Happy New Year!

I hope that you all had a wonderful Christmas break, and were able to enjoy the holidays with family and friends! I am excited to return to school and can't wait to see all of the kids!

This week we will begin our patterns unit in Math, our winter unit in Science, and will be talking about goals and goal setting in Language Arts. We will be getting right back into the swing of things, with home reading and Magic Words both resuming this week.

Christmas Concert Week

Christmas concert week has arrived! The kids have been busy practicing their song and they are excited to perform for you this week! If you haven't sent a Hawaiian lei and sunglasses for your child's costume, please do so right away. We would like to have all of the students' costumes in by Tuesday at the very latest. Students with last names A - J will be performing on Wednesday evening, and those with last names K - Z will be performing Thursday evening. On the evening that your child performs, please arrive at the school at 6:00 pm. For the concert, we would like the Grade 1 students to wear dark bottoms and a red or green shirt. If your child has a Hawaiian shirt, they are welcome to wear it instead of red or green. Thank you for your support!

Monster Mayhem!

This week we will be creating our own monsters and then we will use them as inspiration for our writing! Over the next two weeks, the kids will author their first book of the year and it will be all about a monster.

Parent teacher interviews will be taking place on Thursday (afternoon/evening) and Friday (morning). Please book an interview with me to discuss your child's progress. Details about the home reading program will be given out at the interviews. Interviews can be booked online by clicking here.

Halloween is Almost Here

This week we will be doing many Halloween inspired activities, including a writing assignment where the kids will try to convince me of what I should dress up as for Halloween. I will choose the costume idea of the person who can persuade me best, and will reveal the results on Halloween. Stay tuned!

On October 31st we will be carving pumpkins. We will be needing volunteers for this activity, so please watch for further details this week. On Halloween, we will also be having our first class party of the year. There is a snack sign up sheet on the bulletin board outside of our classroom. If you are able to sign up to bring an item for one (or more) of our parties, it would be greatly appreciated. There is a pencil on the top of the bulletin board.

Giving Thanks

This week we will be talking about Thanksgiving and the things that we are thankful for. We will also be learning all about apples. Get ready for some apple math games, a tasty science experiment, and apple art!

Park Meadows will be taking part in the annual Feed the Bug campaign. All week we will be collecting non-perishable food items for the Lethbridge Food Bank. We will be collecting the donations in our classroom and on Friday we will join the rest of the school in order to "feed the bug."

Fall is Here

This week we will be learning all about fall. From looking at leaves and fall clothing, to exploring fall activities and our senses during the season, we will be fall experts by the end of the week! On Friday, we will be going for a leaf walk to observe and collect leaves with the other Grade 1 classes. Please make sure your child has appropriate footwear for our walk.

I would like to take this time to provide you with a little more information about our agenda messages. All of the students are asked to write the daily message even when it is not applicable to them specifically. For example, when a due date for a field trip permission form is approaching, I will often have the kids write a reminder in their agenda. On the day(s) that we write the reminder, some of the kids will have already handed in their form, but they will write the message anyway. In Grade 1 it is very difficult to differentiate the agenda message for each student because lots of times many kids are unsure about what they have or have not handed in. In order to ensure that all parents get the information they need about upcoming due dates and other matters, I have all of the students write every message. If I write a message in your child's agenda, that means it is specific to you and your child and wouldn't apply to the majority of the class. Also, if you are writing a message to me in your child's agenda, please try to write it on the right hand side so that your child has room to write their daily agenda message in the correct box. Thank you!

We Are Unique

This upcoming week is all about names and how we are each unique and special. We will start the week by reading the book "Chrysanthemum" by Kevin Henkes and then we will take a look at our names. Watch for a name questionnaire to come home on Wednesday.  We will use the answers from this at-home activity as a basis for our circle time discussion the following Monday.

With the first day of fall approaching on Thursday, we will also begin our science unit about Seasons this week.

House keeping item: Picture day forms were handed out last week. On the day that they were handed out, I found one on the floor after school.  If your child did not bring one home, please comment in their agenda and I will send the form home with them on Wednesday.  Picture day is on Monday, September 26th.