30 November-6 December 2009
Enjoy our slide show! We made Winter Scene mats to send downrange to deployed Airman! We hope they enjoy them. Happy Holidays to all those who serve our country!

Make a Smilebox slideshow

What a week! It was a short one, but we packed a lot of activity, learning and fun into 3 days. Thank you for your interest in the Thanksgiving Sing-Along and Turkey Dinner served in the AES Cafeteria. We had so many positive comments and the students worked very hard on hosting a nice event. We're certain to make a splash on this week's edition of the Eagle's Eye, our locally, student-produced current events bi-weekly video of school happenings, including a local AES Public service announcement. We'll probably be the 1st grade stars with our Thanksgiving Sing-Along!

The following 3 weeks in December will be packed with learning to include: Reading (of course!), Math with more addition and strategies when adding different combinations to 10. We'll combine these with the subtraction facts, as well and begin teaching strategies when completing story and word problems when using mathematics skills to solve them. CONTINUE WORKING ON IXL SKILLS. Our class has answered 10,000 problems. If your child isn't participating, PLEASE begin. It is making a huge difference for those who complete this work weekly. It is the IXL link listed on the the blog to the right. This is also a MUST-DO weekly link.

Add RAZ-kids and Sight Words with Samson to the list of MUST-DOs also.

I have 4 parent volunteers who have consented to helping out with the making of graham cracker houses and candy trains on Thursday, December 3rd from 9-11 o'clock. If you'd like to stop by and join in the fun, please feel as if you're invited. We can always use a set of extra helping hands. We will use this as a pre-activity to writing about "how to do" something, with explaining how they made their own.

Watch for the Reading Response journal in your child's reading bag this week. Your child will respond in writing to the book or books they read each night. Specific directions will be included and excellent handwriting is encouraged.

Remember, that P.E. is on Tuesday, and proper shoes and clothing are most helpful on this day.

Kudos to all parents who have nursed their child 'back to good health' and keeping them home with high fever and flu-like symptoms. We are being extremely vigilant at school with hand sanitizer, sanitized classroom sinks, table tops and washing of hands throughout the day. Please dress your child for the weather. I am insisting on them wearing their coats/jackets to lunch/recess, and out-the-door before leaving on the bus after school.

PLEASE COMPLETE THE FOLLOWING LINKS FOR ON-LINE HOMEWORK for the remainder of the year.
1. RAZ-KIDS.com Teacher Username: ewpkids
2. Sight Words with Samson: Username and Password required-please write me if you need it again.
3. IXL Math: Go to link on right of post and follow the directions posted: Username and password required (write if you need these again)
4. Spelling City: Week #10 Search by teacher, or list name on web-site link

Others, if you like! There are many links under the MUST-DOs-so have fun after you've done the required ones and written in your Reading Response Log.

Have a great week. Mrs. Petty

22-28 November 2009

ATTENTION: PLEASE SEND IN YOUR NOVEMBER BOXTOPS FOR EDUCATION ANYTIME FOR THE NOVEMBER COUNT. THANK YOU!

Have I said thanks for all the efforts on the Family Project ABC BOOK? If not, accept this great big THANK YOU! What a pleasure its been to hear your child read their book and share with their friends. We've laughed 'and oo-oo-oo-ed' and 'aw-aw-aw-aw-ed" at them! We have four more to enjoy. Thank you so much. These made us so happy!

NO SPELLING THIS WEEK!

Thank you so much for your responses to the Thanksgiving Sing-A-Long and lunch in the AAFES Cafeteria this coming Tuesday.

PLEASE STOP BY THE ROOM AND PICK-UP YOUR LUNCH MONEY BEFORE GOING TO THE GYM!

Remember to enter the gym at 10:40 (Ms. P will be teaching up to that time), and after the sing-a-long, we'll move directly to the cafeteria @ 11:00 for our Turkey dinner and trimmings. Many thanks to Gabe, the cafeteria manager, for making this possible for us. Thanks to the 2nd grade for changing their lunch time with us, also! Teamwork is such an important part of working in a school.

This is another short week and I'll load up your child's reading bag for use at home to read over the long Thanksgiving week-end. Make certain you review your prompts for supporting the solving of unknown words throughout their books. We're working on addition to 10, but 'shaking' 2 color-sided plastic beans to discover all the many combinations, or fact families for each sum. Here's an example of the '7' facts:

1+6=7 6+1=7
2+5=7 5+2=7
3+4=7 4+3=7
0+7=7 7+0=7

The students are becoming quite proficient at this and the goal is to make them see, know and mentally compute quickly the different sums; then apply them to word problems in the context of addition and subtraction. Please check out this link on fact families, where it shows how addition and subtraction are reciprocal operations.

