News from Fantastic 1st Graders!
Mrs. Leidig's Learners - a Weekly Newsletter
A few of the skills we'll be learning this week:
MTSS (Reading Switches): This week, there will be no MTSS because many of the teachers are involved in mid-year benchmark testing.
Handwriting: The countdown to Christmas continues - the kids have had fun putting a cotton ball on Santa's beard each day of school. :) This week, we will be doing a variety of fun Christmas-themed writing...how-to wrap a present, reindeer writing, opinion writing, etc.
Daily 5/Guided Reading: All of the stations will be Christmas-themed this week! "Work on Writing" will involve some of the writing mentioned above, "Word Work" will not introduce a new phonics skill, but will be Christmas-themed sight word work, "Read to Self" will include exploring some great new books our classroom was "gifted" (see below), "Listen to Reading" will include our usual Lexia work, as well as some Christmas stories, and "Read to Partner" will be for partners to explore all of my "big books" (which are literally about 5 times the size of a regular book, and are great for floor reading.)
Phonics: Sight words - A big THANK-YOU for working on these words with your students this first 1/2 of the year. I'm counting on it to pay off in their scores! Thank-you also to the parents who are able to come in and volunteer their time and attention every week to help in this area. :) Nightly books - It's another short month - the kids are doing a great job earning their Book-It minutes, and I will try to remember to add those and send pizza coupons home on Thursday of this week! Phonics Skill - This will be a review time, as we will not be adding a new skill.
Math: No math journals this week - we will be doing Christmas-themed math reviews of place value with ones and tens, addition/subtraction review, and some fun geometry-based lessons with ornaments and Christmas trees.
Science/Social Studies: There are many fun things going on during this end-of-day time for this week (programs, movie, craft-type projects, etc.) so we plan on resuming our needs vs. wants lesson the week we come back from break.
Odds and Ends
Book orders: Thank-you for your orders! They shipped near the end of last week, so I will send them home this week. The next flier will probably come home shortly after we resume in January.
Food Drive: Thanks for your donations - Thursday is our last day of school and will be a full day. No school for students the Friday before Christmas break. :)
AIMSweb testing: Mid-year benchmarking will be taking place this week! Different staff members will be pulling students to do re-testing on many areas to show growth. I will also be assessing for grade card data. It's important to emphasize to students how vital it is that they put forth their best effort on these assessments so that we can see growth and areas where we may still need to focus! Grade cards will come home with students on Thursday. I know there are no parent-teacher conferences scheduled, but I would be more than happy to go through scores with you when we come back in January - contact me to set something up if you are interested. :)
A Reason to Celebrate!
Polar Express PJ Party: On Wednesday of this week, students may wear their school-appropriate PJs to load the "Polar Express" for a fun afternoon - hot chocolate, popcorn - great fun!
Gingerbread Houses: Wednesday afternoon at 2:45, students will be making Gingerbread Houses, and we would like to invite parents to come and be a part of this fun time. If you have old Halloween candy, stale cookies, graham crackers, hard marshmallows, cereal, pretzels, or anything else that would look good on a gingerbread house, you are free to send them with students this week! Should be some good, messy fun. :)
Movie: Elementary will be going to the movie Thursday. Pop and popcorn costs $3 (send it anytime and please let me know if the cost is a hardship), but the admission is free!
New Student: We all miss Isaiah, who moved to Kensington, but we are happy to welcome Autumn Conrad-Farr to our class, and we are now back to 13 students.
Books given: Last week, all 3 1st grade sections were given some money to spend on ordering more books for our classroom. We have had so much fun exploring them. Thank-you, Culbertsons!
In January: After the start of the year, we will be starting some new things and picking up the pace as well in some areas. We will keep you posted! It has been a super "1/2 year" so far and I look forward to great things 2nd semester. Have an AWESOME break with your kiddos and Merry Christmas!!
LeAnn Leidig