Happy Holidays!

Hi everyone! I hope y’all are enjoying the two weeks we get off to spend time with friends and family, to travel, and to sleep in. The last week before school let out for winter break was hectic. We wrapped up our money unit and weather, seasons, and day & night unit. We played some fun money games on the website ABCYa if you would like your child to practice counting coins. We played a bingo money game and another counting money one that the kids really liked.

We did our monthly Vietnamese writing that will be added to their first grade book at the end of the year. It was a fun guided writing about a reindeer. They got to give their reindeer a name, write about what it likes to eat, and if it was a girl or a boy.

In VLA, we learned the blends of CH and TR. When we get back from break, we will jump right in learning G and GH.

 We squeezed in our monthly science buddies. Thanks for those who brought in baking soda and shaving cream for the class! Ask your child what they did with their 5^th grade buddies. They should have brought home a bag of “snow.”

 We returned our little class friend. Here is a picture of Jiffy! He was a very playful guinea pig and always came out to interact with the kids from his cage.

We made reindeer bags and placed our first grade Christmas ornament in there. Look at how cute some of the reindeers are.

 We wrapped our books for the Holiday book exchange. The kids had a good time with this. This year we had no criers! I talked to the kids about how we needed to be thankful for the book we get even though it might not be the book we want prior to the book exchange. This class is pretty good about good sportsmanship and getting along J I was so busy during the Christmas party that I didn’t get to snap any photos. It was so rushed but so fun.

Students will return back on January 5^th, 2016!

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

I’m so sorry I have been MIA for a while.  Now that it’s the Holidays season, things have been busy with Christmas shopping and trying to plan for the next few weeks of school before winter break. I put up our fabulous class pink Christmas tree during Thanksgiving break. The kids got to share their special ornament that they brought in and hung it up on the tree. In the picture, some of their ornaments are hard to spot on the tree. The kids loooove the tree. Sometimes we work in the classroom with the lights off to enjoy the pretty lights on the tree J

Here is our class Christmas party list. If you have not signed up, please help us out and pick an item to bring. This picture was taken before Friday afternoon so it’s not completely updated. We do need 2 more volunteers though!

This week we had a very funky schedule. Even though it was totally out of the norms of what our schedule usually is, the kids did great adjusting. We did a “Holidays Around the World” rotation in first grade where each first grade teacher taught a different holiday celebrated around the world. Ask your children what they learned about Sweden, Israel, Spain, Czech, Germany and Africa! The kids got their own passport too!

Below is a picture of the Christmas trees they made while they were in “Germany” with Mrs. Skalaban. I hung them up on our English Language Arts bulletin board to be festive for Christmas.

This week in math, we started our unit on money. Money is one of the hardest concept taught in first grade in my eyes. It gets more complicated when the students are counting mixed coins. This week we worked mostly on identifying pennies, nickels, dimes, and quarters. We also worked a little bit on making different coins amounts as a whole group in our circle spots. Please make sure your work with your child on mastering the concept of identifying coins as extra practice at home. This upcoming week we will be working on adding up coins.

We played a memory match game as a table matching the coin picture to the coin name. The kiddos really enjoyed playing this. It is a new addition to our math centers.

In Mrs. S’s class, they wrote 3 wishes for Santa. Look at how cute they turned out. Some of the kids wrote about how they wanted to help the poor. So sweet!!!

 In science, we have been learning about different seasons and different weather.

This upcoming Monday is our first field trip!!! Please make sure your child wears their orange tie-dye shirt and some comfy shoes. We will be watching “Holiday Heroes” at the Zachary Scott Theatre. We should be back by lunch so your child does not have to bring lunch unless they want to.

ONLY 10 MORE DAYS OF SCHOOL LEFT!!!!!