Hammond's Happenings

CBI This Week

March 2, 2009

Did you enjoy the SNOW yesterday? I had to do a lot of driving in it, so it wasn’t as much fun as if I could just play in it.

Last week we read about the 40^th anniversary of Hot Wheels cars in our News-2-You paper. Today we read about something very fascinating – Water for

Africa

. A man developed an invention that harnesses the energy of children playing on a playground merry-go-round to pump water for the entire village!

 

Thursday we will be going on CBI to the Sanctuary, an assisted living facility right across the street from

North

Cobb

High School

. We will be playing bingo with the residence.

 

If you received an announcement about the Art Show, please return the RSVP as soon as possible. Thanks so much!

 

If you have any questions, please feel free to call or email me. Thanks!

 

Mrs. Hammond

Rhona.hammond@cobbk12.org

770-975-6615

WE WERE THE AWESOMEST!!!!!!!

We not only LOOKED AWESOME, but we WERE AWESOME!!!! The students were so well behaved and had so much fun! We all danced, had great snacks, and had lots of pictures taken of us! I took many pictures and will sort though them and pass them along. You will find a picture that was taken by the volunteers at the dance. It was wonderful to see the high school students taking such interest in our kids by talking to them, asking them to dance, cheering for them as we arrived, and doing anything they could to make our kids feel welcome. I hope some great memories were made today!

 

Mrs. Hammond

It was a great Conference Week!

February 2, 2009

Greetings! I really enjoyed talking with you this last week! I love to brag on your children and share my excitement about what they are doing.

We have had a change in plans, from going bowling on January 30, 2009 to February 6^th. Because of this change, in case you have not sent in the money or permission slip for this trip, you may still do so. (ASAP) This week, we are not only going bowling and to McDonald’s, we are going on CBI on Thursday, the 5^th. We will be splitting up the girls and the guys this time. This will be a first for me. Ms. Mary and I will go with the girls to McEachern High School and look through up to 2000 prom dresses, to find one suitable for our Dance at Kennesaw Mtn. High School on February 23^rd. The boys will go with Mr. John, our Speech Language Pathologist, and another paraprofessional, to a thrift store to find a nice dressy shirt to wear to the Dance. I would ask that you would send in about $5 for the shirts for the boys. The dresses are free (sorry boys). I am VERY excited about this adventure, and I hope it will breed increased anticipation for the Dance!

We enjoyed learning about the Super Bowl last week. A couple students surveyed their homerooms as to which team they thought would win. Both classes had a majority that was cheering for the Pittsburgh Steelers. They will then graph their results. We also cooked using the News-2-You recipe. We each took a banana and sliced down the skin and stuffed it with mini marshmallows and chocolate chips. We then wrapped each one in foil and baked them in the oven for 10 minutes @ 400 degrees. After they cooled somewhat, they ate them with a spoon. Most students loved them, but not everyone, as you could imagine since you know your own child. They did enjoy the process though.

I look forward to getting into February as we delve into Black History Month. This will be a very full and fun month, so hang on as we enjoy the ride together!!!

Remember, February 4^th is an Early Dismissal Day.

Please contact me with any questions you might have. I love to talk with you!

Mrs. Hammond

Rhona.hammond@cobbk12.org

770 975 6615

Don't Forget to Vote!!!

Parents,

Don't forget to vote!! We have been learning about the presidential election and the candidates, and even took polls in four different Social Studies classes as to who the students would vote for. Two of the classes were strongly in favor of Obama, one class only had a few vote spread with Obama ahead, and one class was clearly in favor of McCain. It will be interesting to watch the results Tuesday night! Tuesday is also a day off for the students! If you haven't voted early, maybe you could take your child with you so they can see the process. We will finish our Elections unit this week.

Thursday we will be going on CBI to KIS Golf Acadamy & Country Club. My family has a membership there, so I can bring guests. This facility hosts the weekly practices for the Cobb Special Olympics Golf Team, so they know what to do with kids with various disabilities. They are very excited to have us and will have instructors set up as well as snacks. I will bring my clubs too and show what I have learned there too.

For those of you who have not sent in the permission slip for Bowling and Pizza, please do, as well as the $8.00. I don't want anyone to miss out! We have a great Adaptive PE coach who offers all of these great experiences to us! He definitely goes above and beyond the call of duty for our kids, and they love it!!!

