December 12-16

Hard to believe we've started the third week of Advent already and have gotten to our pink candle on our advent wreath!  The students add a paper 'flame' to their individual wreaths that they made at the beginning of advent that are hanging on their lockers.  We're all anxiously waiting to celebrate the birth of Jesus! 

Here's what we'll be doing in school this week:

Language Arts:
Last week we started with our first word family!  How exciting!!!  We will continue to work with the -at word family this week.  We will also learn a new sight word: 'to'.  Our Alphafriend this week is Vinny Volcano and we'll learn all about the consonant Vv!  Now that we've started word families we've begun to talk about our 'helper letters', the vowels.  Use the words 'consonants' and 'vowels' when talking with your child at home about different letters. 
Our story will be "My Dad and I" and will focus on the friendship we find in our families.  We've been talking about friendship last week and will continue it through this week and next in all of our stories.  We've also discussed character, setting and plot/problem in stories and are continuing to do so when we read new stories.  Predicting is also something important to do to help understand and inquire about what's happening in the story.  Encourage your child to predict what may happen next while you read stories at home.

Math:
We're continuing with our numerals and number words!  Keep practicing these at home!  We'll continue to work with numerals 0-9 this week and with the number words 0-9!  Have them practice writing their numerals and number words at home...remember to remind them to start from the top when forming numbers and letters!

Religion:
We'll focus on the story of Jesus' birth and on learning about the Holy Family.  We'll compare the Holy Family with our family and become more familiar with this important bible story.  Later in the week we'll be making finger puppets for this story.  At home, encourage your child to retell the story of the birth of Jesus at home!
December 13th is also a special day this week...it is the feast day of St. Lucia.  We will be partnering up with the 2nd Grade to make special St. Lucia crowns and traditional biscuits as we celebrate and learn about this very special lady.  (She is also the patron saint of vision, she holds a special place in my heart for my gift of sight!)

Centers:
We will be having Centers on Monday and Wednesday.  Lisa (Hannah's mom) is scheduled for Monday, but I still have an opening for Wednesday afternoon.  Let me know if you're interested!

Other Partner Activities this week:
On Thursday we'll partner up with the 4th Grade and decorate gift bags for the Christmas Store!

That's all for now!!! Have a very wonderful and blessed week!
~Mrs. Westlund  =)