Harvest Day and Thanksgiving Break!

We had a wonderful Harvest Day on Tuesday! We were able to play games, sing Thanksgiving songs, make paper plate turkeys, and make thankfulness headbands.  The students had a great time learning about the first Thanksgiving and having fun together on this special day.  We also enjoyed having Pie Day at the end of the day! Thank you to all the parents who came in to help us during the day and who sent in pies and utensils to help make our day wonderful!  Here are some pictures from our fun day:

Important Information:

1. Spelling Words for next week: should, cloth, wish, that, brush, wash, there, then, shoes, shine, with, polish, thick, both, across, would

2. Bible Memory Verse: "Don't worry about anything. Instead, tell God about everything. Ask and pray. Give thanks to him." Philippians 4:6

3. On Monday and Wednesday morning we will be practicing for Christmas Program at the city hall.

4. Wednesday will be our Elementary Christmas Program.  School will be dismissed at 12:30 on that day.  Please also send a cold lunch with your student for that day as the cafeteria will be closed.

5. The Christmas Program will start at 7pm on Wednesday.  All students should be there no later than 6:30pm.  Here is a map of how to get to the hall:

Map to Christmas Program

Wow! We had a very busy, but good week at school! Thank you to all of you who came out to join us for Walkathon last Saturday.  Even though the weather was not the best, we had a great time of being together and having fun outside.  This week we also began our gym practices for the Christmas Program with all of the Elementary classes.  The students have been doing an awesome job of remembering the lyrics and motions to the songs.  We can't wait to share with you this great program!

Reading: This week in Reading we focused on making Text to Self Connections.  As we read our books, we looked for parts of the book that reminded us of our own life experiences.  We had fun sharing these connections with each other.

Writing: For Writing we focused on a Thanksgiving piece.  We talked about how the Pilgrims traveled from England to America and had to leave a lot of their things behind.  The students then thought about what they would bring with them if they were traveling on a long journey.

Math: In Math this week we finished up Unit 4 and took the test on Wednesday.  We then got ready for the next unit on shapes and lines by taking a pretest.

Bible: We spent this week finishing up our discussions on prayer.  Throughout our prayer unit we have been making a book about different things that we can pray about. On Thursday we finished the last page and put together our books.  Then on Friday we learned about the Lord's Prayer and how it gives us an example of how to pray.

Important Information:

1. Spelling Words: Our Spelling Test over last week's words will be on Monday.

2. Bible Memory Verse: Our Bible Test will also be on Monday.

3. Harvest Day will be on Tuesday, November 24th.  We will be rotating between the different 1st and 2nd grade classes for some Thanksgiving crafts, songs, and games.  We will also be having Pie Day at the end of the day! If you would like to come and join us please send me an email.

4. There will be NO SCHOOL on Wednesday-Friday (25th-27th) for the Thanksgiving Holiday.

5. The Christmas Program is coming up soon on Wednesday, December 2nd.  The program will start at 7:00, but students need to be no later than 6:30.  We are very excited to share all our hard work with you!

6. We will practicing for the Christmas Program at the Hall on Monday (31st) and Wednesday (2nd) in the morning.  Wednesday, December 2nd is also an early dismissal day with students going home at 12:30pm.  Please send a home lunch with your student on that day since we will be staying at the hall for a longer period of time.

Have a restful weekend! :)

We had a busy week as we finished up our math unit, worked on our Christmas Program songs, and got ready for Walkathon! Here's a quick peek at what happened in 2.1 this week!

Reading: This week in reading we learned how to activate our prior knowledge.  We learned that it is important to think about what we already know about a topic before we start reading a book.  We practiced as a whole class, with partners, and then on our own with a variety of books.

Writing: In writing we focused on punctuation.  We learned about telling sentences, commands, question sentences, and exclamatory sentences.  We practice identifying the punctuation of different sentences and writing our own sentences with different punctuation.

Math: Our focus in Math this week was rounding and addition with regrouping.  We practice rounding different numbers to the nearest ten.  We also practiced identifying addition problems that needed regrouping and ones that did not by making an addition book.

Science: We finished up our unit on simple machines!

Bible: Our Bible focus this week was prayer.  We talked about what it means to pray and what we can pray about.  We learned that prayer is when we talk to God and that we need to be respectful. We also started making a prayer book of things we can pray about.  This week we talked about how we can pray for our family and friends and how we can thank God for the many things that He has given us.

Important Information:

1. Spelling Words: rejoice, good-bye, point, cool, room, stood, toy, noise, football, enjoy, join, shook, coin, too, they, alike

2. Bible Memory Verse: "Give thanks to the Lord, because He is good. His faithful love continues forever." 1 Chronicles 16:34

3. WALKATHON is tomorrow! I hope to see many of you there for a fun day of walking and supporting our school!

4. There will be NO SCHOOL on MONDAY! Enjoy the long weekend!

5. The Holiday Fair will be SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 21ST in the gym.

6. CHRISTMAS PROGRAM - we have been practicing hard for the Christmas Program! An information packet was sent home today with each student.  Inside the packet is a permission slip for the two days that we will travel to the city hall to practice.  Please return those to school as soon as possible.

7. HARVEST DAY will be Tuesday, November 24th.  The 1st and 2nd grade students will rotate between classes and learn about Thanksgiving.  We will also have pie day at the end of the day. Information was sent home today with each student.  If you would like to come and help, please let me know.

8. Thanksgiving Break will be 11/25-11/27.

 I hope you have a wonderful weekend! :)

Here's a snapshot of our week:

Reading: This week we worked on our fluency by paying attention to the punctuation in our reading. We learned about the main types of punctuation (period, exclamation point, and question mark). We also learned how each of these is supposed to sound when we read it.  The students enjoyed getting to practice their punctuation as a class and with partners.

Writing: We finished up our first procedural writing this week about how to make a pizza.  We learned how to list the materials needed and to think through all the steps in order to explain them.  I am excited to read all of the different ways to make pizza! :)

Science: Mr. Fox continued to teach us about simple machines this week in Science class!

Bible: In Bible we learned what it looks like to follow Jesus.  We learned how Jesus chose His followers and asked them to leave everything and follow Him.  Then we spent two days learning how Jesus wants us to live.  We learned that Jesus wants us to trust Him, tell others about Him, forgive, do good, love others, not be proud, be nice, and keep our promises.

Math: In Math we learned several models to help us with addition.  We also practice reading thermometers.  On Thursday we learned how to round numbers to the nearest ten.  We will continue working on this next week as well as learning how to do two digit addition.

Important Information:

1. Spelling: This week we will be reviewing the last five lessons. A review sheet will be sent home on Monday.

2. Bible Memory Verse: "But here is what I tell you. Love your enemies. Pray for those who hurt you." Matthew 5:44

3. WALKATHON will be next Saturday!! If you would like to sign up please do so as soon as possible.  I hope to see a lot of you there for a fun day! :)

4. There will be NO SCHOOL on Monday, November 16th