December

Our Grade One Newsletter

Special Events Sock Hop: Monday, December 12th in the gym 12:25-1:50 (proceeds go to the food bank). Entry fee is canned or boxed goods. Multi-age Christmas Morning: Thursday, December 15 Your child will be grouped with Kindergarten and Grade 2 students to participate in a series of Christmas-Themed activities (music, math, literacy and art). Holiday Fair: Friday, December 16 Your child will participate in a variety of fun holiday activities prepared by the Home and School. Christmas Concert: Monday, December 19th 9:00am (storm date Tuesday, December 20th) $1.00 charge with the proceeds going towards Harbour Lights. Last Day before Christmas Break (Half Day): Friday, December 23rd First Day Back: Tuesday, January 10th Skating: Skating will begin after Christmas holidays. It will take place on Tuesdays: Jan. 31st, Feb. 7th, 14th, 21st and 28th. *Skating is part of the NB curriculum and ALL children are required to take part. Sock Hop Multi-age Fair

To reach peace, teach peace.

Concert Storm Date

day

November

Literacy
READING: We are now learning comprehension strategies to be used when reading. Your child will be learning these two comprehension strategies: 1. Fix-up Bear Monitor and Fix-up: Think while you read to figure out when you dont understand. Use fix-up strategies to understand when you are reading (use the meaning clues, word clues and picture clues). 2. Rocky Racoon Visualize as you read!: Put pictures in your head as you read. See and think about the story like a movie going on in your head (What do the characters look like? The actions?) In addition to these comprehension strategies, we are still encouraging students to cross-check while reading. Does it look right? Does it sound right? Does it make sense? We will be continuing to add 5 new sight words a week to our word wall. We have also begun assessing students spelling of these words. Each Friday we will have a mini spelling test. WRITING: Your child has begun practicing Five Star Sentences. Your child must remember to include upper case letters, punctuation, finger spaces, and spell word wall words correctly while printing within the lines and spaces in order to gain 5 stars! We continue to focus on sequencing our writing and using proper conventions while writing.

Math Your child has been working on solving and creating word problems. You may want to help your child by asking him/her simple real life word problems whenever the opportunity arises. For example: 1. If you need five healthy snacks for the week and we are buying groceries for two weeks, how many snacks do we need to buy? 2. You had seven cars before Christmas and now you have ten, how many did you get for Christmas? 3. We had 12 cans of food and we gave 7 to the food bank, how many do we have left? Subtraction can be take awayas in problem number three above; or subtraction can be comparison for example: I have 5 and you have 7, how many more do you have than me? It is important that your child be exposed to both types of subtraction problems. Estimation is a very important mathematical skill. It is imperative to the development of mental math skills. Your child will be estimating quantities to 20. You may wish to help your child develop this skill by asking such questions as: "How many candies/toys do you think are in that container?" Have your child count the items. Then ask, "Are there more or fewer than you predicted?"

Gym Your child has been participating in Cup Stacking activities in physical education. We are also happy to have Miss Michaud as our phyical education teacher on Thursdays.

Music The Grade One classes are preparing their songs for the upcoming Christmas Concert. Songs have been placed in Poetry Books for extra practice.

Interesting Website Reading: http://www.tutorin gfortots.com/popco rn-words.html

Scholastic Book Orders Attached, you will find a December Scholastic Book order form. There is no obligation to purchase these books; however, if you wish to place an order, please return your form with a cheque to Scholastic Canada Ltd. The order form will be due December 8th, in hopes that orders will be in before Christmas Holidays.