Wednesday, November 29, 2017

October Newsletter


Dear Parents,
October already?  Boy time flies when you are having fun!  ;)  Just a reminder…school starts each day at 8:00.  If your child gets to school after the 8:00 bell rings they are late, please have them go to the office to get a late slip.  If they come to me first and then I have to send them to the office they are missing more time.  THANKS!
GOAL SETTING CONFERENCES:  Goal setting conferences run from October 5-October 13.  My students will get out of school each day at 12:40.  I’m looking forward to meeting all of you and having a bit of time to get to know one another.
WALK-A-THON:  Saturday, October 7, is our annual Walk-a-thon.  I’m looking forward to a very fun day!  I will be here first thing in the morning punching lap cards.  The first grade teachers have a popcorn and movie party in the Silent Auction catalog, feel free to bid and have your child join us for a fun afternoon movie party.
LANGUAGE ARTS: My students are working on writing small moment stories.  They are working on focusing on one thing that has happened to them they can write about. They are also writing weekly letters to our person of the week.  Reader’s Workshop has begun and your children work daily on reading strategies, organizers covering literary elements, phonics and reading with their groups.  Thanks to our parent volunteers they are also reading with an additional adult individually once a week. 
MATH: In math we are working creating routines using data.  We have done a lot of work with the 100 charts and 99 charts so that students become familiar with patterns in our number system and number sense.  We started our weekly math groups.  Thanks to those parents who are coming in every Friday.  My students are given the opportunity to rotate through six stations focusing on various math skills.
SCIENCE/TECHNOLOGY: We are working through our Solids and Liquids unit.  We have built towers with solids, discussed their properties, and done some observation.  We have also observed various liquids and discussed their properties. We are taking a week break this week to do some fun stuff with apples around Johnny Appleseed’s birthday and then next week we will go right back to our liquids explorations.
SOCIAL STUDIES:  We have completed Unit 1, which covers citizenship.   We have discussed how to be a good citizen and a positive contributor to our classroom.  Project Cornerstone will start this week.  Parent volunteers will come in monthly to share a special story with my class and discuss various topics such as bullying, kindness, responsibility, honesty and other important concepts.  We are also reading Scholastic News weekly, which covers current events, science topics and other interesting things about our every day world.
PE: We have PE two days a week this school year.  Monday afternoons we go out and do warm ups, run, and work on different physical skills.  On Thursday afternoons we have Lap Derby where we count how many laps we can walk this school year.  We also have a 10-minute PE time every single morning.  Either we are out on the track taking a lap OR we are in the classroom doing different movement exercises with Go Noodle.
COOKING:  We started cooking on Thursday!  I have a good friend, actually an ex-parent, I taught both of her now adult children, who will come into our room 7 times this school year to do a cooking project with my class.  You will find in today’s folder a message from her and she will be walking my children through some cooking projects, cooking safety and cleanliness.  At the end of the school year your child will get a “cookbook” of all the recipes we did this school year.  I know your children will love it!
HALLOWEEN: My favorite holiday of the year!  I will be meeting soon with our room parents to coordinate our party for this year, and we will have lots of fun activities throughout the day that are Halloween related.  I’m not sure what the details are on our school Halloween parade but once I know what the plan is I will share it with you so you can join us for that.


             SPECIAL DATES:
       Oct. 7: WALK-A-THON! 9:00-4:00
       Oct. 5-13: Goal Setting Conferences, school dismisses at 1:00
       Oct. 16: No School
       Oct. 27: Field Trip to Hidden Villa Farm
       Oct. 31:  Halloween parade
       Nov. 10:  Veteran's Day/No school
       November 20-24: Thanksgiving break
       November 30: Natural Bridges (Monarch Butterflies)
       December 18-January 2: Winter Break
       January 15: MLK day/no school
       January 26: Learning Day for teachers, no school for students
       Jan. 30: 100th Day of School
       Feb. 14: Valentine’s Day
       Feb. 15: Pete the Cat 10:00 at the Flint Center
       Feb. 16: Chinese New Year Centers in the GLC
       Feb. 19-23: Winter break
       March 16: Green Luncheon in Room 30 (St. Patrick’s Day celebration)
       April 23: Hiller Aviation Museum
       April 16-20: Spring break
       May 18: No school
       May 25: First Grade Performance in the GLC at 1:00
       May 28: Memorial Day/no school
       June 4: End of the Year party/first grade picnic
       June 7: Last Day of School: dismissal at 11:50