We will be continuing with our Africa unit this week, and move on to Australia next week. We are great world travelers in our class! We will also begin talking about Thanksgiving with all that it means and how we celebrate it. I love being thankful, and I hope we can work on that character trait more as the holiday draws near.

Please contact me if you have any questions. I am available to you.

Mrs. Hammond

rhona.hammond@cobbk12.org

770 975 6615

November is coming!

Greetings!

We have some up coming events that I want to make you aware of. First of all, remember that school is out for the kids on November 4^th, Election Day. Then we will go on CBI on the 6th, and I would like to take the students to see High School Musical 3 at the theater. Please let me know if you have any objection to this. I think they would all enjoy it. I will look into the cost and let you know.

On November 14^th, we are planning another field trip with Coach, to go bowling and then have lunch at Cici’s Pizza. This will cost approximately $8.00 for bowling, shoe rental, buffet, and drink. We will go with our friends at

North

Cobb

High School

.

I hope you have a safe and Happy Halloween this weekend.

Mrs. Hammond

rhona.hammond@ cobbk12.org

770-975-6615

Greetings!

Disney on Ice, here we come!!!

Greetings!

I hope you all have had a chance ot look over your student's progress report and report card! Everyone did very well!

This week holds a great treat for the end of the week, as we go to Philips Arena for Disney on Ice with our high school friends from North Cobb and Kennesaw Mountain! The adults going are as excited as the students!! We will bring sack lunches from school with us, so we can stop somewhere on the way home and eat.

Our time at Home Depot was a lot of fun. We toured the store and searched for simple machines. We found them on almost every aisle, so they really kept our attention. I think the workers may have learned a thing or two from us as we found these simple machines and talked about them.

There will be a substitute on Wednesday morning while I am out for a Doctor's appointment, but I will be back in the afternoon.

Monday is picture re-takes day, and all of you should have your envelopes with which to order, so please do if you woulde like to. These pictures will also be in the yearbook. The yearbooks are on sale right now for $33.- for about another week, before the price goes up a couple dollars.

Monday, we get a new student in our class. She is a 6th grader who is at Awtrey but will be changing classrooms, and we all really like her already! Now we have 8 students, 4 girls and 4 boys. I can see an algebra problem coming out of this!

Have a great week! If you have any questions, please contact me! I value your input immensely!!

Mrs. Hammond

rhona.hammond@cobbk12.org

770 975 6615

"So what would be your choice for . . . ."

Greetings!

I hope you are enjoying these beautiful days! I love the cool mornings and evenings!

We had a fun time with our News-2-You unit this week about October being National Popcorn Month. Besides reading about it, we did math problems with popcorn, matching, learning new vocabulary words, plus we took our own poll; which popcorn do you like better, microwave butter popcorn or Jiffy Pop butter popcorn. It was fun to watch the Jiffy Pop container expand! Some held their ears thinking it was going to explode! Everyone got an opportunity to try both kinds of popcorn and vote for which one they liked better. They then graphed their responses, and so did the teachers, and much to my surprise, it was a tie!

The students surveyed teachers this last week as to what their favorite music is. I believe Gospel and the Beatles were big favorites. This week we will be preparing for polls we will take in several classrooms as to who the students would vote for for President. We will make ballots and ballot boxes so the voting can be anonymous. We will then take the results and graph it per class and in total. We will be experts after that, and will hopefully have made some new friends too.

We are going on CBI this Thursday to Home Depot. I am hoping that we can scout out some cool simple machines while we are there, as well as find a class pumpkin. We may also need to follow the store map to find certain departments. I really love CBI and all the great skills we get to work on!!

Another highlight of our week will be that Amy's Mom will come in on Monday and we will celebrate Colombus Day together. If you want to help us celebrate one of the holidays we experience each year, and have not signed up to do so, please contact me and I will be happy to let you know which holidays are still available and give you some ideas of what to do. We love to celebrate, and I want our students to have plenty of reasons to do so! Thank you for your cooperation!

Thank you too for sending in the money for tickets to Disney on Ice! I'm so glad to be able to have that part of our adventure taken care of. More about that trip later! Have a great week!!!!

