***Please help your child find his/her book in a bag and return by Friday. Thank you!***
We had a blast with our auction party! It was hard to come up with a list of G rated movies, but the children were very excited to watch "The Peanuts Movie" and enjoyed their ice cream sundaes! Many thanks to those who supported us and our school! Tickets for the school concert went home with first graders yesterday. Your child should be at school at 6:00. Please do not arrive earlier than that. If you do, plan to wait with your child until I arrive. Concert attire expectations from Mrs. Gorr: No jeans. No sweatpants. No athletic shorts. Dress shorts are fine! A collared shirt is preferred for the gentlemen! Look nice!!!! ***Remember: Our last spelling test is tomorrow!***
***The final book order is due tomorrow-online or paper orders.*** The children made the most adorable frogs during a guided drawing lesson this morning. We finished them off with water color paints. I will send their paints home tomorrow or early next week. Thank you for providing them this year. We really enjoyed painting in our classroom. I handed out the pre-purchased yearbooks today. Each classroom teacher is deciding when to hand them out, so siblings might not have gotten theirs yet. If you would still like to purchase one, there are extras available for $22. If your child would like her/his classmates to sign her/his yearbook, you may send it back tomorrow and I will give them time to do this. I wanted to make sure it was ok with parents before we did so. I am so proud of this class! They did a fantastic job leading our worship this morning! I thank all of the parents who worked with their children on readings this year-I couldn't have gotten them ready without your help! It was so fun to hear them singing them again.
Your child has been asked to bring a small stuffed animal to school for our concert. This can come to school any time and will STAY at school until after the concert. Today was our last trip to the school library for this year. Please have all library books returned by Friday, May 21. Thank you! We watched a short video that showed the life cycle of the frog. The living rosary and crowning of Mary looked different this year, but what a wonderful blessing to be able to gather together to honor Mary. The 8th graders did a beautiful job leading us. It seems like yesterday that they were first graders!
Remember that our Mass is tomorrow. Please make sure your child is on time tomorrow morning. You are welcome to join in our worship at church or by live stream. The children did an amazing job this afternoon practicing and setting up the chairs. I was so thankful for their cooperative help! Each child should have a frog life cycle wheel in her/his folder to share with you tonight. They will need to know the life cycle for an assessment next week. The last book order forms of the year are in folders. This is your last chance to build up your child's summer library through Scholastic. You have the option to have your order shipped straight to your home if you order online-this is a great plan! Orders are due Friday, May 14. I'll place the order right after school. Online ordering information: https://orders.scholastic.com/GRHHL
Spring Concert Information: There will be 3 shows on Monday, May 24. Your child is expected to be at all 3 concerts, including the evening show. Times are 9:00, 1:00 and 6:30. There is more information in the school newsletter. Our Mass in on Wednesday at 8:00! You are welcome to attend (there is limited seating in the back of the church) or to tune in to the live stream. The children will be singing! Everyone has been practicing so hard! We've started learning the frog life cycle. The children are so interested in everything about frogs and toads! How is your child doing counting coins in mixed groups and telling time to the half hour? I'm working on assessments this week! How about prayers? You can find required prayers right here on our classroom website! We will take our Reading NWEA test tomorrow after church and snack time. Please help your child prepare to do his/her best by getting a good nights sleep, having a nutritious breakfast and bringing a low sugar snack tomorrow.
We are working really hard on identifying coins (name and value) and counting money. Most children could really use some reinforcement at home on this skill! Yesterday we read the book The Big Umbrella and started planning for a STEM activity. Today the children were given tin foil, a bendy straw, a pipe cleaner and tape and were challenged to build an umbrella that will keep the rain off what is underneath. The children were SO EXCITED to work on this! At the end of the day we tested each umbrella's ability to keep the fingers dry from a very light "rain" and a heavier "rain". We also discussed the design of each umbrella. We will take our NWEA math test tomorrow morning. Please help your child get to bed on time (or early) and have a healthy (low sugar) breakfast in the morning so she or he can SHINE! I am so excited to see how every child does and am hoping for everyone to meet their goals!
April book orders are due on Friday (online or paper). Online ordering information: https://orders.scholastic.com/GRHHL We have been working really hard on 2-digit addition in math. We have learned three methods: drawing sticks and circles, adding tens and ones and then adding again, and old and new tens. This will be worked on heavily at the beginning of second grade, so do not worry if your child is struggling. This is simply an introduction and some children just aren't quite ready to move beyond drawing at this point. Adding coins has also been a big focus during our morning work and math time. This is a great skill to practice at home. Grab a small handful of coins and have your child practice counting. Has your child told you that our book check out day has shifted to Wednesday and we get to go TO the library? The children are really appreciating a wider selection of books to choose from. We are nearing the end of our latest chapter book, The Flying Flea, Callie, and Me. They are enjoying the antics of Gray (a cat) and the other animals on the farm. We compared different versions of "Chicken Little" during reading. We also discussed the "moral of the story". March book orders are due tomorrow-online or paper orders.
Yesterday was the 120th day! There is a cute photo of the class in their 120th day crowns on Facebook today! Besides making crowns, we played a race to 120 game, completed a mystery picture, practiced skip counting, put a poem about 120 days in our poetry notebooks and best of all, played several rounds of Kahoot! Today in math we worked with shapes, reviewing their attributes and composing new shapes with them. This was quite a challenge for some (Mrs. Wetschka included!). When we practiced our spelling words, we looked at the patterns and sorted them. We noticed that the "ay" words all have the long a sound at the end. The "ai" words have the long a sound in the middle. We watched a DVD that led us through the Stations of the Cross. While we weren't in church, it was still very moving and helped bring ideas to life for the children. The children may wear green tomorrow for St. Patrick's Day. No hair dye or face decorations. Any hats or headbands will have to stay in the room and may be worn after church.
Well, yesterday afternoon was a surprise! The kids sure have had fun with the new snow! Don't forget that we have a spelling test on Friday! The list went home awhile ago! Book order forms went home yesterday. The are due back (paper or online) on Wednesday, March 24. Online ordering information: https://orders.scholastic.com/GRHHL We started learning about fractions in math today! Big stuff! It's always tricky but fun to learn! We've been learning about St. Patrick's Day, both the serious (the life of St. Patrick) and the fun (leprechauns). A leprechaun left some cups for us to decorate. He claims that they are somehow leprechaun hats and if we decorated them they would shrink and have treats in them tomorrow. Hmmmmm-sounds a little crazy to me! They sure don't look like hats to me! The children did such a FANTASTIC job leading our worship last Wednesday! They didn't get to practice with the microphone at all! I was so impressed!
Last Friday we celebrated Charlie's "Golden Birthday" with her! Hope your day on Sunday was a good one! Spelling lists came home today. The test is not until Friday, MARCH 19. A 3 day week just isn't enough time to work on a new skill. We've been continuing our hard work with telling time to the half hour. This week and next we are going to add in some geometry, reviewing 2D shapes and learning about 3D shapes. We are also working on counting backwards from 120 and identifying 1 more/less and 10 more/less of a given number. Today we did an astronaut guided drawing. This will be on display along with some writing about an imaginary trip to the moon. Last week we finished up book 2 in the Daisy Dreamer series. Today we started book one in the "Daisy Dawson" series. |