Weekly News

IMPORTANT DATES

·      Thursday, February 14th: Valentine’s Day.

·      Friday, February 15th: 100th day of School! We will celebrate 100 days of school on this day.

·      Friday, February 15th: School Vacation begins at 2:20. School resumes at 8 am on Monday February, 25th.

*If you will be away for additional dates before or after vacation, please let us know so we can plan accordingly.

HUNDREDTH DAY

We will celebrate 100 days of learning on Friday, February 15th.  We will do a number of centers to work with the amount of 100 and to reflect on the things we have learned these past 100 days. Part of our homework this weekend will be to count and bring in 100 objects. These items can be small and will be returned after our day on Friday. In the past, children have brought in 100 paperclips, 100 cheerios, 100 Legos, etc.  The goal of the homework part of this assignment is to count to 100, or better yet, to find an efficient way to count 100 objects (making groups of 10, counting by 2’s, etc.)

COMMUNITY

During February, we are focusing on Friendship and continuing to build our classroom community. Valentine’s is a great opportunity to think about our friends and the way we treat each other. We have been talking about many of the qualities that good friends possess. We are also looking at ways people have been good friends to us, and likewise, ways we can be good friends to others. We will talk about how are words and actions might affect our friends and ways we can help to solve problems. We will continue working on these skills all year, but really focus and practice them this month.

We are also beginning our unit on China and Chinese New Year. We have identified China on a map. We have begun to learn about some Chinese New Year traditions, including: cleaning your house and wearing new clothes, having a special meal, giving red envelopes with money to wish good luck for the new year, dragon parades. We will continue to read non-fiction and fiction books to learn about this holiday and culture.

VALENTINE’S DAY

We will have a small celebration and the opportunity to share valentine cards with the class. It is not a requirement to bring Valentines, but if your child would like to share valentines, please be sure there is one for each child in the class so no one is left out.

Here is our class list; we have 21 students.

Anya, Audrey, Ben, Ella, Elias, Farah, Gavin, Itamar, Katie, Lihi, Luke, Minti, Naomi, Priscilla, Rachel, Rohan, Ronan, Roy, Sasha, Stephanie, Therese

*Next week, we will decorate bags to collect our Valentines. We would love any donations of stickers, colored papers, doilies, or any other crafty articles to decorate with

WORD WALL WORDS: use, here, make, ride, like

This week’s Word Wall Words all have a “Sneaky” or “Silent” E. The e at the end of each word makes the vowel say its name or make a long vowel sound. We’ve also observed how a silent e can change a word from a short vowel word to a long vowel word (man to mane, us to use, etc.)

MATH

We are continuing to work with tens and ones. We learned a new math game this week, Race to 100, to practice adding tens and ones. We are using base ten blocks as tools to help us count. We have discussed that 10 ones cubes = 1 ten stick, and 10 ten sticks = 1 hundred flat. Following vacation, we will begin to work with another tool for counting and adding, and subtracting large numbers: the hundred’s chart.

SNACK

Please check in with your child about lunch and snack. Maybe it’s a growth spurt, or the weather, but many children are still feeling hungry after they have eaten their entire snack and/ or lunch. We are thrilled that the children are taking time to eat all of their food, rather than talking so much they forget to eat.

FIRST GRADE WISH LIST

We welcome donations of the following items for our classroom:

·      •Crafty items to decorate Valentine’s bags

ASK YOUR CHILD…

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

·      What is sneaky e, or super e? What happens when there is an e at the end of a word?

·      What is one tradition people do to celebrate or prepare for Chinese New Year?

·      How much would you have with 4 ten sticks and 7 cubes (4 tens and 7 ones)?