FIRST GRADE FEBRUARY MCMONTHLY NEWS

THEME

Incredibly, the 100th day of school should arrive on Thursday, February 4th!  This month is filled with holiday celebrations and theme awareness such as Chinese New Year, Groundhog Day, Force and Motion/Shadows, the 100th Day, Valentine's Day, and Presidents' Day.  We don't know how we're going to squish in vacation!

LANGUAGE ARTS

We continue to learn long vowel sounds that are spelling in many different ways and review short vowel sounds.  We continue to increase our sight vocabulary!  Our confidence in spelling new words will help us as we continue to do more non-fiction story writing!  We are excited to have our "How-To" Writers' Celebration very soon.  We realized that we are experts at many activities!  Next focus:  "All About" stories.   (We know a lot about many things, so that should be exciting!)

* Special Note:  If your child wishes to do a very brief "how-to" video, feel free to film them and send their creation to me via email, camera, flash drive, etc.  I will try my best to post to our class blog.  We have learned that "acting out" helps us put more details in our writing, so this is a terrific form of encouragement.  (No pressure though!)

MATH

We have beeen working hard to investigate how numbers go together in fact families.  We will soon return to place value to help us make sense of some big numbers!  We will also study 3-D objects to understand geometry and measurement.

BIRTHDAYS

No February birthdays

REMINDERS

Mon., Feb 1:           100th Day goodies due

Wed., Feb. 3:          Enrichment Program
Shadows With High Touch/High Tech

Thurs., Feb. 4:         100th Day of School
100th Day goodies from kindergarten & first grade picked up

Fri., Feb. 5:             Scholastic Orders Due

Fri., Feb. 5:             Superbowl Spirit Day
Wear your favorite team/sport jersey or Ox Ridge colors/gear

Thurs., Feb. 11:       Chinese New Year celebration

Fri., Feb. 12:            Valentine celebration

Feb. 15 - 19:            Presidents Week/Vacation

Fri., Feb. 26:            2nd marking period ends

Feb. 1 - 26:             Daffodil Drive (Delivery March 22nd)

SPECIAL NOTES

• 
  
  Please remember to include all your classmates when you make/write your Valentines!
• 
  
  With the chilly/snowy weather, please label all cold weather gear and send to school with your child in some kind of "snow gear bag."  Thank you for helping the children stay organized with their belongings!
• 
  
  Thank you for your support and for encouraging your child with Acts of Kindness in honor of the Nivrose family in Haiti.
• 
  
  Thank you for helping to support our local Person-to-Person organization for the 100th Day.  The students' donations will add up to just around 100 cookies to go along with the goodies brought in by the other K/1 classes - definitely a nice treat for families in need!
• 
  
  Thank you for your support in sending in the "Box Tops for Education."  Please keep them coming!
• 
  
  Thank you for your support in this month's Daffodil Drive for the American Cancer Society!
• 
  
  We were lucky to have Christine Wood and Andrea Warble present a terrific environmental/recycle program sponsored by the DAEG the last week of January.  Thanks!  The students are excited to care for their environment way before the arrival of Earth Day.
• 
  
  Thanks to Annie and John Lucak for hosting this month's Chinese New Year celebration!
• 
  
  Continued thanks to our Room Moms, Christina Passaretti and Brooke Kennedy, and for all Volunteers!
• 
  
  In our new class blog, the web site that sponsored the fancy fish clock was responsible for a pop-up in late January that said "Make a donation."  Please excuse any confusion it caused.  It has now been removed.
• Basic information in our class blog:  http://www.mrsmcgettigan.blogspot.com/

JANUARY WORDS

did

do

going

into

know

must

new

no

now

old

open

over

so

some

soon

those

too

use

will

with