Mrs. Hammond

rhona.hammond@cobbk12.org

770 975 6615

What's Coming Up? - Disney on Ice!!!

The first 9 weeks is almost over! The time is flying by!! Each day is so full, it is over before we know it. We studied about space in our last News-2-You, and this week we "celebrate" National Popcorn Month. We will do some experiments with the different ways one can pop popcorn, and if they taste different than each other. There are lots of surveys being taken with peers and teachers throughout the school. Everyone who is asked is always so willing to participate. The data is then taken and graphed and discussed. This is a fun way of getting to know those we see in the halls, but don't get much time to spend with them.

A new topic in science that we will begin is rocks, their formation and their properties. I know when I first studied this, it made me see those pebbles on the ground in a different way. It was fun to look at them and notice the different colors or layers or sparkliness. I hope your child can become more aware of their surroundings through the different topics we study and how we study them.

We enjoyed our CBI to Walmart and Blimpie's last week. The service at Blimpie's was pretty slow, so it took quite a while. The man making most of the sandwiches was a "master craftsman" and wanted each olive or tomato to be in just the right place. :-) The students were all VERY patient! I was really impressed at their self-control.

Next week we will be going on CBI, but our next big outting is the 24th, when we go to Philip's Arena for Disney on Ice! We are all really looking forward to this! If you haven't sent in your $12 for your ticket, please do so by the end of the week. I have everyone's permission slips, and we have ordered the tickets. We and the North Cobb classes will be sitting together!

Please let me know if you have any questions about anything. I am here for you and your child.

Mrs. Hammond

rhona.hammond@cobbk12.org

770 975 6615

Fall is Here!

Aaaahhh! Doesn't this weather feel wonderful?!

Our picnic at Swift-Cantrell Park was fabulous! The weather was perfect, the playground was available and so much fun, and the food was delicious! Thanks to Coach for taking us and grilling our hot dogs and hamburgers! Thank you for sending in our lunch supplies. They were a hit! It was fun to be with our friends from Kennesaw Mountain High School too!

This week we will be going on CBI on Thursday to Wal-mart and Order Up Restaurant. The restaurant is right across the street from North Cobb High School and has a very simple menu. I'll send one home so you can figure out with your student what they will order and how much money they will need to bring. At Wal-mart, we won't be buying anything, but we will be practicing locating the correct aisles and finding items.

Another activity we will be doing this week, based on our CBIs, is making a PowerPoint presentation about us in the community. I think the class will enjoy reviewing pictures of themselves on CBI trips and putting them into a presentation they can show others!

We will be making some center pieces for our Staff Meeting breakfast this week, on the theme of apples, in honor of Johnny Appleseed's birthday. They are great for fine motor skills, following directions and being creative. I'm looking forward to seeing how they turn out!

Have a great week and let me know if you have any questions!

Mrs. Hammond

rhona.hammond@cobbk12.org

770-975-6615

The Fun Never Ends!

Greetings!

I hope you have had a great week! We enjoyed our CBI trip to Costco on Thursday! Everyone was wonderful to us! We had a very informative, chilly and delicious tour! We learned more about the store, got to go into the walk-in refrigerator behind the milk and eggs, etc. plus we had a very tasty pizza lunch! We were able to fix our own fountain drinks too. The bakery manager was very generous to us and gave us a big box of big cookies, icing, and sprinkles with which to decorate our cookies! This activity was saved for when we returned to school.

Friday, we all warmed our own lunches and made our News-2-You recipe, Wind Whips, which was based on our hurricane unit. Most of us loved it! Canned pumpkin, instant vanilla pudding, milk, and Cool Whip. Yum!!

This Friday will be our picnic with Coach at Swift Cantrell Park. Thanks for volunteering to send in the food for that. I would appreciate it if you could send in those items on Wednesday so I can see if we are missing anything. Then I can pick it up on time. Thanks!

They will all have opportunities to take surveys of their peers this week, in various settings. This is used for Language Arts, Math, and Science, so it will be an ongoing activity, along with analyzing the data we gather.

I'm enjoying your child very much and look forward to many more rewarding months together!

Mrs. Hammond

rhona.hammond@cobbk12.org

770-975-6615