Weekly Spelling Lists -

Phonetic List - Blends
grab
best
flip
frog
jump
crash
next
drip
block
brush

High Frequency List - Trick Words - Words 81-90
made
over
did
down
only
way
find
use
may
water

Reading - We continue to work in reading groups and daily 5.  Now that we've completed another round of running records, our reading groups have changed a little bit.  Students are placed in groups with readers at approximately the same level.  This round we still have four reading groups - and each group has three students.  Some of our Christmas reading centers are making Christmas cards, Christmas word finds and word searches, putting Christmas songs in order on note cards, putting Christmas words in ABC order, coloring Christmas scenes by sight word/color, making words out of the letters in Christmas, and writing Christmas words in word boxes,

This week we also worked with our kindergarten friends.  We showed them how to work in daily five centers.  We had a great time being the big helpers and showing them how we do it!  Our kindergarten friends loved doing word work with us!  We also took some time to read with our fourth grade buddies.

Religion - In Religion we worked out of our textbook on the chapter about Mary saying yes to God, Joseph saying yes to Mary, and Mary and Joseph's trek to Bethlehem.  We continue to discuss Advent.  We made Advent wreaths for our classroom.  Each week we add another flame to our candles.  Last week we lit the hope candle.  This week we will light the peace candle.  Each Monday during Advent we start the morning out with a whole school prayer service.

We have a Jesse Tree in our classroom.  Each day we read a Bible story and add a piece to our Jesse tree.  Our tree will be complete on the last day before Christmas break.

On Friday in our promise paper we learned about Our Lady of Guadalupe.  We sang one decade of the rosary in the divine mercy chaplet.  First grade will have mass on December 21st.  We will be choosing parts for mass this week.  Virtue Cards  - Our first word was courtesy.  Our new word is respect.

We started Advent with a celebration!

Phonics - On Friday we finished up the chapter on ng/nk glued sounds.  This week we will start learning about consonant blends.

Science - We are finishing up our weather unit.  On Friday, Steve Beylon, meteorologist from channel 2 news will be a guest speaker in our classroom.  :)  Our next science unit will be the Einstein Project unit called solids and liquids.  Until that unit comes, we will switch over to social studies.  We will be learning some map skills. 

Math - In math we learned about dimes - what they look like, who the president is, what is on the back, and how much they are worth.  We have started learning how to tell time.  So far our book only does time to the hour.  We are working on a little more than that though.  Time takes "time" to learn.  :)  We continue to work on math facts.  We are learning about a number minus 0 (9-0, 15-0, 3-0, etc) and that a number minus the same number = 0.  (9-9, 5-5, 100-100, etc.)

Christmas Concert - We had a beautiful Christmas concert on Thursday. 

We have been decorating our classroom for Christmas.  We have our Advent wreath at our prayer center.  We count the days until Christmas each day on our path to Bethlehem.  We also have a cute Santa cross stitch that we're using to count down.  We made adorable elves!  The students' faces are the faces on the elves!  We put up a Christmas tree.  We also made a door decoration.  It's a snowman - but the face is open - so you can take your picture in it.  Instead of taking a selfie, We decided to call it "taking an elfie"!  These kids are so creative!  We even made our own stockings.  St. Nick found us and put a few treasures in the stockings!  And...an elf on the shelf has come to join us!  Her name is Samantha Snowbell! 

We even got Mrs. Gast to take a picture

Even Samantha Snowbell took an "elfie"!  :)

*Tuesday we are going on a field trip to NDA.  Please remember to return your permission slips.

*Please return your report card envelopes.

Have a great week!  :)

Weekly Spelling Lists -

Phonetic List - ng.nk words with a suffix
fangs
banks
sings
rinks
lungs
honks
hangs
sinks
wings
thanks

High-Frequency List - Trick Words - Words 71-80
no
make
than
first
been
its
who
now
people
my

Math - In math we worked on +1 math facts, counting to 100 by 1's, counting to 100 by 10's, counting backwards by 10's from 100 to 0, -1 math facts, covering the same shape with different pattern blocks, line segments, making basic bar graphs, and using the counting on method to add two numbers together.  We used our wrap-ups to work on +1 and -1 math facts.

Reading - All of the students have completed their second round of running records.  Wow!  The growth so far this year is amazing!  Raz Kids has been updated to show their new level.  To access Raz Kids at home, the students can go to our school Sqworl page.  

1.  Click on the Holy Cross Sqworl Page

2.  Click on Raz Kids

3.  If it asks for a teacher username, our class username is jsullivan100

4.  They find their name in the class list

5.  Their password is the apple symbol

Last week we finished up our Thanksgiving centers.  Now we are starting our Christmas 

centers!  

Religion - Virtue Cards - This year we will be learning about different virtues.  Every few weeks we will have a different theme.  The first theme we are working on is courtesy.  Each virtue card has a picture on the front to show the word.  Then it has what that word looks like and sounds like.  On the back of each virtue card is information about a saint and a prayer.  Each theme has its own prayer.  The courtesy prayer is - Dear Jesus, Help me to show respect towards others in my words, manners, and body language.  Amen.  So far with courtesy we have talked about listening to others, making eye contact, letting others speak first, giving your seat to someone who needs it, and letting others go first.  

With Advent starting on Sunday, we have started talking about Advent - waiting for Jesus!  We have an advent wreath in our classroom and we will be making our own Advent wreaths.  We learned about the Gospel in our Promise Paper.  Our Promise Paper also focused on the beginning of Advent.

Science - In science we learned about three different kinds of clouds.  We learned about cumulus, stratus, and cirrus clouds.  We reviewed the water cycle.  We made a great water cycle craft!

We watched a Magic School Bus episode about the water cycle called "Wet All Over".

Kindergarten and First Grade did a little reading together!  We worked on a reader's theater!  A reader's theater is when you bring the words to life!  :)  It's a short little play/performance.  We chose the reader's theater  - Pop! Pop!  Popcorn!  In this short reader's theater we talked about c-v-c words (consonant-vowel-consonant), question marks, exclamation points, palindromes (words that are spelled the same forward as backwards, AND onomatopoeia! (Words that make sounds)

First the nice class picture

Then a few silly pictures

And with our kindergarten friends

Enjoy a video of the reader's theater Pop! Pop! Popcorn!

Have a great week!