Newsletter December 3 - December 6

I hope you all have a nice Thanksgiving Break!  I enjoyed the time at home with all of my kids together which was especially nice.

Here are this week's happenings:

• The November reading calendar is now due.  I told my class that if they turn it in by this Friday, Dec. 5 they will get a treat and pizza coupon.  December calendars were sent home on Monday.
• I got one more December Scholastic book order.  I will send that home tomorrow and it will be a quick turn around.  The orders will be due on Friday.  That way it will be back for Christmas if you want it to be.  
• Next week will be our middle of the year DIBELS assessment.  I will let you know those results as soon as I get them--in the past reading results were sent home by our reading specialist.  I will let you know how to look for those results.  
• In December we have some fun first grade activities.  One is Gingerbread house construction day.  I plan on doing that on Thursday, December 19 from 1:00-2:00.  I will send home a note with suggested items to send with your child.  I will use the money our class received from the fundraiser for things like paper plates, big bags to put over the gingerbread houses when they are done etc., so I'll ask for donations like graham crackers or a bag of candy.  If you see something that you think would work that I didn't include on the list then please feel free to send that too.  Every year I find something new to use for our houses that I didn't think of beforehand. We will also be making a "secret gift".  For this gift, I will talk to my students about helping to earn $1.00 to help with the cost.  It would be nice if they could do a special chore to earn the money to help pay for their "secret gift".  Like I said, I will send home a note about both of these activities to remind you and ask for donations.
• We have started a new unit in reading.  This is the unit where r-controlled vowels will be taught.  This first one read learned it 'er'.  We started a new book called The Green Fern Zoo.  My students are excited about it as it's non-fiction book about a trip through the zoo with Vern. We will be writing multiple complete sentences about reindeer this month after we learn facts and about them.  This will be a precursor to writing descriptive paragraphs after the holiday.  
• In math we have just finished up our unit about three-dimensional shapes and will start our unit on measurement and time this week. In first grade, we learn to tell time to the hour and half-hour.  The test for the three-dimensional shapes chapter will be this Thursday.

We wrote letters to Santa yesterday.  Christmas is such an exciting time for first graders!  I am pretty lucky to be surrounded by such great kids at this time of the year.  They really show me all of the time the best part of the season! Thanks for continuing to read with your kids every night even during this hectic time of year.

Mrs. Armstrong