Windy Hill Elementary School
Sharon Sanders Payton Perez
Principal Asst. Principal
Blazing “A” Trail To Success!
October 2008
Dear School Family,
We are off to an exciting start on our trail ride to an “A” this school year!
Our students and staff have established rituals and routines for the year and we are moving forward and I am seeing engaging teaching, focused learning and hard work throughout our school.
This month my Principal’s Book of the Month is The Gingerbread Cowboy, written by Janet Squires and illustrated by Holly Berry. This is a delightful twist on a classic fairy tale. The author’s purpose was to entertain and the illustrations are beautiful but there is also a lesson for all to learn within this familiar story. See if your student can identify what personality trait gets the gingerbread cowboy in trouble!
Ask your students to retell our October Book of the Month to you and see if they can remember the story in sequence with a beginning, middle and end. We hope in their retelling to you they can paint you a picture in your mind using lots of details from the book.
Other topics you can talk with your students about are:
v What is the same in the two versions of the story and what is different?
v Did they learn some new “cowboy” words in this month’s story?
v How are the repeating lines in the original story and the new version different?
Of course a great family activity this month would be to bake gingerbread cookies and use reading and math skills as you follow the recipe together… YUM, YUM, YUM!
Enjoy this tasty selection this month,
Sheriff Sanders