Moving into November

A fall chill is in the air and the holidays are quickly approaching. So, as we leave our bear unit and prepare to study Thanksgiving and begin our next theme-Festivals of Light- take a look at our short, but sweet week...

In small groups Mrs. Waller guided the children as they worked in their theme notebooks. Although we finished up our bear theme last week.....we have not gotten to all the pages in the theme notebooks. These pages will be coming home this week...please look through them with your child. They are welcome to complete any of these pages at home over the long weekend!

Ms. Lorfing did guided reading in small groups this week.  Our focus was to get everyone used to our new books in the bag program.  Everyone has learned how to pick a "just right" book.  They've learned not to judge a book by it's cover and to do a quick book walk before choosing what they will take home for the night.  Thanks again to you all for helping them get used to their new homework.  We are off to a great start! 

We thought of adjectives to describe ourselves.  The big hole in the center is for our first grader's cute faces!

Yes, these adjectives definitely describe these 2 cute girls!

Carter is sorting sentences according to what punctuation mark ends each sentence.

It's "The Fall Festival" book.

Charlotte is building her spelling words using the magnetic letters.

 Naomi is sorting numbers from the 100s chart in odd and even categories.

Mr. N. read us a book at the Book Fair before we went shopping.  We had SO much fun looking for new books!

Sofia's mom came in to help out in the class and Sofia read a special book from home.  Great reading Sofia!

Using dominoes to make 2 digit numbers and then showing which is greater or less than.

Our focus in math week continues to be greater than, less than.  We've moved up to 2 digit numbers to determine greater or less than.  We also began working on subtraction.  Even though we've done subtraction in number corner since the beginning of the year, our focus is now on the process of subtracting numbers. 

John is matching cards to make each statement true.

Charlotte and Jake made a human subtraction equation.

Using our white boards to show subtraction equations.

In math, we also reviewed ordinal numbers.  We learned that ordinal means putting numbers in order.  We learned when you write each number it has 2 letters behind it like, 1st, 2nd, 3rd, etc.

We practiced getting into order by first taking a number word and then when given the signal, each person must stand in the appropriate place in line. 

We practiced our subtraction facts with the human number line.  It was great fun and we used a lot of self control racing to the answer while our teammates quietly cheered us on!

On our way to see "How I Became a Pirate"!!!

Shiver me timbers Matey!!

It's sooo hard to be patient but we are doing an excellent job waiting for the show to begin!

How much longer till it begins??

Yo ho, yo ho, a pirates life for us!

BUDDY TIME!!

We took some time out of our busy week to get together with our buddies for some good quality reading time.  Many shared their books they purchased at the book fair while others impressed the 7th graders by sharing their spooky Halloween stories.  Others shared our great class books and our favorite book, "Pete the Cat"!

Eli used his head light from home.  Hands-free was the way to be!

In TNT we used flashlights and cuddled up with our bears to have a read-in with our new books from the book fair.  

Sophie cuddled up with her bear in the rocking chair.

So much fun!!

In social studies we finished our bear unit by learning where the teddy bear came from and how it got it's name.  It was fun to learn that a president could be a strong and powerful leader but also be sweet and gentle towards an innocent bear in the wild.  It was also fun to hear about all President Roosevelt's many different pets he had while living in the white house!

Special thanks to Kate's mom for helping us out in our class this week!

Spelling Words- Week #6  November 11-15, 2013

Phonics Skills: short “u”

1.       up

2.       jump

3.       run

4.       but

5.       fun

6.       bus

7.       must

8.       cut

9.       cub

10.    club

Challenge Words

11. veteran

12. Thanksgiving

13. family

14. pilgrim

“Surprise the Teacher Word”

15. ??? (This is your choice)

 Reminders

Mark your calendars to come to St. Paul's to meet author, Rick Ackerly, who wrote The Genius in Every Child on Tuesday, November 12^th at 6:45 PM!  We are partnering with Sion and Oak Hill to make this opportunity available to our faculty and families.  Mr. Ackerly began his career as a head of school at Sion in the 70’s and has since been the head at three other independent schools across the US.  We hope you’ll be able to join us for this wonderful opportunity to hear him share the lessons he has learned about raising and educating children.

IMPORTANT INFORMATION ABOUT THE UPCOMING FOOD DRIVE!

 

St. Paul’s Episcopal Day School’s Annual Food Drive

 to support the Church food pantry

November 13-November 22

• Each day, Student Council representatives will receive donations in the front hallway of the school.  Each student’s class will earn points for their offerings.
• The class that collects the most will win a prize.
• In addition to non-perishable food, students are encouraged to bring personal hygiene items. 
• While all items will be received each day, BONUS POINTS will be given for selected items on selected days.
• Although in the past some classes in an effort to boost points have brought in large quantities of bulk snack items, we strongly encourage students to consider good nutritional choices in their donations. Let’s keep the competition friendly and fun, and remember the community that we are serving with our gifts. 

Paper sacks are appreciated

Bonus Points

Wednesday, Nov. 13:  Triple points for bulk items (except diapers) Especially needed are canned fruits, vegetables, soups, and canned beans.

Thursday, Nov. 14:  Double points for peanut butter, jelly, or canned fish or meats

Friday, Nov. 15:  Double points for toilet paper

Monday, Nov. 18:  Double points for personal hygiene items

Tuesday, Nov. 19:  Double points for dry beans, rice, pasta, crackers, Mac & Cheese, and dry meals such as Hamburger Helper.

Wednesday, Nov. 20:  20 points for each multi-load bottle or box of laundry detergent

Thursday, Nov. 21:  Double points for disposable diapers sizes 3, 4, 5, and 6, and adult Depends (we will count each diaper in the package)

Friday, Nov. 22:  To be announced.  

Have a wonderful long weekend with your children!!

Sara and Carey