is known as Father Christmas. We have had a chance to taste
wassail.  Yum, yum. Everyone should come home with the recipe, so give it a try.  Our math is moving right along.  After Christmas break we
will be starting to subtract. Our class will be having Polar Express day on Wednesday.  We choose this as our goal for meeting our individual A.R. goal. We will wear p.js, read the book, and  see if we still hear the bell. Our party will be in the afternoon and we will be ready to exchange gifts with our friends.  We would like to wish everyone a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.