Christmas

We had the biggest treat as a grade on Friday. We went to the Paul Messner production of The Nativity, which sells out fast every year. I had never seen it and I'm still enjoying memories of it. This was not your average puppet show. These Nativity puppets were Isaiah, Joseph, Mary, Angel Gabriel and a host of others from the Nativity story all 12- 15 foot tall. Isaiah was maybe 20 feet tall. People were wearing the actual puppet above them on their shoulders. It was amazing. The vision Paul Messner had to put this performance together is amazing! We thank the Cultural Arts committee for securing these tickets early on.

We have had stories about the birth of Jesus read to us this week. We wrote the Nativity in 3 parts and put them in our theme notebooks. The handwriting has been wonderful on these stories. We made a modest stable and set up our manger with Jesus, Mary and Joseph and all the animals and wise men. Have your child read teh Story of Jesus's birth in their folder. It is so dear.

In Math classes we are focusing on subtraction. We had a human number line. Two teams competing as they were given subtraction problems. We actually competed for which teeam was the quietest. The team member up next began at the biggest number in the equation and walked off the number they were to subtract ( take away) whatever number they landed on was the answer. It's a perfect human illustration of subtraction.

We also practiced seeing sets of ten frames. It helps the students see number in groups and to move beyond 1:1 correspondence.

We have a new spelling ist with a word that will challenge the students possibly. Not to worry we are learning a new song that spells out the word "because." The tune is to Twinkle, twinkle, little star and the words are: b-e-c-a-u-s-e- we can spell because you see. Seven letters from first to last, we can spell it really fast. B-e-c-a-u-s-e- We can spell because YIPPEE!!!

Each and every student in this class is doing a remarkable job with their responsibility of bringing back books in a bag, spelling test, and library books. Keep up the GREAT work.

One of our independent centers during Integrated Language was to chose a story starter and finish the story in their best handwriting.

The choices were: "My family likes to.." "Every Christmas Eve we..." "Our Christmas tree has..." and "The best gift..."

Henry's mom was able to read

a Christmas book during her time volunteering.

Aiden's mom read to the class also.

Megan and Ryan celebrated their half birthdays this week. Both of them stood in chapel on Thursday. On Thursday also in chapel Haiti money is collected. Megan has a sepcial donation to Haiti in honor of her birthday.

Dates to remember:

Monday December 13th : Last day for shoebox Christmas supplies

Thursday December 16th 1st and 2nd Christmas program 9:00 MPR

Thursday, December 16th Talent Show for 1st Grade

Friday, December 17th Spelling test
Friday, December 17th Books in a bag due

Spelling words: because, look, about, orange, had, stop, had, that, will four, will, yes

Challenge Words: Christmas, December, Jesus, Santa