The 12th Month Starts out Strong

 After our 12 and a half school days in November, it felt good to have a full uninterrupted week to kick off December.  Thank you to everyone that was able to attend a Parent-Teacher Conference at the end of November.  Please reach out if you ever feel that you'd like to meet again during the school year.  

A big thank you also for all those that donated snacks to our classroom.  We have plenty to last for awhile now and I'll put out another request as we start to get low. From the District, for our Friday fruit/vegetable samplings we've enjoyed some pears, persimmons and pomegranate seeds.  In case you'd like to know more about PPS Nutrition Services, here's a link that includes daily breakfast and lunch menus.

Foundational Skills in Phonological Awareness and Literacy:  So far we've learned the names, sounds, and how to write almost all the letters in the alphabet.  By winter break we'll finish this Unit and move on to Unit 2 (4 weeks); short words, alphabet sequence, and uppercase letters. 

Our newest letters introduced in class include the lowercase l, h, k, v, w, x, y.  The k, v, w, x, and y can be tricky for some students because they require a diagonal slide which can be hard for early writers.  The "x" is also a fun letter to practice because it makes 2 sounds together; /k/ & /s/ and it often comes at the end of words or syllables.  We are learning the "w" sounds as "woo" and the "y" sound as "yee", but we've also talked about how "y" can do lots of different sounds.  Guessing games are great practice of the letter sounds in the car, at home, or at the park.  "Can you see anything that starts with the sound for "v"?...etc."  Students can also practice forming the letters in writing or using sand, paint, legos, or play dough. Have fun.

            

            

Our latest collection of wordless books, in which student look for things that start with various letter sounds, take place at museums.  Clay Army was the first in the series and now we've read Visit the Art Museum, Museum Cat, and we'll read Treasures of King Tut before winter break.  I'll send home the black and white collection of the last three stories for Winter Break to add to your child's collection.

        

We've finished Module 1, Our Five Senses and started Module 2, Once Upon a Farm (looking at elements that make good stories).  Our first two books are Farm Animals and Three Little Pigs.  We're studying the words/vocab/verbs, illustrations & photos, and classifying books as "storybooks" or "informational".  Click below to listen to them.

          

Math:  Our latest math learning includes learning about 3D shapes and their attributes.  We are counting and comparing faces, edges, and corners to see how items in the "real world" are shapes we can identify and name.  This is very introductory and students will get more practice in First Grade so we are also covering the name so 2D shapes for some of us who don't know them yet.  Here is a chart to show what we are learning, however we haven't learned the term "vertices". 

  Song with the 3D shapes

Next week we'll be using scales to talk about and explore the weight of objects.

Social Studies:  Throughout November we continued our study of Indigenous people of Oregon; a little about history, but mostly about current day. Our school was gifted the 9 flags of federally recognized tribes in Oregon State and they are hanging in our school auditorium.  We observed the flags and learned about some of the symbolism on several of the flags.  Students then thought about things that were important to them or their families to make their own flags.  They did a great job on these and they'll either go up on lockers soon or students will take them home.