Weekly Update, December 17 - 21

Hello Cheery First Graders and Cheerful First Grade Families!

Wow!! It’s the last school week of 2012! The kids are so to share their family Christmas traditions and for our party on Thursday. It’s going to be a great week in first grade!

Supplies
If you have not already done so, please:
* Send in a shoebox with your child by this Wednesday. We'll use these for a fun activity at our party!
* Send in an empty plastic water bottle with the cap for our upcoming weather unit.

Christmas Pajama Party Information
* Our party is this Thursday, December 20 from 9:00 - 11:20. The children will do 4 different holiday centers.
* We are having an all day pajama party! Your child is invited to wear PJs to school.
* We will have popcorn and watch The Polar Express in the afternoon. It will be a fun day!

This is our third week in our Christmas social studies, guided reading and writing unit and the children are really enjoying it! This week our theme is Sharing Your Favorite Family Christmas Tradition. Children are invited to bring in their favorite Christmas books to share and parents are welcome to come in and read Christmas books to the class.

The kids had a lot of fun in centers today! They visited 2 centers. The centers for the week include:
1. Math - The kids created a shopping list for Christmas. They practiced addition by adding up their total.
2. Art - The kids made a darling Christmas book marks.
3. Writing - The kids wrote a story on snowman paper about a snowman.
4. Art - The kids made Christmas pencil toppers.
5. Puppets – The kids made Christmas tree puppets.
6. Writing - The kids made a Santa sign man to say Merry Christmas.

There are no new spelling words this week. Spelling will resume after break!

In reading and making words, we are learning how to read and make words with long e. This week we are focusing on the ee and ea blends.

In writing we are working on writing Christmas messages in cards. We are also writing thank you notes to parents and teachers who help us. The kids are wonderful letter writers!

In math we practiced addition and subtraction facts. We have a variety of fun Christmas theme math practice problems and games to complete this week.

Our party is Thursday! Check the blog on Thursday for a recap of our party.

Have an A+ week!
Mrs. Johnston