Newsletter February 26 - March 2

Last week we had a new addition to our class.  Miss Bagley is our student teacher.  She is very capable and I am happy to have her in my class to learn and to teach.  She will be here until mid-April. 

Here are this week's happenings:

• Friday is now our Sight Word Soldiers day.  Please help your child with their lists and send those back by Friday.
• The spelling test is on Thursday (a list was sent home last Friday).  The list is also on the sidebar of this blog.  As you are studying if you talk about the different ways the sounds are spelled that might help for example;  trucker (/t/ is spelled 't'), kitten (/t/ is spelled 'tt') and parked (/t/ is spelled 'ed'). 
• February Reading Calendars are due this Thursday, March 1.  I will send home new March calendars that day. I will accept those calendars for a little treat and certificate by Tuesday, March 6.  After that, I will still give credit for the work completed but a treat and certificate will not be attached to it.
• On Friday it's "Dr Seuss'" birthday.  Our wonderful PTA is coming to our classrooms to share Dr. Seuss stories and a cupcake.  
• Next week is our final week of quarter three.  Remember that we have a couple of days off before we start back up into our fourth quarter.  We do not have school on Thursday and Friday, March 8 and 9.  
• On Wednesday, March 21 we will be going on a walking field to SUU to watch Tom Sawyer put on by the Playmakers.  It is a production full of children and is usually a great time and something that maybe many first graders haven't attended before (an actual stage play). We will leave the school at approximately 9:15 for the play at 10:00 and return by lunch.  I would love to have, actually I should say I need a parent volunteer come with us and walk to SUU. If you could spend the morning with our class please let me know. The cost for this field trip is $1.00.  Please send that with your child by Tuesday, March 20.  
• We are having issues with toys being brought to school.  I talked to my students today about bringing toys or anything that can get broken, stolen, lost or are a distraction to class.  I asked them to please clean out their backpacks of these toys and to not bring them to school unless it's a special toy day in PE.  I also told them that I would like to see "Show and Teach" items instead of toys being brought to school for Show and Tell (shells, family pictures, book, a rock found on a hike etc.) instead of bringing toys.  Could you please help your child with this and not have them bring toys to school?  I know some kids leave them in their backpacks and I never see them and they aren't a problem, but I would appreciate the help.  If you have any concerns about this please let me know. 
• In our learning we have moved to our unit on the History of the Earth.  We will learn about the different layers of the earth, different types of rocks and how they are formed and learn about geology and what geologists do.  In math we have moved to our unit on adding and subtracting two-digit numbers.  Miss Bagley our student teacher is presenting these lessons.  Tomorrow the students will learn about adding tens (example 30 + 50 = 8 tens = 80. ).  In reading and writing we are starting opinion paragraphs.  We just wrote a class opinion paragraph about our favorite class activity so far (we chose Valentine's day).  Students will then take a stand or choose their favorite animal and write an opinion paragraph about that animal. 
• Our 100-book challenge is well under way.  I am excited as more lists are returning.  I am going to change that due date just slightly because we have two field trips the last week of school (I'll inform you of those when it gets closer to the time) and because of those field trips and field day I wanted to make the due date for the 100 books on Wednesday, May 16.  We will have our reading picnic (pizza, breadsticks etc. in my room) on Thursday May 17. 

I will print off third quarter power school grades next week and send them home with your child the following week after we return from the two day break.  If you child needs to return any missing assignments due to absences please return those by next Wednesday, March 7. 

Don't stop reading with your child!  Try to make it an enjoyable activity with your child. 

Happy Reading!