December 8, 2006

Upcoming Dates

Monday, December 11th – Friday, December 15th: No Homework Packets
I will not be sending home homework packets the week before Winter Recess, so there will be no spelling or vocabulary test because of the holidays. However, please continue to prepare your child’s sharing and continue reading daily for 15 minutes for the Book-It! Reading Log. Remember the reading logs are due when we come back after Winter Recess. *** Friday parent volunteers: You do not need to come help on Friday, December 15th. Thank you!***

Thursday, December 14th: Cupertino Library Field Trip
If it is not raining, we are planning on going to the Cupertino Library. Please remember to send your child to school with his or her library card. They must also remember their 4-digit PIN number.

Friday, December 15th: Polar Express Party
This will be a special day to celebrate the holidays! We will be doing activities and games based off of the story, The Polar Express, by Chris Van Allsburg. It will also be a pajama day (because we are pretending to be the children in the train)! Please send your child to school in their favorite pajamas and they can also bring one stuffed animal or pillow too.

Monday, December 18th to January 1nd: NO SCHOOL – Winter Recess
School will resume on Tuesday, January 2rd.

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December is going by quickly! Next week will be a fun week for the students as we get ready for the holidays. Many activities will be different than usual.

Here are some highlights from the week:
Star of the Week: Reva
Poem of the Week: Hannukah Rainbow
Song of the Week: Money Song
Kindness is … donating food.
Story of the Week: Sitting on the Farm
Vocabulary of the Week: People 5
Word Wall Words: all, call, eat, every, first, never, paper, shall, why
Next Week’s Sharing: Regular – something you can decorate (4 complete sentences and bring object you decorated.)
• Language Arts: Theme 3 All Together Now – Week 2
• Stories: Mr. C’s Dinner
• Word Families: –ip (hip, dip, flip) and –in (fin, tin, pin)
• Sounds: verb endings –s, -ed, -ing, short I, possessives with ‘s
• Grammar: Naming Parts of Sentences

• Writing: This week we wrote letters to Santa Claus. We thought of three reasons why we have been good this year and we also wrote what gift we wished for. In addition, we made a Santa portrait with curly beards!

• Social Studies: We continued our Winter Holiday book this week with many circuits! This week, we went to Mrs. Bachelor’s class and learned about Hanukkah, we went to Miss Salter’s class and learned about Christmas in Sweden, and finally we also went to Mrs. Tambe’s class to learn about Kwanzaa. We are making fun projects for each holiday!

• Art: Mrs. Blakeslee has been out the past few weeks due to a knee surgery and will not be returning until the New Year. We made a card and sent her a get well gift from Eaton. In class, we made ornaments for our class tree using dried pasta! We will hang the ornaments next week.

• Music: We saw Mrs. More this week and she taught us a song using fake candles! We turned off the lights while we sang and danced together. Also, she taught us how to play a new instrument singing Merry Christmas!

• Vision Test: On Thursday, we all had a vision test from the nurses in Cupertino. This is a nice service that Cupertino provides for its students. All first grade students have to take the vision test, and all first grade boys also take a color test. You will be notified if anything was abnormal.

• Computer: This week we used KidPix 4 to create a math project. We counted by 10’s all the way to 100 using different stamps.

Today you are receiving your child’s report card for the first trimester. Please remember that some of the standards are based on what your child should know at the END of first grade. Therefore, your child has only learned 1/3 of first grade curriculum, and they will continue to grow and improve in the next few months. If you have any questions, please send me an email or leave a note inside the report card envelope. Please keep the report cards at home, but return the envelope. Thank you.