11-13 PICTURES

 Working on our THREE LITTLE PIGS project.

We read different versions of the story.

We looked for fairy tale characteristics.

We figured out what the story was trying to teach us.

We made blue prints for our own "wolf proof" house.

We made pigs and wolves that told their version of the story.

A couple of ways to use coupons earned with twenty star links:

Read to the Class and Use the Jr. Teacher Desk.

A first grade author reads his book about Pluto.

Making flags for our castle.

A little afternoon building.

Not bad for a two day week :)!

11-13 NEWSLETTER

Hi! It has been a very busy two days!! Our Fairy Tale Unit is in full swing! Our play, THE RUNAWAY UNICORN, now has an official date! Mark your calendars for Tuesday, December 8th at 8:30 a.m. Family and friends are invited. We will perform the play on the stage in the cafeteria and then invite you back to our room to see our “castle” and hear some of our fairy tales. The entire thing should last about 45 minutes. We hope you can make it :)!

WE NEED…

We will be making our very own castles. Please help us by sending in any shoe boxes, snack boxes, paper towel rolls or toilet paper rolls. I would like to have these before we break for Thanksgiving so that I can hot glue them over vacation. Our plan is to make and paint these on Tuesday, Dec. 1st. We will also be painting scenery this day. I would LOVE some parent volunteers to help with these busy activities. I could use people from 8:00 - 10:30 and then from 11:45 - 12:50 if we don’t finish in the morning. Let me know if you are available...you can come for anytime during those times or the entire time :)!

IMPORTANT DATES

• Friday, Nov. 20th - Book orders are due.
• Wednesday, Nov. 25th - last day before Thanksgiving Break. Please send in any boxes, toilet paper rolls and/or paper towel rolls by this day.

• Tuesday, Dec. 1st - Castle Painting and Scenery Painting Day - Dress for Mess!!
• Friday, Dec. 4th - First Trimester Report Cards come home.
• Friday, Dec. 4th - Holiday Movie Night - 6:00 p.m. - Younger students and families will see THE POLAR EXPRESS in the gym while older students will see ELF in the cafeteria. There is no cost. Auction winners will also be announced this night!
• SAVE THE DATE:  A Public Forum has been scheduled to be held in our cafeteria on the evening of Tuesday, December 1 starting at 7:00p.m.  As directed by the Town Council, the School Board will present cost-saving options for the community to consider and discuss.  
• Tuesday, Dec. 8th - THE RUNAWAY UNICORN at 8:30 a.m. in VCS cafeteria.
• Thursday, Dec. 10th - Annual Holiday Concert at 6:00 p.m. in VCS gymnasium.
• Tuesday, Dec. 22nd - last student day of 2015!

Happy Weekend!

A COUPLE OF PLAYS IN THE AREA

Whenever I hear of things that are going on in the area that I think first graders would enjoy, I like to share the information. I'm not saying you have to attend...just passing along some ideas in case you are looking for something to do :)!  I have personally seen LOTS of the shows that BHS puts on and they are all fabulous. I have also seen the show HHS is putting on and it is hilarious! We read all of the FROG AND TOAD books in first grade!

Brewer High School presents:  THE FROG PRINCE, WARTS AND ALL at the Brewer Community School Performing Arts Center. The shows will begin at 7:00 on Friday, Nov. 13 and Saturday, November 14th. Admission is $3.00 for students and $5.00 for adults. Tickets can be purchased at the door.

Hermon High School presents:  A YEAR WITH FROG AND TOAD at Hermon High School. The beloved children's stories of Arnold Lobel have come to life in this 2003 Tony Nominated show (Best Book, Best Original Score, Best Musical).  Show dates are:  7 pm on Thursday, November 12, Friday November 13, Saturday, November 14 and a matinee at 2pm on Sunday, November 15.

This family-friendly production stars Katelyn Walsh '18 (This is Mrs. Walsh's daughter!) as Frog and Eric Byers '18 as Toad.

General admission tickets are $7 and available in advance from Mrs. Walsh or can be purchased at the door.

OUR ASSEMBLY PERFORMANCE

Thank you, Mrs. Logan, for taping us!!

