November 21, 2008

Upcoming Dates

Wednesday, November 26th to Friday, November 28th: No School
Happy Thanksgiving! There will be no homework or tests this week since it is a short week. Remember that Monday and Tuesday sharers will have their sharing still.

Monday, December 8th: Elves and the Shoemaker Field Trip
Attached to today’s newsletter is the permission slip for this field trip. We will be leaving school at 10:30am and will be back by lunchtime at 12:30pm. We can bring one chaperone for this trip. Please return the permission slip as soon as possible.

Friday, December 12th: Cupertino Library Field Trip
We will be walking to the library after lunch. Please remember to bring your child’s blue library card on that day and memorize the 4-digit PIN number. We will be checking out 2 books and please return them on your own.

Monday, December 15th: Natural Bridges Butterfly Field Trip
We will be going to Santa Cruz to see the natural butterfly habitat. This will be an all day field trip, so you will need to send a BAG lunch with your child’s name on it and make sure to dress in layers! We can bring three or four chaperones if you are interested. There is another permission slip attached to this newsletter for this trip, so please return it as soon as possible as well.

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Dear Families,

We have been talking a lot about Thanksgiving and what we are thankful for. I love this time of the year because we are reminded of so many things that we often take for granted. I want the children to know and appreciate basic necessities such as food, clothing, shelter, and family. We are truly lucky people!

Here are some highlights for the week:

• Language Arts:
Poem of the Week: Here is a Turkey
Song of the Week: Vowels
Kindness is: giving thanks
Word Wall Words: animal, bird, cold, fall, flower, full, look, of, see
Story of the Week: The Best of Friends, Seasons
Word Families: -ack, -ap
Sounds: double final consonants (-ll, -ss), short a, plurals with -s
Strategy and Skill Focus: Evaluate, Topic, Main Idea, Details
Grammar: What is a Sentence?

• Writing: To celebrate Thanksgiving, we wrote a short paragraph from the point of view of a turkey who does not want to be eaten. We described ourselves as turkeys and what we enjoy doing. Afterwards, we created an illustration of the turkey.

• Math: Keep practicing skip counting! This week is a little bit harder because we practiced some vocabulary words such as before, after, between, and ordinal numbers (first, second, third…). Please review the 100’s number chart and place value. Some students had much difficulty with questions such as: What is 1 more than 13? 1 less than 13? 10 more than 13? 10 less than 13?

• Social Studies: We are starting our next first grade social studies circuit on Holidays Around the World. We learned about the seven continents in the world. Each week, we will be learning about a different country or holiday! This week, Mrs. Byers taught us about Japanese New Year, which is on January 1st.

• Computer Lab: We finished our Kidspiration All About Me diagrams from last week. Afterwards, we went to the Starfall website and read stories online. Remember that you can always have your child read on that website too!

• Music: We have been learning different Thanksgiving songs in first grade music such as Five Fat Turkeys and Over the River and Through the Woods. We also saw Miss Rachel this week and we played drums as well as sang many Thanksgiving songs!

• Assembly: On Wednesday, we had an exciting assembly on Middle Eastern dancing and music from Young Audiences called “Women of the Heart”. We saw a belly dancer and a blind musician playing different instruments such as drums and cymbals!

Today is end of the first trimester. Report cards will be going home on Friday, December 6th. Next week is a short week! I will not be sending home our homework or Friday Folders. Please have a wonderful weekend and safe travels over Thanksgiving break!