Dear Parents,

Though my letter home yesterday was short, the blog today will be long!  I have lots to share! 

We started our day, reviewing our spelling words.  Then the kids created a word search with their spelling words, which I will solve.  Some of them were wanting to be super tricky and spent a lot of time on their word searches...I love it!

In Religion we reviewed the 10 Commandments that God gave Moses to share with the Israelites… and us.  We talked about WHY God gave us those 10 Commandments and what He wants us to do when we break those Commandments.  Each firstie made a little booklet as a reminder of why we confess our sins and the fact that God sent Jesus to die on the cross in our place.  Ask your firstie to share this with you!

Coming home to you today is a bag of sweet potatoes from the Trinity Community Garden (All hand-washed and ready to go!).

 

The firsties from last year planted them and they were harvested on Friday.  I am sending them home for you to use!  If you know that, FOR SURE, no one in your family likes sweet potatoes, please pass them on to someone else that would be able to use them.  If your firstie likes them or hasn’t tried them yet, please include your firstie in the preparation of the sweet potatoes; fry them, bake them, make mashed sweet potatoes, wedge them (That is what I like to do with them….YUM!), etc…and take a picture of your firstie helping in the prep (and then send me the picture!).  I am looking forward to seeing how those “home grown” sweet potatoes are prepared! (You can send the pictures via text if you'd like! :) )

Our mission for the month of November is the City of Hope Rescue Mission and we are collecting toilet paper for them.  If you are able, please send a roll or two of packaged toilet paper to add to our “tower” of toilet paper in the hallway by the gym.  Thank you!

Today we also received our first pen pal letters! 

A college friend of mine that I reconnected with at our LEA conference last year also teaches first grade and wanted to know if we could have our classes write to each other.  Of course, I said YES! Mrs. Scott and her firsties are at a Lutheran school in Fort Wayne.  The firsties were SO excited to receive and read their letters.  Something that I observed though, was that a couple of kids had a hard time reading their pen letters because the letters were a little sloppy…..hmm…..handwriting DOES matter in the real world?!?! We are going to work on answering the letters over the next couple of weeks. 

Below are the pictures of the entries for the “Hide the Tom the Turkey” contest….everyone did a fantastic job! Thank you to those who participated. Winners will be announced next week! What will be won???  It’s a surprise! 

Blessings on the rest of your evening!

Miss Gallagher

Dear Parents,

I’m having a hard time believing that it is already November…..are you? Although it is certainly much colder outside, so at least it FEELS like November.  But all of a sudden, the leaves on the trees at my house, decided to come down yesterday while I was at school….like ALL of THEM! What a mess….lol!

Yesterday, the firsties were playing at recess, and they were trying to make a leaf pile big enough to jump into it.  It was so funny, watching their thought processes play out and how they were agreeing to get this great task of a BIG leaf pile, accomplished.  At first, when they started out, they were scooping up armfuls of leaves and running over to the where the pile had been started.  But then a few of them realized that while they were running, they were dropping too many leaves, or the leaves were flying out of their hands.  So then a few got some pails from the sandbox, and filled those up with leaves.  Some realized that they could gather the leaves that were closer to the pile, rather than traveling so far….Below are a few pictures of their efforts!  

Because we are into our new month, the choices for their behavior calendar rewards were chosen at the beginning of the week, and some of the students used their rewards already…  Alaina got to sit at my desk on Wednesday!  Such fun!

Don’t forget that if you are participating in the “Hide the Tom the Turkey” challenge,they are due tomorrow (Friday, November 10^th).  There are already a few hanging up on the windows by the front doors; check them out! 

In honor of Veteran’s Day tomorrow, students are asked to wear red, white, and blue.  Don’t forget that tomorrow is a half day and that dismissal is at 11:30.  See you tomorrow!

Memory test and spelling test tomorrow!  Please help your firstie prepare for them! 

Blessings on your evening!

Dear Parents,

In Religion, we are learning about what the Israelites did when they were freed from Egypt.  Ask your firstie if the Israelites complained or grumbled and if so, what did God do about it?  It is always interesting to me when the kids find out about all of the Egyptians’ complaints….they are usually flabbergasted!  The firsties can’t believe that after being freed from slavery in Egypt, the Israelites would want to go back!  But then we discussed how WE are really no different from the Israelites.  God takes care of us and gives us all that we need…. and yet we complain.  In the Lord’s Prayer, we ask God “to give us this day our daily bread”, and He does!  He blesses us with all that need, and we can praise and thank Him for that. 

We are still plugging away at Math and practicing our addition and subtraction sentences (and how they can be related).  I usually discourage the firsties from using their fingers because I don’t want them to rely on their fingers.  We are learning how to use our number lines, do mental math, and use prior knowledge of doubles to help us with adding and subracting.  Please encourage these practices at home as well!  You can make your own number lines for home, or if you would like me to send an extra one home, let me know and I would be happy to do so! Also, If you have an ipad, there are a few apps that are free for your firstie to get in some extra practice.  One that we use is called Hungry Fish.  Another one is a website called Moby Max, which is also free and another way to practice different math concepts and facts.  

Just to clarify, parents are warmly invited to our Veteran’s Day program in the gym at 8:15am, but the breakfast prior to the program is for our honored veterans and their guests.  Hope to see you at the program!  

The memory work for this week is the theme verse for this month.  It is a little tricky and long, so I split it up into two parts.  Please help your firstie since it is a little more difficult….however, because it IS our theme verse for November, it is said every morning as a part of the announcements, so the firsties will be hearing it throughout the month. 

Blessings on this shortened week!  Know that you are in my prayers, all the time!
Miss Gallagher