Albuquerque Turkey

Mr. Turkey and Happy Thanksgiving Day

SOME PICS FROM OUR WEEK 11-6

Sharing THE LITTLE RED HEN.

We compared different versions of it.

Making turkey hats for our Thanksgiving Songs that we shared at the School Assembly.

Making turkeys for our bulletin board.

Something I learned this week...whenever you can use googly eyes, it is a good thing :)!

We found a few new things in our dress up box!!

The cutest turkeys I have every seen!!

Right after we performed...Mr. Cyr loved it so much he just had to try on one of our hats :)!

Students that had not missed one day this trimester had their names put into a raffle for a chance to win a t-shirt with the new school logo and motto on it! We had a first grade winner :)!!

What is a school assembly without a little dancing?!!

Have a great mini break!!

NEWSLETTER 11-6

Hi! We started our unit on fairy tales and light this week. We learned about the common characteristics that most fairy tales have and are charting what we find in the books we read. We started practicing for our play, THE RUNAWAY UNICORN. We will perform it for family and friends in December. I will have a date for you before Thanksgiving break.

READING AND LANGUAGE ARTS

We have been reading lots of fairy tales. The kids are coming home with their play scripts. These are home copies that can stay at home. Please have your child practice reading his/her lines. We are working on reading fluently, using voice and memorizing lines.

We have been practicing our reading strategies by reading Thanksgiving poems and songs. We performed our songs for the school at our assembly today. We even wore the turkey hats we made.

We wrote about what we learned from LITTLE RED RIDING HOOD and about having a pet turkey.

MATH

We learned how to use Frames and Arrows to practice our math facts. I’ve taught the kids when they are trying to figure out the rule, ask:  

1. Are the numbers getting bigger or smaller? This will tell if they are adding or subtracting.
2. How much are they getting bigger or smaller by? This will tell you how many counts up or back.

They are doing quite well with this already. These tend to get tricky especially when the rule is to add but the give you a number at the end of the frames so you really need to subtract. They will be using these for the next four years.

ITEMS OF INTEREST

• First graders have been leading the Pledge of Allegiance on the announcements! They are doing so well! It’s awesome to see them take on this responsibility!

• There is no school Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday next week due to teacher inservice days and Veteran’s Day.

HOMEWORK

Please, make sure your child reads each of the five days off. There is also a math packet and play script in their folders. Thank you for your help with this :)!

Have a great mini break!

NEWSLETTER FROM 10-30

Hi! What a very exciting week...dress up days, Halloween and a full moon! Who could ask for anything more ;)?! We actually still got lots done even with all the excitement! We finished up our unit on sound. We will work with light next week. We will also begin a unit on fairy tales.

READING AND LANGUAGE ARTS

We practiced our fluency and voice by practicing and putting on three readers’ theater plays. We performed HALLOWEINER, A TERRIBLE FRIGHT and THE BIG PUMPKIN for our pre-k and kindergarten friends. It was pretty tricky getting used to reading a script but everyone did a great job.

During Big Books we learned how to read punctuation. We looked at commas and question marks. We looked for little words in big words to figure out words we didn’t know. We also talked about adjectives and how to change the y to i and add es or est.

We had fun re-writing Little Miss Muffet. We used our new poems to go with the colorful webs we made. They are hanging in the hall.

We were not able to fit our spelling test in today. We will use the same words next week!

MATH

We practiced skip counting using number lines. We also used number lines for counting up and back. We made up our own number stories. We also talked about ordinal numbers.

ITEMS OF INTEREST

• Thank you to everyone who sent in items to help us make our own musical instruments and for our Halloween activities.

• There were no Progress Notes this week. It was such an exciting week...five dress up days, Halloween, lots of special activities and a full moon! Everyone did the best that they could do :)!!

A FEW MORE PICS FROM OUR WEEK

Using a special coupon to have a show and tell. It was a very cool collage he made!

Phonics Games

Painting Spider Webs...they came out so pretty!

Hat Day

Spanish class with Senora Meagher.

A few of our Little Miss Muffet projects.