december

Dear Parents,                                                                                       December 3, 2001

     This year I feel extremely grateful for everything I have. I hope that each and every one of you had a nice Thanksgiving. We celebrated Thanksgiving at school by dressing up as pilgrims and eating at the picnic tables with our little Indians, which we made. The children really enjoyed being pilgrims and eating a lot of yummy food. I would like to thank all the parents who played a part in our feast by either donating items or by serving the food. I really appreciate it and so did the children.

Here's what is in store for this month:

Math Minutes with Miss Powell:
This month in Math, we will be finishing our chapter on place value to 100. We will begin Ch. 7 on the second week of December. This chapter covers money and time. This is also one of the most difficult concepts for first graders to master. Please help your child throughout this month in understanding these concepts.

In Ch. 7, the students will be able to:
1.   Recognize the value of coins.
2.   Count on by a penny and a nickel.
3.   Sort and count mixed coins.
4.   Trade to find equivalent amounts.
5.   Match item cost to coins.
6.   Tell time on analog and digital clocks.
7.   Find and extend time patterns.
8.   Tell time to the half hour and hour.
9.   Identify activities that take about 1 minute and 1 hour.
10. Make and use a calendar.
11. Solve problems by using logical reasoning.
12. Solve problems by finding hidden information.

Gingerbread Fred Is On the Move:
We have been reading "The Gingerbread Man". Be on the look out for our friend Gingerbread Fred. He will be going home with a different student each night until all the children have gotten a chance to have an adventure with him. Gingerbread Fred's adventures will not stop there. We have shipped ten more Gingerbread Fred's to other states. We cannot wait to hear what stories he has to tell. We expect his return sometime during the week of December 10th.

Christmas Around the World:
This month in Social Studies, we will be learning how other countries celebrate Christmas. We will start our adventure in Mexico. We will then visit Italy, Holland, and some other countries around the world. We will be making some crafts from these countries.

Extra! Extra! Read All About It!:
In Language Arts, we will be reading stories about families. We will be incorporating phonics and grammar skills within our stories. Many of the students did very well on our second Unit test. I am very proud of them. I will be starting to retest children on the S.T.A.R. program. This program will show if your child has progress in the past couple months from their last S.T.A.R. scores. Not all children will be tested at this time because it might be too soon to retest them or they may still not be ready to take it.

I am very proud of those students who are keeping up with their reading logs. Some children are on their 5th or 6th log. Everyone by now should have completed at least four logs. If you have but forgot to turn them in, please do so, so that your child can get a sticker on our reading chart. If your child has been assigned a reading folder with stories and vocabulary words to learn weekly, then please remember to send them in on Fridays. Mrs. C, our aide, listens to each child read. It is important that your child not forget their folder.

On the Write Track!:
We have been receiving mail from our pen pals around the world. We have two class pen pals that we write one big letter to. One class is from Creole, Louisiana and the other class is from Paducah, Kentucky. Our pen pals from Stony Plain, Alberta Canada sent us 13 individual letters, which some of the students have already responded back to. We are still writing letters to each other in our classroom.

I encourage you to help your child sound out words but not to correct their spelling all the time. It is okay for children to phonetically spell words using inventive spelling. I am not looking for words to be perfect. The children should be spelling words that we have had in the past from our spelling tests. Besides that, as long as we are able to read what the child was saying, they are progressing in the right direction. However, I do want it to be in the child's best handwriting. This makes it easier on all of us in helping us to read what they wrote.

Jesus Shows Us He is Good!
The next few weeks, we will be covering chapters that show us how to love others, how to say we are sorry, how to forgive others and ourselves, and learn the true meaning of Christmas. We will be focusing on what are the true gifts that were given to us and what this season really means.