November 20th

      It was wonderful being able to see you all this week and share all of the hard work our students have been completing! I hope you enjoy a wonderful Thanksgiving with your families. 

     Please make sure as the weather begins to get colder to send your student with a jacket/winter clothes each day. Students will be going outside for recess each day even when the temperatures are cold. If there is snow, students are only allowed in the snow if they have water proof boots, snow pants, and gloves. 

Winter Party
      We are almost into December as crazy as it seems! We are looking for a few more parent volunteers for the winter party. If you are interested, you can sign up through this link https://ivyhallpto.membershiptoolkit.com/
The PTO will contact you with more information.

Literacy:

     In writing, students are back to writing narrative stories! We are working on making sure we have a beginning, middle, and end. We are also working on expanding their ideas. So if they wrote "I went to the park. We went down the slide. We went on the swings. We went home." We would like to see "One day we went to the park. First we went down the slide. It was super fast! Then we went on the swings. I tried to swing as high as the bar! Finally we went home. I had a great day at the park." As we work on our narrative stories we will also focus on CUPS (capitalization, verb usage, punctuation, and spelling). 

Reading: 

     Students are working on differentiating between fiction (literature) and non-fiction (informational text). They are also practicing asking questions before, during, and after reading. They continue to work on answering questions (including inferential- beyond the text questions).Students ARE encouraged to go back into the book to answer questions. We ask that students are able to provide evidence from the text to support their answers. 
    Great practice at home could include retelling a story that they have just read including the characters, setting, and important events. Another great way to practice at home is to ask your student if the book they read was a fiction or nonfiction book. Have them explain how they knew it was fiction or nonfiction.

Math

        We have just started unit 3! Within this unit we have been very focused on fact fluency. This means we would like facts within ten to be automatic as well as give them the strategies to add numbers to 20 quickly. We have also touched on number stories, place value, understanding what the equal sign means, and comparing numbers using greater than and less than. We will continue working toward fluency in our next unit. 

Social Studies
     The first graders are excited to begin learning about famous Americans.  Some of these Americans include George Washington and Abraham Lincoln.  We will be using different texts to learn facts about their lives as well as compare and contrast their lives and accomplishments. We will also be looking at what is a want and want is a need. We will introduce Holidays Around the World as part of our wants and needs goal. Students will focus on the traditions each holiday has and the similarities between these traditions. The biggest similarity is that many of these holidays focus on light, goodness, and peace or kindness to others. If you have any questions about this unit please let me know! 

Science
     We are beginning our unit on living things. This past week we began to talk about how animals of the same kind are similar but not exactly the same. For example tigers have stripes, two ears, and two eyes but some are orange and some are white. 

November/December Current Events

November 21st - 23rd - No School District Holiday

December 3rd - 12nd - MAP Testing Window

December 11th - Early Release 

December 21st - Winter Party

December 24th - Jan 4th - No School District Holiday (class resumes the 7th)