Class Christmas Party and Author's Tea Tomorrow!

The time has finally come for us to unveil our class book, The ABCs of Christmas! Our class has worked very hard on this and I know they are excited to share what they have done with you. We call it an author's tea because we used to have the class recite the book and we would have refreshments afterwards. However, I know it is easier for parents if school events are combined, ergo, our class Christmas party is immediately after the recitation of the book.
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 Congratulations are in order for Ethan who won the school sweater competition! Way to go, Ethan!

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Important dates

• 12/15 @1:00 Author's Tea / Class Party
• 12/18- Class community project (Lunch for the fire department)
• 12/19 early release, Christmas break
• 1/3/18- back to school

Flat Stanley Project

Our class is participating in a school-wide Flat Stanley project.  Today in the Tuesday folders you will find fliers about the project. We are asking all of the students to take Stanley with them to an interesting place/person, or mail Stanley to an interesting place/person and take a picture of Stanley in that place or with that person.

The packet has a travel journal in which to describe Stanley's travels. The objective of this project is for students to gain a better understanding of various communities and people that they may not have known about, or they only knew a little about.

We will have a school-wide presentation about the project later in the year. If you have any questions about the project please let me know. The following is a link to a site about the project:
http://flatstanleyproject.com

Dyslexic discussion on NPR

For those who are able to listen, 1A on NPR will host a discussion about Dyslexia and services in school at 11:00. https://the1a.org/shows/2017-12-06/when-dyslexic-students-are-denied-in-school

Also, we will go to the library tomorrow so please bring back any library books that need to be returned as well as car/booster seats. A huge thank you to Mr. Krabel for coming to our class yesterday to talk about Christmas traditions in Germany- it was so interesting, and the cookies were great!

December- In the Know

December is always a busy month for Primary. Our class will attend the showing of “A Christmas Carol” on the 14^th and the début of our class book and author’s tea is scheduled for the 15^th at 1:00. I know the kids are very excited to share their hard work with you! Immediately after the author’s tea we will celebrate the season with our class Christmas party hosted by Cassie Camacho. We hope everyone will be able to join us for both of special these events. December 18th will be a special "fun" day for our class. We will take a break from our normal routine to learn some new games, share stories and focus on Responsive Classroom activities. The following day (12/19) is a non-academic early release day. Students are encouraged to wear pajamas because they will not go to class on this day, rather they will have a visit from Santa and join the rest of the school for some fun and games before leaving for Christmas vacation. 

 December is a fun month, but it's also a short month for academics which means we have a lot to cover academically and every minute counts! In ELA we are writing about gifts and gift-givers, reading and spelling words with “glued” sounds and exploring how Christmas is celebrated around the world. Students are exploring rock properties and transitioning from plant lifecycles to soil and rock weathering in STEM. We are excited to explore rocks hands-on by mining, panning and sifting sand, gems and silt.

In the Know- November

For homework this week, some students have a dictation page in their packet. This is an opportunity for you to dictate sounds/words/sentences to your child, and have them show you how to "tap out words" and "spell-check tap" once they have written words. They can also explain the proof-reading technique we learned in class for writing sentences.

Sounds- dictate any consonant or short vowel sound. *avoid the schwa
Words- mop, rash, rock, fix, chip
Sentence- The fox is in the pen with the hen.

Reminders:

• Our field trip to the library will be on Thursday (11/16) so please bring any books that need to be retuned. 
• Miss Hines and I will be at an education workshop on Friday (11/17), so our class will join the lower school who is attending a performance of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory at the High Point Little Theater. 
• If possible, it would be helpful to leave any car/booster seats at school Thursday and Friday.  
• I will be out Monday and Tuesday of next week. Mrs. Hagen will be my substitute, and students will not have a homework packet for those days, but I highly recommend that students still read (or be read to) for 20 minutes nightly. I think Miss. Hines is planning something special for Tuesday! 
• School is closed November 22-26 for Thanksgiving. 
• Our class Christmas party/author's tea will be Friday 12/15. We will start with our author's tea (presentation of published Student Treasures class book) at 1:00, followed by the class party at 1:30. A huge thank you to Cassie Camacho for agreeing to plan this for us! 
• 12/19- half day and visit from Santa Claus! 

Firehouse Photos and November Dates

We had a very informative tour of the Firehouse Headquarters of High Point this morning. Students learned what to do in case of a fire, and not to hide or be scared if a firefighter tries to help them out of a burning building.

The following are a few dates to be aware of:

• 11/10- no school in observance of Veteran's Day
• 11/16- library trip (This is a change from 11/9)
• 11/17- Lower School trip to "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" (Wallace and Hines at workshop)
• 11/20- Primary NOT going on trip to move theater with Lower School
• 11/22-11/24- Thanksgiving break

Halloween/Lazy 5

This has been a super exciting week with our trip to the Lazy 5 Ranch and Halloween! A big thank you to Peyton's mom for planning, organizing and executing the class Halloween party! It's back to the grindstone though, and we have a lot of work to do between now and Christmas break (5 academic weeks! 😲).

Next week our class will be going to the local fire house on Monday (11/6) and the library on Thursday (11/9). Please send carseats/ booster seats on those days if you child needs them.

The following are a few snapshots from this week:

In case you're wondering why Simon is not wearing his coat... he took it off 4 times (we put it on him 3 times).  At least it was sunny!