Weekly Update for Friday, December 11, 2015

Hi Everyone!  Happy Friday!

It's about to be my favorite week of the entire school year!  The anticipation for the upcoming Holiday is palpable, everyone is in a festive mood, and everyone is even kinder than normal.  We have some fun events planned this week to mark the Holiday, and will be finishing up some of our academic units too.  Here's your update....

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Supply Update:

• Thank you for the dry erase markers!  I appreciate your generosity in helping to replenish our supply.  Dry erase markers are an ongoing need; I will accept donations at any time during the school year.  
• It's the time of year when crayons and markers dry up, become lost, or have just seen better days.  Feel free to send fresh crayons / markers with your child at any time.  These are NOT community supplies; your child will keep them at his/her desk.  I don't care if you send the 8 box of crayons or the 8,000 box of crayons!  Whatever your kiddo wants is fine with me.

Odds and Ends:

• We previewed the Scholastic Book Fair today.  Book Fair shopping will be next week.  Students who bring money will shop during our recess.  The Book Fair will be open from 3:00 pm - 6:00 pm on Tuesday for Family Shopping.  Please remember there is no obligation to buy.  Please refer to the information in your child's Thursday Folder for more details.
• Please be sure to empty your child's Thursday folder and return it to school each Friday.  Please do not place any papers for me inside the Thursday folder; I simply don't have time to check each folder on Friday morning.  Please continue to put any papers for me in the front clear pocket of your child's homework folder.
• If you are traveling over the Holidays, and your child will be absent from school, please kindly notify the school in advance.  You can send a message or note to me, which I will forward to the office.  You may also submit your notification to the office directly by using the "online absence excuse", which is found on the Pinebrook home page.  The link to the Pinebrook home page is here.
• If you have pictures of your child engaged in a fun activity, with a pet, with family, etc....please feel free to email them to me if your child would like to share those photos with our class.
• Please be sure to check the "important dates" section of this blog for upcoming events / activities / deadlines in our classroom and our school.

Reflex Math:

• We are coming to a close on our addition and subtraction unit.  Now that the kids have learned the strategies for solving addition and subtraction facts, it's time to practice fact fluency!  Fact fluency is the "fancy way" to describe the ability to quickly recall addition and subtraction facts.  I cannot teach fact fluency.  You cannot teach fact fluency.  As with reading, it's about practice, practice, practice.  To promote practice, our school subscribes to an on-line program called Reflex Math.  The program's aim is to help kids build fact fluency.  Your child can now begin to log in to practice fact fluency via fun, arcade style games.  The log on information is in the "online resources" section of this blog.

Focus Areas for the Upcoming Week:

• Reading:  We will read the Holiday Classic The Polar Express, and review many of the good reader strategies we have learned this year, such as predicting, retelling, making connections, and story mapping.  
• Math:  We will finish our fact families unit and review addition and subtraction strategies.  We will begin a unit on place value in January.
• Writing:  We finished our personal narrative unit and will be completing a few different Holiday writing activities.
• Science / Social Studies:  We will talk about Holiday traditions around the world with our annual Holidays Around the World on Wednesday morning.  During this time, the 1st grade teachers take turns rotating through each other's classrooms teaching the students about a holiday tradition from a particular country or culture.
• There will be NO Word Study this week.

I CAN'T WAIT!!!!!  The Mercer Band and Chorus will come Thursday morning for a Holiday concert, and on Friday, the entire school will pile into the gym for our annual Holiday Sing Along.  We sing Holiday songs from the many faith and cultural traditions represented at Pinebrook while the teachers and staff all take turns leading the songs.  Seriously....I can't even contain myself.  I am 41 years old, but at this time of year, I am a 6 year old.  It's one reason why YOUR children are "MY PEOPLE"!

As always, questions, comments, feedback, and suggestions are welcomed!  You can email me directly by clicking the words "contact me" at the top of this page, or by clicking the picture of the envelope inside the yellow circle at the top of this page.

Have a great weekend!  I am looking forward to baking cookies, wrapping gifts, watching "It's a Wonderful Life" with my boys, and visiting the Advent Labyrinth at our Church.  I am NOT looking forward to cleaning up the many messes our elf, Andy, seems to make throughout our house.