I am in need of classroom volunteers on the morning of Thursday, 3 December from 9-11 a.m. We will be making graham cracker houses and candy trains that morning. The more parents I have, the easier it becomes. We will use this activity as a springboard to write instructions on how we made our houses and trains.If anyone cares to bag the candy for this project, I'll bring it to school and you can take it home to organize it all into zip-locs. We'll use the stories of the Gingerbread Baby by Jan Brett and The Polar Express by Chris Van Allsburg.

Watch for a reading response journal in their reading bag in the month of December. Your child will begin writing about 'what they read' at home each night, whether it's on RAZ-kids, or a hard copy book sent home from our leveled reading library at school. Please encourage appropriate sentences, with correct capitalization & punctuation. I'll include instructions inside the front cover of the journal to clarify.

Best wishes for a safe and wonderful Thanksgiving break. I am so very thankful for supportive parents, a great school to work in, and my opportunity to teach your children. They are so sweet and precious. Keep up the work on the computer web-sites and reading at home.
HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

Mrs. Petty

15-21 November 2009
Weekly Update

We had popcorn delivered to our room by the PTA Popcorn Lady! We won for the 1st grade team. Yeah for us and thanks for all the snipping done withthe Box Tops for October!!

DID WE TELL YOU, Mom & Dad? Our class was the top BOX TOP collector for 1st grade for the month of October! We were all so excited that Mrs. Petty did a cheer for us! Keep on collecting and send them in at the end of each month. Yeah-we REALLY want a popcorn party!!! Pop, Pop, POP!

Don't forget to bring your completed, published ABC books into school this week! I'm so excited to hear you 'read' them to the class!

Well done, parents! We completed our conferences and will report 100% participation. I hope the information we shared with each other on your child's progress and 'next steps' is helpful in attaining the educational benchmarks in the near future and throughout the rest of the year. Specifically speaking, we're looking at 'stepping up' fluency and text level, becoming fluent with problem solving, addition/subtraction facts with developing mental computation, and improving our written compositions through better sentence construction, with appropriate spelling, handwriting, and overall quality of writing. Thank you for all your continued support.

SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT: Please plan to attend the Thanksgiving Sing-Along/Lunch, on Tuesday, 24 November at 10:40 in the gym. Please enter the gym after the P.E. class is dismissed, and enjoy the program. Afterward, we'll move into the AES Cafeteria to enjoy the AAFES Thanksgiving Dinner with the class. Please send in your adult lunch count, with $5.00 for each participating Mom and/or Dad in an envelope marked with your name. Our cafeteria Manager, Mr. Gabe, guarantees a delicious dining experience for us on that day. Send in on or before this Wednesday, 18 November.

Continue to read 'with' and 'to' your child for evening homework. Continue with the MUST DO homework links and help monitor Quiz-taking on RAZ-Kids Reading and IXL Math. Continue to use the links on the right side of the Class Blog, by rolling your cursor over the menu of many activities to use for learning and enjoyment.

Once again, thank you for your efforts and support demonstrated this past quarter. Success for all students to prepare for future learning is what we're all working toward.

Welcome back to a full week of school!

Mrs. Petty

9-15 November 2009

Farewell to Presley and Xander. Their last day was Wednesday and we wish them well in the move back to the U.S. We welcome a new student, Cody, to our room. We're glad you're with us, Cody!

Well, here's 3 cheers to the Family Project of making your ABC books. I can't wait to see what everyone has created. The students came back the first day after the assignment was given and seemed very excited. Thank you for your support. This is a very 'short' week. We'll meet in class for 2 days, on Monday and Tuesday, then have the rest of the week off. I'm looking forward to seeing you on Thursday for conferences, and the Wells family on Friday morning for theirs. They've grown a bunch and learned so much, but have so much left to accomplish.

Very quickly: along with your ABC book, please revisit the links, since I won't be changing much of them. NO SPELLING LIST THIS WEEK, it's just too short. We'll be working on our Thanksgiving presentation, and readying ourselves a little more on our 1st Reader's Theatre presentation: The Little Red Hen. This gives everyone a chance to practice fluent reader in a story-like environment, which includes using appropropriate expression, phrasing and confidence. We'll also be making our own 'costumes'! Should be fun and revealing :oD

Continue with the IXL Math, RAZ-Kids Reading, Sight Words with Samson Lists 1-7 (repeat and review all lists). Don't forget about the "little books" in the READING Bag, also.

Once again, you're welcome to bring their ABC books to school as soon as they're completed. Please send them in an appropriate bag, to protect them from the elements!

Have a wonderful week and see you soon!

Mrs. Petty