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