4 Day Week- MLK Holiday

I hope everyone enjoyed their 3 day weekend. Don’t you just wish every weekend was a 3-day weekend? It was nice catching up on sleep for me this weekend. These 2 months are going to be very busy. With the testing window opening, we have many events in January and February. All within 3 weeks, we have field trip coming up this Tuesday, 100^th day of school, science fair, the big Tet events, Valentine's, a science generation zero compost presentation…and more that I’m probably forgetting.

On Thursday, the kids were asked to bring in a stuffed teddy bear of any kind for a writing activity in Mrs. Skalaban’s class. The kids were verrrry excited about this activity and could hardly wait to write about their teddy bears. They did a creative writing with their personal bears. Some of the stories were so funny. I enjoyed reading them. A student wrote about how his bear lost his shoe and had to move his clip down to yellow. On his journey to find his shoe, he soon found it hidden in the closet and could move his clip back up to green.

They also did a compare/contrast activity with one other friend in the classroom. They had to think about how their bears were alike, different, and the same to fill out a Venn diagram.

We received a new class parakeet this week. Although he is a very cute little birdie, he is also a very noisy birdie. :-/ He will be going back this Wednesday and our next pet will be a gerbil!

The New Years costumes have finally arrived! This year, first grade will be representing the ethnic group of the Khmer people. Khmer people do a traditional dance involving coconuts which we will be performing for the show in February. The kids are very excited to be using coconuts. We’ve been practicing the dance a lot in class lately during our VLA time. Next week, we will start using the coconuts so the kids can get used to clapping the coconuts together. Below are pictures of the costumes for the boys and girls.

All 39 costumes sorted!

The boys’ “Aladdin” pants.

Don’t forget, field trip to watch Junie B. Jones on Tuesday! Have your child bring a lunch to school. We will be eating in the classroom before going on the field trip in the classroom.