Weekly Update and Happy Thanksgiving!

We have a short week coming up, and then 5 wonderful days to spend with family and friends. Here's what you need to know for next week's short week and the week after...

Thanksgiving Travel:
If your child will be absent next week, and/or leaving early on Tuesday, please kindly notify both the office and me in advance. For absences, you may use the online absence excuse form on the Pinebrook homepage. For early dismissal, you may use the early dismissal form on the Pinebrook homepage.

Thanksgiving Reading Incentive:
I will sending home a Thanksgiving reading incentive with your child on Tuesday, November 26th. Please be sure to check your child's homework folder on Tuesday when they return home for this item. Reading incentives will be due back on Monday, December 2nd. I will not accept any late submissions.

No Homework Packet Next Week:
There will be no homework packet next week due to our short week. PLEASE READ!

Volunteers Needed:
In social studies, we are learning about economics and holiday traditions around the world. In the next week, the 1st graders will spend some time "visiting" other countries to learn about holiday traditions from from many cultures. As a culminating activity to this unit, our 1st grade class will host a "World Market" on Tuesday, December 17th. At the market, each class will "sell" an item representing a particular culture or country. Students will "shop" for items from other classes using play money. They will need to budget and save their dimes, and prioritize their purchases since they will not have enough money to buy everything. At the market, we would like to showcase cultures and cultural artifacts from around the world. Would you like to set up a table at the market to showcase your family's cultural heritage, and speak to student's about your holiday traditions who may visit your table? If so, please return the "Wanted: First Grade Parents" slip that I sent home in yesterday's Thursday folder.

Gingerbread Houses:
Our class will be completing a reading unit about Gingerbread stories the week of December 9th. As part of this unit, our students will have the opportunity to create their own gingerbread house on Tuesday, December 10th. To make this possible, we will need your help. Each student will be receiving a letter about our gingerbread houses with a few items highlighted to donate to our gingerbread house making. If you are unable to send in the items, please let me know, so I can make sure that we have those items for our students. I will also be looking for volunteers to help out!

Focus Areas for the Coming Short Week (11/25, 11/26) AND the Week of 12/2-12/6:

• Reading-We will finish our Word Detectives unit by talking about unusual words, such as contractions. We will practice reading and writing our 1st grade snap words. 
• Writing-We will complete a few fun Thanksgiving writing projects, work on editing writing, and practice writing in a sequence. 
• Phonics-We will use words that we know to help us solve new words. 
• Math-We will finish our fractions unit. We will continue to explore the concepts of halves, thirds, and fourths, and discuss fractions of a whole and fractions of a set. 
• Social Studies-We will talk about Pilgrim life. We will finish learning about economics. We will begin our Holidays Around the World rotations, whereby the first grade teachers rotate through each other's classrooms teaching the students about holiday traditions from other countries and cultures. 

As always, I welcome your questions, comments, and feedback. 

Happy Thanksgiving! And safe travels for those who will be heading somewhere else for the holiday! I have a lot to be thankful for this year including your sweet kiddos and all of your support!

Weekly Update

Hi Everyone,

Happy Friday! I hope it has been a good week! After our first 5 day week in a while, we are ready for the weekend!

Quarter 1 Report Cards:
A friendly reminder that Quarter 1 report cards were issued on Monday. If you've not yet done so, please log into your ParentVue account to view your child's report card.

Thanksgiving Plate:
In last week's Thursday folder, I sent home a note about Thanksgiving, along with a "plate" for your child to decorate with things he/she is thankful for. We will use the decorated plate for an in-class project. Please help your child decorate his/her plate with pictures of things he/she is thankful for. The projects will go through the laminator so, please use only flat pictures or decorations. Please send the decorated plate back to school by this coming Monday, November 18th. Thank you!

