Newsletter November 27 - December 1

I hope you all had a nice Thanksgiving break.  It was nice to have all 18 of my students back today--we've had a stretch of many absences so I'm glad sicknesses seem to be at a stand still right now.  We have 3 1/2 weeks until our Christmas break and the end of the second quarter of school.  These next few weeks like the rest of the year will fly by.  Christmas time in first grade is the best!

Here are this week's happenings:

• We welcomed a new student today, Lilly, who has joined us from Summit County (Kamas area).  She is going to be a great addition to our class.
• We are almost finished with Unit 3 in reading.  We have learned several vowel combinations (oo, oi, ou, and aw).  These vowel patterns are taught and reinforced through our book Fables.  Today we read The Dog and the Ox.  Ask your child about the lesson (moral) learned from that Fable.  I will give an assessment on those sounds and spellings
  
  
  
  
  at the end of the week and we will start Unit 4 either Friday or Monday.  We do not have spelling words this week.
• In math we are continuing to work with addition to "help us subtract".  For example, if we know that 6 + 4 = 10 then we know that 10 - 4 = 6.  This chapter in math (subtraction strategies) is fairly short and we are about mid-way through the chapter.  We have three more lessons and then review before I will test.  I plan on testing for that chapter next Tuesday.
• In December one of our activities that we will do is making Gingerbread houses out of graham crackers.  I think I want to do that the last week of school before Christmas break either Monday or Tuesday afternoon.  Our calendar hasn't been updated yet with school activities that last week, so I may need to change that to the week prior.  I will keep your informed and ask for help with supplies and volunteers for this activity.  I definitely can't do it without your help :)
• I know December gets hectic.  Please do your best to continue reading with your child every night for 10 minutes (take-home books).  Our next reading test (DIBELS) will be in January when we return from the break.  More is expected from the students on the second portion of the test and reading practice helps--I promise! 

Happy Reading and don't forget Sight Word soldier lists this Wednesday!  We missed last week so it's time to add more beads (more words) to our brains and necklaces.