Weekly News

IMPORTANT DATES

·      Wednesday. December 5^th: Early Release Day, School ends at 12:30,

   Lunch is served.

·      Friday, December 21^st: Winter Vacation begins at 2:20 pm. This is a full school day. Lunch is served.

CHANGES IN THE CLASSROOM

This week, our classroom will look a little different. Based on a PTO grant  from last year, our class was awarded a SmartBoard. This is an interactive whiteboard that hooks up to a computer. We will be able to view presentations and videos on it. And even more exciting: we will be able to create lessons and games for the children to participate with via touch screen! It will be installed this week. So our meeting area will look very empty to make room for the installation. On Tuesday afternoon, the professionals will install the SmartBoard. We may take an afternoon adventure to the computer lab or library to avoid the distraction. Stay tuned for updates!

COLD WEATHER and SLIPPERS

We will go outside for recess every day, unless it is raining. As the weather gets colder, please be sure to send appropriate outdoor clothing. This currently includes sweatshirts, jackets, and sometimes rain boots. In the winter, this will include heavy winter coats, hats, gloves, scarves, boots and snow pants.

Also, during the chilly boot-weather months, it is an option to bring slippers (with rubber, non-slip soles) to school. This will make for easy indoor-outdoor transitions, and give a warm and cozy feeling to the day. Your child is welcome to bring slippers (labeled with his or her name) and leave them in the classroom rather than take them home every day. We will have a place in the classroom to store slippers instead of leaving them in cubbies overnight.

   

If your child is missing a jacket or sweatshirt, please check the school Lost and Found, across the hall from the Main office.

MATH

Last week, we continued to explore addition and subtraction through number stories. We are exploring the stories and what they mean in real life. We are using a “Read, Draw, Solve” approach to approaching these problems. We talked about a variety of ways to you’re your thinking on a paper (draw a picture, number sentence, number line...) Stories that are particularly tricky to understand and figure out are ones with a missing addend (There are 10 apples in the tree 4 are red, some are green. How many are green?) and “How many more?” questions ( John has 4 books. Beth has 7. How many more books does Beth have than John?). We will do lots of acting out and drawing of these types of problems.

WORD WALL WORDS:

Last week’s words:      up     us          just          but          fun

These words wrap up our study of the sort vowel sounds with

short u.

This week’s words:          no     come     kick          black     clock

This week, three of our Word Wall Words have a ck at the end. We learned that these two letters stick together to make the “k” sound.  

SCIENCE

On Friday, we began our Science Unit: Light and Shadows. We began by discussing the sources of light and the importance of light. This week, we will explore different materials that light can and cannot shine through. This will lead to a study of shadows and their properties.

COMMUNITY

Last week, we began the Devotion Calendar project. We will work with two other first grade classes, one kindergarten class, one third grade class and one sixth grade class to create a calendar. Our class will be participating in the project by designing the borders for the months on the calendar.  When the calendar is complete, we will sell the calendars for $5 each and all profits will be donated to Heifer International.

Last week, we focused on the designing aspect, and as we move into the holiday season we will take a much closer look at the idea of needs vs. wants and how different communities in other parts of the world live. This week, we will discuss the idea of needs vs. wants. We will define needs as things that everyone should have to live (food, shelter, rest, water, warmth, etc.) and wants as extra things that are nice to have but you can live without them (toys, dessert, tv’s, etc.). We will also read Beatrice’s Goat, which illustrates how giving one goat to one family can impact a whole town! We will discuss the ways that Heifer International helps people all over the world. For more information on this organization, please read the attached letter from Beatrice, the actual girl featured in Beatrice’s Goat, or check out their website: www.heifer.org 

Devotion Calendar order forms will be sent home this week. Order forms can be turned in to the classroom or the main office. If you need additional order forms, just let us know.

VACATIONS and APPOINTMENTS

It is very helpful for us to know ahead of time if your child will be out of school. Please let us know if you will be taking a trip and missing school or if your child will be coming in late due to an appointment.  

ASK YOUR CHILD…

These questions can be conversation starters to discuss the week in school.

·      What did you draw for your page in our Not-A-Box class book?

·      What math game did you play with your partner this week?

·      What month did you design a calendar square for?