Reading Homework:
I have noticed that many students are not reading each night. This could be that they are forgetting to complete their daily reading homework along with a page in the homework packet, or parents are forgetting to sign their agenda. I kindly ask that you please sign your child's agenda each night. I check student agendas every morning and if there is not a signature, then I mark that your child does not have their homework completed. There is a homework completion portion of the report card and your child's nightly reading counts towards that.

School Picture Retakes:
School Picture Retakes will be Friday, November 22nd. Picture retakes are for students who were absent on picture day, or students who have paid for a picture package and would like to have the photos redone. If you believe either of those apply to you, please send me a message and I will give you the details about picture retakes.

Focus Areas for the Coming Week:

• Reading- We will continue our Word Detectives unit. We are learning ways to decode difficult words. (Please be sure to ask your child about the strategies they are learning and encourage them to try them at home). Next week we will practice paying attention to word endings and vowel sounds. We will find parts of words we know (for example, looking for a little word inside a big word), and pay attention to words that don't follow regular phonetic spelling patterns (like "have" or "of"). We will practice smoothing out our voices to read with fluency.
• Writing- We will finish our How-To unit, in which we are teaching our readers to do things. We will also start a few fun Thanksgiving writing activities. 
• Math- We will begin our fractions unit. We will talk about a wholes and sets, and parts of wholes vs. parts of sets. We will talk about the words numerator and denominator. We will practice identifying wholes, halves, thirds, and fourths. We will practice writing fractions that represent fractions of sets and fractions of wholes. 
• Social Studies- We will begin our economics unit. We will explore the concepts of wants and needs (things we want to have vs. things we need to stay healthy, safe, and alive), goods and services (goods are things that people buy, services are things we pay people to do for us), and consumers and producers (consumers are people who buy/use goods and services, producers are people who make goods or provide services). 

As always, I welcome your questions, comments, concerns, and feedback. 

I hope that you all have a wonderful weekend!

Weekly Update

Hi Everyone,

Today marks the end of our first quarter. The school year is passing quickly! We had such a fun week with Halloween! I am so pleased with our little classroom family, and with the growth that the kids are making! :)

Shout out to all of you who came to our Fall Party and helped out! I could not have done it without all of you, especially our AWESOME Room Parent! It truly takes a village!

50th Day Celebration:
We will celebrate the 50th Day of School on Thursday, November 7th with some 1950's themed activities. (I sent home a note with all the details). Students are invited to dress in 1950's-style attire for the day. We will learn fun dances, complete some crafts, and have root beer floats. If you do NOT want your child to have a root beer float (made with root beer soda and vanilla ice cream), please let me know as soon as possible, and before next Thursday, November 7th.

No Homework Packet Next Week:
There will be no homework packet or new words of the week next week due to our short three day week.

Turkey of the Year:
Turkey of the Year voting began today, and will go on for the next few Fridays! Your child must read to vote for the staff member he/she would like to see come to school dressed in a turkey suit. One hour of reading equals one vote. Each Friday, please sign and return that week's voting slip. If you lost the voting slips, please write a note to indicate how many hours your child read during the previous week, sign it, and send it to school on Friday.

Focus Areas for the Coming Week:

• Reading-We will continue our Word Detectives unit, which we learn strategies for solving hard words. (Be sure to ask your child about the detective missions we have been solving from the Super Secret Detective Agency)
• Writing- We will continue with our "How-To" writing unit. This is a writing unit it which we teach our readers how to do something or how to make something. 
• Phonics- We will continue doing detective work by working on the case of the Silent -e. 
• Math-We will finish our Geometry unit. We will count sides and vertices in polygons, identify right angles, and complete some fun Geometry projects. 
• Social Studies- We will finish learning about pumpkins and learn about the significance of Veteran's Day and prepare for Pinebrook's Veteran's Day celebration. 

It's been a delight to visit with so many of you at conferences. Thank you for taking the time out of your busy schedules to talk with me about your child's progress! Thank you for being vested in your child's social, emotional, and educational development. 

Don't forget...the kids will not have school on Monday and Tuesday due to Teacher Workdays. Enjoy the long weekend!