Weekly Spelling Lists -

Phonetic List - R-Controlled Vowels
star, corn, her, third, turn, far, born, jar, bird, torn

High-Frequency List - Tricks Words - Words 91-100
long, little, very, after, words, called, just, where, most, know

Reading - Our word work center is working on compound words.  Compound words are words that have 2 smaller words inside of them.  For instance rain+bow=rainbow and foot+ball =football.  As always, there are a lot of choices.  The students have puzzle games, matching cards, making compound word flap books, and compound word snowmen just to name a few.  During daily 5 the students are either meeting with me in small reading groups or working in one of the five centers.

Making compound word snowmen

Work on Writing

Compound Word Snowmen

Matching words on eggs to make compound words

Science - We are starting a new Einstein kit.  It is called solids and liquids.  Last week we investigated the first two solids - the spoon and the ball.  This week we are going to investigate and observe all 20 solids.

Writing - We worked on a New Years writing sheet.  I'll have to snap some pictures to show are great they turned out.  This week we are also going to add to our writing.  We have been working on writing numerous ways in daily 5.  We're going to add writer's workshop into the mix this week.  I'll explain more as we get into it later this week.  It's going to be so much fun!  :)

Religion - We will be starting a new virtue card - Generosity.  This week in our Religion book we'll be learning about Jesus' apostles.

Read-Aloud - We have been reading from The Magic TreeHouse series.  We just finished book 1 - Dinosaurs Before Dark.  We are now starting #2 - The Knight at Dawn.

Thank you again for all of the cards, Scrip, notes, gifts, etc. at Christmas.  I am truly blessed here at Holy Cross!  Christmas and vacation went by so quickly!  It was a relaxing and fun break!  This week we'll get back into the swing of things.  Have a great week!  :)

The first grade class did another amazing job at mass this morning!  I am so proud of how well they did!  I tried to get a picture of everyone at mass.  Here are all the pictures -

After mass we had a dog race.  The classes earned a dog by participating in our fundraiser.  The class whose dog won the race won a pizza party.  Our dog Fuzzy gave it a great try, but he came in second place.  The sixth graders won the pizza party.

After morning recess we had an awesome Christmas party!  Thank you to Miles' mom, Mrs. Jilg, for organizing everything!  The kids made beautiful ornaments, wrapped their friends in toilet paper to make them into snowmen, and ate some snacks.  They had a great time!

 Luke is very enthusiastic about picking up the toilet paper.  :)

Rudolph!

This morning we finished our Jesse Tree.  We read the last Bible story and we added the star to the top of our Jesse Tree.  It was fun listening to a Bible story each morning.

The first graders have been very busy crafting this week!  In these bags are amazing treasures!  They were so excited to make these crafts and put them under your Christmas trees!  (PS - Their gifts turned out so beautiful!)

Thank you to Calla - She bought a Christmas present for Samantha Snowbell.  That sneaky elf changed into her outfit when no one was in the room.  I snapped a picture to share with you.  She'll be heading back to the North Pole.  We can't wait to see her again next year!  :)

Thank you so much for all the Christmas cards, scrip, presents, and your presence.  :)  I am truly blessed to be a part of the Holy Cross community!  It is a very special place!  Enjoy family, friends, and fun this vacation!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

This week we will not have a spelling list.  :)

Reading - We continue to work in daily 5 reading groups and centers.  The kids are loving the Christmas centers.  One of the favorites right now is Christmas sticker stories.  The students draw a picture and may use up to 5 Christmas stickers on their drawing.  Then they write about their drawing!  They have been doing such an amazing job on this that we shared our stories with kindergarten!  :)  We read the book and sang the song of "The 12 Days of Christmas".  We then made our own version of the song.  It's typed out and made into a book.  They are currently working on illustrating.  We also read a little book called "Is It Christmas Yet?"  We've been working on reading it as a chorale reading.  We'll be sharing our book with other classes this week. 

Math - In math we worked on even and odd numbers, telling time to the :00 and :30 (mostly - with the other times being worked on slowly as well), working with pennies and dimes, and symmetry.  We did a fun activity with symmetry where we put a ruler down.  Then we used pattern blocks.  If a pattern block was used on one side of the ruler it then had to be used on the other side of the ruler to show symmetry.  The creations were awesome!

Religion - We have a Jesse Tree in our classroom.  Each day we read a Bible story and add another section to our tree.  On Friday our tree will be complete.  We added a third flame to our Advent wreath.  This week we light the pink candle - the joy candle.  We ran out of time on Friday to work on our Promise Paper so we will be doing that on Monday.  This week we are going to read the Christmas story out of the Children's Bible.  We will also be practicing a lot for our mass this week.  :)  We also have a new word from our virtue cards.  Our new word is gratitude.  Each morning we go over two cards that talk about gratitude.  Then we learn about a saint.  We end by saying a prayer.  We put all the prayers together - the prayer for courtesy, respect, and now gratitude.

Our Jesse Tree - five more days to go until our tree is complete!

Phonics - We are learning about consonant blends.  We are also starting to learn about r-controlled vowels.  So far we have learned about -ar and -or.  (ar - car, or - horn)

Science - We finished up our weather unit with an awesome guest speaker - meteorologist Steve Beylon from WBAY Channel 2.  He was great!  He read a story, talked about tornadoes, the water cycle, types of clouds, thunderstorms, weather safety, and other topics too!  The kids loved it!  After our presentation we had some yummy weather cookies and took some pictures.  He will be showing the pictures on the news on Tuesday, December 18th.  The class will be on the news at 4:38am , 5:08am , 5:38am, 6:08am, and 6:38am.  

Reading the story Freddy The Frogcaster And The Big Blizzard

Talking about how spaghetti dinner is like a thunderstorm.

Mr. Beylon even took a silly picture with our door

This is going to be a busy week.  Monday we will start the day in the gym with an Advent prayer service.  Wednesday afternoon we will celebrate las posadas.  Friday we have our mass.  Later Friday morning we will have a classroom Christmas party.  Friday afternoon each class will be showing a movie.  The students decided which movie they are going to see this week.  

Have a great week!  :)