Gobble, Gobble………

I heard there may be some turkeys looking for a place to hide…….come to Room 123 on Monday! I can’t wait to see everyone’s disguise!

I hope everyone has enjoyed their long weekend.  I FINALLY remembered with the help of some of my first grade friends to send home Poetry Notebooks on Friday.  I hope you  have had a chance to look through these together.  We certainly do enjoy reading, singing, and talking about them in Room 123.  Please return Poetry Notebooks to school Monday.

We have been talking about the First Thanksgiving this whole month, this week we will make a flow chart with illustrations of the First Thanksgiving.  We will also be discussing the differences in Thanksgiving today and the First Thanksgiving.  At the end of the week we will wrap up our Thanksgiving unit by making a Blessings Mix.  I will send the recipe home along with what each item in the mix represents, be sure and ask your first grader about it.  You will be surprised at what all they have learned.

Our focus sound in reading this week is /k/ as in kangaroo, word wall words this week are:  couldn’t, wouldn’t, shouldn’t & think.

In Language we will begin Rule 11 of our DOL rules, learning about VERBS.  We will continue to practice all other rules we have learned so far this year in correcting our DOL sentences.

Math……I don’t know if you have heard but each first grader in Room 123 has their very own  Daily Calendar notebook!  These have very quickly become a favorite in our class and I am so glad! The children use their notebooks and as a class we do our Calendar Math together every day.  It is a wonderful tool that covers a number of critical math skills, and the best part is we do all of the skills EVERY day.  Each month I will add an additional skill or two to our calendar.  Some of the skills we are currently working on are skip counting, writing number sentences, even and odd numbers, graphing, patterning, place value, using a hundreds chart, reading a tally chart, comparing and ordering numbers, and the list could go on.  At the end of every month I will send the calendar math papers home for that month.  It is my hope that you will use these papers to reinforce math skills at home.  We are continuing to work on memorizing addition and subtraction facts and creating a solid foundation of number concepts.

In other news…..

American Education Week spotlights the importance of providing every child in America with a quality public education, and the need for everyone to do their part in making public schools great. We have different activities taking place throughout this week ~ Monday – Each class will spotlight a different author, we will take a tour of the school to learn about many different authors.  Tuesday – Come dressed in a career that you may want to do one day.  Wednesday – Friday, I would like for the children to bring in a “favorite” picture book, we are going to share these and I am going to read each child’s favorite book to the class.  Also, if anyone would like to come and be a guest reader this week, we would love to have you.  Just pick YOUR favorite book and let me know a time that would work for you!  This is a GREAT group to read to, they love listening to books! YEA!!

Yearbook Pre-Sale is going on now.  From now until November 30th the yearbook is available for a discounted price of $20.00 per yearbook.  Make your checks payable to Blount PTA.

Monday, November 15th is Spirit Night at the Mellow Mushroom……yum! yum!

Tuesday, November 16th is the Blount PTA Holiday Market from 5:30 – 9:00 in the school cafeteria.  There will be more than 25 vendors selling holiday gifts for the whole family.  PLUS more than 25 raffle drawings to be given away.  Rumor has it there may be a first grade teacher selling some items……(wink)!

Friday, November 19th will be the last collection day for Adopt A Troop.  You may drop off your items in the AM carpool or place them in the yellow box in front of the office. Also be sure and turn in your PALA (President’s Active Lifestyle Award) sheets today!

Friday, November 19th we will collect BOX TOPS.  I hope everyone has been saving! I think I have quite a few at my house.  You may send them in anytime this week and I will turn them in on Friday.

I hope everyone has a wonderful week!

Teach me to count…..and I will number my blessings!

Hugs!