Week 8 - October 26, 2018

Halloween

For Halloween in First Grade this year, we will have a celebration following the parade from 10:00-11:30.  

If you haven't already, please make a choice from the sign up genius for Halloween.

The session choices are:

• Ms. Schumaker's DIY No Carve Pumpkins. Come join us and get creative decorating and designing your own pumpkin using googly eyes, paint, sparkles, fabric and other neat materials! Please note that this session has a $2.00 Fee.  If your child signs up for this session, please send in $2.00 cash labeled with your child's name. 
• Ms. Sauchak's Spooky Dance Party! Come learn some spooky dance moves with Ms. Sauchak! We will spin like spiders, float like ghosts, shake like skeletons, fly like bats, walk like zombies and smile like jack-o-lanterns! Let's BOOgie! 
• Mrs. Lussier's Let's build! Come build towers with candy corn pumpkins and catapults for candy corn. Measure how tall your tower is and how far you can send the candy corn flying. Work with others to make the tallest tower you can or to send your candy flying!
• Ms. Walthall's Sensory Project! Are you ready to feel and discover gross and slimy things? Come challenge your senses with a mystery box and surprisingly slimy sensory project!
• Mrs. Pintar's "Spooky" Read Aloud!  Do you love listening to stories and creating projects?  Come enjoy a fun and relaxing Halloween read-aloud and craftivity!
• Game Time Fun!  Do you love to play games and have fun?  Come join first grade parents and play some exciting and spooky games!  

Curriculum

Reading:
This week, we learned to look and listen to the characters in the books we read.  When we do this we can tell what kind of character they are.  We can give them traits to describe them.   Next week, we will learn more decoding strategies.  Our focus will be on Chunky Monkey.  This is a strategy encourages the kids to find chunks they know in a word to help them decode it.

Book Baggies:
Many students forgot their book baggies today.  Please help them remember them next week Friday.  I would like them to have an opportunity to read different books.

Writing:
We worked hard as writers, planning and drafting stories this week.  Our focus was on how to organize stories with a beginning, middle and end.  Next week, we will take those stories and make them better when we learn to write strong leads, and endings and to use transition words. 

Math:
Students learned to solve missing addend type addition problems.  They also learned that number sentences can be written horizontally and vertically.  Finally, we continued to build fluency and number sense within 10.  

IXL Skills - Use these activities as you wish to help your child with the skills we will be working on throughout this first trimester.

Science/Social Studies:
Students learned about the seasons and sun this week.  They learned why we have seasons and how it relates to the sun.

Purposeful Play
Please see the Purposeful Play tab on the blog to learn more about our weekly Play Time and donation items we could use for it!

Homework

• Read every night
• Work on a math skill (i.e. counting forwards and backwards within 120, adding and subtracting to 20 - play a board game for this, telling time, counting coins, measuring - length and volume -  have your child cook with you to practice this, talk about shapes - 2D and 3D - find items around your house, etc.) 

Specials Schedule

Monday: P.E. (Wear tennis shoes)
Tuesday: Art (Bring an Art shirt labeled with your child's name)
Wednesday: Music
Thursday: Media/Library
Friday: Rotates (See the back of your child's OWL folder (everyday folder) for a schedule.)

Important Dates

October 31: Halloween Parade (9:20 AM), Fall Celebration (after the parade around 10:00 AM-11:30 AM)

November 6: No School
November 14: Picture Retakes