Crittenden's Critters
Updates From Room F7
Dates to Remember
*Monday, January 18 - Martin Luther King Jr. Day - No School
*Tuesday, January 26 - MAPs Testing for Bears
*Friday, January 29- College Gear Day!
*Tuesday, February 2- MAPs Testing for Bears
*Wednesday, February 3 - 100th Day of School!
*Thursday, February 4 - First Grade Field Trip to Sea World
*Friday, February 5- Spirit Day: Sports Day!
Upcoming Birthdays
*January 27 - Harman
*February 13- Allison
*February 15- Audrey
*February 26 - Sevan
Emperor Penguins for a Day
Phonics Games
A Special Guest
Bear Trip to Sea World
Our field trip to Sea World is Thursday, February 4th! We will leave promptly at 9:05 and return to the school at 2:00 PM. Each child needs to bring a snack, a sack lunch, and wear comfortable shoes.
Donations of $10 per student are accepted for this trip. This covers both the entry cost and the cost of buses. If you have Sea World Passports, we do not have to pay the entry fee for your child. Donations are very important, as the trip could be cancelled if we do not have enough funds.
The permission form states that each class gets 6 chaperones, but because we only have 12 Bears, I will only need 3! If you would like to chaperone this trip, please let me know by email as soon as possible. Each chaperone will have a $6.25 entrance fee and MUST DRIVE DOWN to the park. No siblings please.
Please have BOTH permission slips signed and returned to school no later than Friday, January 29th!
Mystery Readers Needed!
We are looking for Mystery Readers for the next few weeks! The kids LOVE our special visitors and hearing their stories. Please help us by signing up to be a Mystery Reader in our classroom. We would love to have parents, grandparents, even older siblings! I am working on getting some of the staff here at Creekside to come visit us to read as well :).
Here's how it works: follow the link below to look at times for our Mystery Reader slots. We typically do Mystery Reader time around 3:05-3:20 on Fridays. I am flexible with time AND days, because I know that many things come up during the day. If you want to come, but are not able to come at the time, or even on that day, just email me and we can schedule a time that is convenient for you. Bring your own children's book from home, or I will pick a book from the class for you.
Throughout the day, the children receive hints as to who the reader is. At the end of the day, they are always so excited to see who it is! When you arrive, you sit in our special rocking chair and read the story to the children. It's so simple, and the kids love it so much!
Follow this link to a Google Doc to sign up for a Friday for Mystery Readers!
Last Week for Book Club Orders!
Throughout this school year, your purchases through our Scholastic Reading Club have helped to buy our classroom over 35 books that contain relevant, exciting content! Please have a look through the January magazine over the weekend and consider purchasing books for your child through our class Reading Club.
Every purchase through our Reading Club helps to earn points that can be used to buy materials for our classroom. The process is simple: follow the link below to our class' Reading Club website. If you haven't bought books before, add the one time class activation code and shop through hundreds of books that your child will love!
The deadline for ordering books is January 22nd! That is a week from today! The books will arrive here at school. We always have a fun time celebrating new books while we pass them out! If you are buying the books for a birthday or a celebration, just email me and I can get them to you without your child knowing :).
As always, thank you for your continued support and help with building our classroom library!
Annual CEF Dinner Auction is Right Around the Corner!
Weekly Curriculum Update
READING-
Foundational: This week, we will be continuing our study of consonant blends. We will be learning that sometimes consonant blends can come at the beginning or end of a word. Sometimes they can come at both! We will also be reviewing the concepts that we have learned to ensure that students retain information. I have really seen growth with the kids' spelling, writing AND reading as a result of having a special time to teach phonics every day.
Literature: This week, we will be focusing on character emotions and feelings. Often times in literary books, the author gives clues in the text about how the character is feeling as result of an event in the book. Students will learn to recognize feeling or emotion words and find evidence in the text to tell why a character is feeling that way.
Informational: We will be focusing on informational text about Polar animals this week. We will be reviewing the concept of main ideas and details and how to tell the difference between the two. We will also be reviewing several text features that we have learned about and how they help us as a reader while reading the text.
WRITING-
This next week, we will be focusing heavily on opinion writing. Students have now learned the difference between fact and opinion and how to state an opinion. This week, we will be learning several ways to back up our opinion and provide reasons for why we have that opinion. Opinion writing is one of the three major types of writing that students must master in the common core. The other two are narrative (which we have covered in the fall), and informational (which we will cover in the third trimester). I think that the opinion writing unit will be a fun one for the kids!
MATH-
Cubs: This week, Cubs will be working on representing addition and subtraction with objects, fingers, mental images, drawings, sounds (e.g., claps), acting out situations, verbal explanations, expressions, or equations.They will also be working on solving addition and subtraction word problems, as well as decomposing numbers.
Bears: The Bears are moving on from basic place value knowledge to using place value to solve addition and subtraction problems. We will also be reviewing what we have learned about number partners, math mountains, and organizing our mathematical thinking.
SCIENCE-
We will be continuing to learn how animals adapt to survive in different habitats. We will specifically be focusing on Polar Animals and how their adaptations help them to survive. Students will be generating ideas about how we could think of ways to "adapt" to help us in situations that these animals are in.
SOCIAL STUDIES
This month, we will be comparing and contrasting everyday life in different times and places around the world and recognize that some aspects of people, places, and things change over time while others stay the same.
Have A Question? Contact Me!
Email: scrittenden@powayusd.com
Location: 12362 Springhurst Drive, San Diego, CA, United States
Phone: (858)391-2607