December 3-7

It is December already!  I have 29 excited little students. It is fun to be surrounded by first graders this time of year.  We will have spelling words for the next three weeks.  I was pleased with the students that were able to get 100% on their spelling tests last week with two dictation sentences.  I will continue with two sentences for the remainder of the year.

The November reading record is now due!  I sent home the December reading record home with your child today.  Please read with your child for the remaining three weeks of school, and do your best to squeeze some in over the break.  I am sending home the Scholastic December book orders today.  The best way to do it is by using the online code.  If you order online you will receive a $5.00 coupon that you can use for the next order. Those book orders will be due this Friday, December 7. The orders should be back before Christmas, so if you would like me to save any books as gifts let me know.

In first grade, our Christmas party will be a Gingerbread house making extravaganza!  We make them out of graham crackers.  I will need your help to accomplish this.  I will send home a note with your child this Wednesday explaining what we will need to make these houses.  Some of you I will specifically ask to bring graham crackers or white icing, but others I will just ask to bring something to help decorate the houses with.  Some great things that have been brought in the past are: small candy canes, foil wrapped Santas, red and green gumdrops or M & M's, Necco wafers, pretzel sticks, coconut etc.  Please watch for the note, and thanks in advance for the donations.  We will build our houses on Thursday, December 20th at 1:00.  I could use some parent helpers that day also.  If you would like to come and help please let me know!  I would love it and NEED it!!

I am in need of one more little donation.  We will be making a "secret" Christmas gift this year and if you could help by sending $1.00 with your child to help cover the cost of that "secret" gift, I would appreciate it.  You can start sending the donation tomorrow, and I will take it until we leave for our Christmas break.

When we get back from our Christmas break we will almost be done with our second quarter of school.  I will get grades printed out this week on Wednesday and will send a copy home with your child on Thursday.  Watch for these grades, and check them over to see if your child has missing work.  We will also have our second DIBELS test after the break, so that is one of the reasons that squeezing in a bit of reading  over the break would be helpful :)

This week we will finish our Santa letters and start our Gingerbread Boy stories unit.  We will read and discuss several Gingerbread Boy story variations and then the students will write an opinion piece about their favorite story.  We will also be creating a Christmas Art project and writing a poem about Christmas trees.  Your child should be working on Sight Word List #5 this month.  If they have not passed off through List #4 they are behind. In math, I am reviewing for Test #4 today, and will test tomorrow, Tuesday, Dec. 4.  We will start on Topic 5 this Wednesday.

Happy Reading!