Honesty is the Best Policy

Already the last week of November!  Today we celebrated our 57^th day of school.  We enjoyed our celebration of no T.V. week that just ended, and hope that the good habits of reading we enjoyed the last several days will continue on in the weeks to come!  We are grateful for all of your support in making last week a success.

 This Thursday is another milestone – our first report cards.  As a result, there will be no school for students on Friday (P.D. Day) so that students can enjoy their last long weekend before Christmas.  I am so grateful for each of my students and appreciate the hard work they do.  It is so fun to watch each of them grow and progress, and I hope that each report card accurately reflects where each individual is at in their learning and where they need to go.  If you have any questions, concerns or comments, be sure to contact me at the school or by email, and I’ll be happy to talk or meet with you.

There is Drama club again on Tuesday for any students in our class who have joined, however due to an overwhelming response for Lego club, our class only goes every third week, so no grade ones will be attending this week or next. 

In math this week we are taking a closer look at numbers up to 12.  It’s an important skill to easily recognize and print numerals, their words and identify at a glance group of numbers (think how easy it is to recognize the value on any face of a pair of dice).  We are also taking at look at how to be better citizens by taking care of our earth.  We’ve been studying water and air pollution, as well as collecting litter and trash.

Our spelling words this week include four, over, saw, like, you.  Our try-it at home for this week is to cut the words up on paper into puzzle pieces, and then try to put them back together before challenging a family member or friend to read your word!

Our spelling program is going to change slightly starting this week.  Along with the regular spelling activity I will be adding a sight word recognition activity.  This will involve students underlining key words (the same words as we use in our spelling activities) in a simple paragraph based on instructions I give.  This should help my understanding of the way the students are learning and interpreting the words they are seeing and using each day.  We will also be adding a ‘star’ word each week.  This is an extra word of the students’ choosing that does not count toward the total of any spelling activity, but is a chance to increase vocabulary and sight word recognition.  The star word the students selected this week was Christmas.

Our busy, buzzy goal this week is to ‘bee’ honest.  We are discussing the importance of telling the truth and knowing when it is okay to imagine stories and when it’s more important to say what really happened.

Have a great week!