Dear Upcoming First Parents,

It is my pleasure to welcome you and your child to first grade at St. Joseph School!  My name is Stacey Biggins and I am the 1st grade teacher.  This will be my seventh full time year at St. Joseph’s Catholic School and I could not be more excited to teach this wonderful upcoming first grade class! I also look forward to meeting all of you at first grade's Back to School First Grade Parent meeting on August 16th, 2018 at 6:00 pm.

As you prepare for first grade, please refer to our classroom’s supply list below. I have also included a list of supplies for art class that your child will need in addition to the supplies needed in the classroom. Please label your child’s supplies with a Sharpie marker or name labels.  It is very helpful to have every marker, crayon, glue stick, etc. labeled as students will manage their own supplies.  It is also helpful if you can send replacement supplies in from time to time, mostly new pencils. When you send your child to school, please have the art supplies in the art tote already, so they do not get mixed up with the classroom supplies.

Classroom Supply List
1 box of crayons (no higher than 24 count)
5 sharpened pencils
1 large eraser
2 glue sticks
2 two-pocket folders
1 backpack or school bag
1 pencil case or box
1 coloring book 
1 container of disinfectant wipes
1 box of tissues
 
Mrs. Fagnani’s Art Supply List    
1 tote bag (approximately 12 x 16)
1 box (24 count) of crayons
1 art shirt (pull-over)
1 box of colored pencils
1 box of fat classic colored markers
4 glue sticks
4 pencils
1 eraser
1 box of tissues
1 package of baby wipes

Copy books and journals will be provide by the school. Should you have any questions, comments, concerns, or suggestions, please feel free to contact me at any time! You can reach me by calling the office at 717-632-0118 or emailing me at sbiggins@sjshanover.org. May God bless you and keep you and your family safe for the summer!

With anticipation for a very blessed school year, 
Mrs. Stacey Biggins

We have been having a lot of fun during the last few weeks of school. We finished our math books and phonics lessons with a week to go, so we spent the last week doing lots of fun science projects. We had toads and frogs and learned the different between the two. We learned how to tell if a toad is male or female. We did several magnet experiments and learned a lot about what we can do and what we can't do with magnets. We also had an ice cream party to celebrate reaching 20,000 minutes in our reading logs. We have been having a lot of fun!

The last day of school is Tuesday, May 29th. We will have Mass at 8:30. Then we will go back to the classroom until dismissal at 11:45. The students will be given their final report cards before we dismiss. We will have morning snack and recess, so students should bring a snack. 

Our last mystery reader actually scheduled her date to read to us near the beginning of the school year. And the day came, but so did the snow and we ended up leaving school early that day, so no mystery reader. But the second time was a charm and she came in and read "As an Oak Tree Grows" by G. Brian Karas. This book talks about how the world has changed over the past 200 years in the eyes of an old oak tree. It shows many changes from people, to transportation, to animal habitats, and modes of energy. Then our reader handed out baby pine trees for everyone to plant in honor of Earth Day. What a fun way to wrap up a great program! Thanks to all my mystery readers! This is probably the first year I've had someone come in for each and every student in my class! We had moms, dads, siblings, aunts, and grandparents! You did a beautiful job!

We have been doing a lot of fun things in addition to learning time, measurement, fractions, prefixes, adjectives, and the life cycle of frogs. We continue to review our phonics rules, addition and subtraction, and sentence-writing through practice, worksheets, and games. We are learning how Jesus lived his life on Earth and how we can do our best to live like Jesus. We are doing our end of the year testing, enjoying some time outside, and counting down our days to summer! The Race for Education and Water Fun Day are just two of our recent events that were so much fun! Field trip pictures will follow soon! 

We've had some really fun mystery readers over the past few weeks! First we had Far Flutterby by Karen Kingbury, a wonderful story of a caterpillar that dreams of a wonderful place and through patience, struggle, and God's good works, he finds his dream. Then we had Pete the Cat's Big Easter Adventure by James and Kimberly Dean read to us. This story is about Pete the Cat putting on bunny ears and helping the Easter Bunny Easter morning. The next week, we had The Jolly Postman or Other People's Letters by Janet and Allan Ahlberg read to us. It is an entertaining book following a mailman delivering letters by bicycle to famous story characters, such as Cinderella and the Big Bad Wolf. Each section of the book had an envelope with the letter to be read. Then we had a book read to us titled Antoinette (Gaston and friends) by Kelly DiPucchio. It was a cute book about a family of bulldogs and a lone poodle. The poodle knew the bulldogs all had talents, but had trouble finding her own talent until one of the dogs went missing and it was Antoinette that persevered to find her friend and found her own talents in the process. The last book we had read to us was Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus by Mo Willems. In this hilarious story, a pigeon wants to drive the bus for a bus driver who takes a break and he repeatedly gets turned down. With these great stories, we had treats, surprises and we even made pigeons. (Pictures are below the following upcoming events.)
Monday, May 7th:  Water fun day (Students should wear gym clothes.)
Wednesday, May 9th: Field trip to Pinchot State Park (Students can dress down and they should wear sneakers - no flip flops or sandals!)
Thursday, May 10th;  Ascension Thursday Mass; Moms and Muffins   
Wednesday, May 16th:  Field Day 
Thursday, May 17th: Pro-life t-shirt day; Pro-life tee may be worn with uniform pants
Monday, May 28th:  No school
Tuesday, May 29th:  Last day of school; (Mass at 8:30; Dismissal at 11:45)

We have been learning so much in science class in the past few months. We've been doing hands-on experiments with states of matter. We observed and recorded differences in balloons filled with gas, liquid, and solids. We made an oobleck to help us understand suspensions. We've microwaved Ivory soap to help us understand that there were water molecules in the soap and what happens to that water when it is heated up. Ms. Beth, the Environmental Education Specialist for Pinchot State Park, came to school and taught us about some of the animals we see in our local environment. She will be teaching us more in May, when we visit her on our field trip to Pinchot State Park.  Over the next few weeks, we will be doing more in science, learning about the water cycle and the life cycle of some of our local critters. Enjoy the slideshow below of some science fun!

Here are a few dates of upcoming events:
March 28: Early dismissal 11:45 a.m.
March 29 to April 1: NO SCHOOL Easter Break
April 2: Snow make-up day
​April 2: Flat Stanleys will mail
April 12: Progress Reports will be sent home
April 20: Race for Education
May 4: Star Wars Day
May 9: First Grade field trip
May 16: Field Day

We've had some great mystery readers in the past month! First, the Day the Crayons Quit by Drew Daywalt was read to the students. It's a cute story about a little boy's crayons going on strike because they all want to play a different role in coloring. The students laughed often, especially when the peach crayon was "naked". Second, Tacky and the Winter Games by Helen Lester was read to the students. This story is about a penguin, who, with his friends, tries to qualify for the winter olympics. Each attempt at a winter sport, Tacky and his friends do something wild and funny, but in the end, the love and joy of playing sports comes through. Last, Betty Lou Blue by Nancy Crocker was a great book that teaches an important lesson. She gets picked on because of her big feet, until the kids get trapped in a snow drift and Betty Lou Blue becomes the hero thanks to her feet! 

First grade is learning a lot and having a lot of fun doing it. Ms. Pam planned our winter carnival, lots of parents came in to help, and the first grade scored lots of great prizes! In addition to the winter carnival, we've been learning about Lent and living by Jesus' example, learning place value in math, and practicing writing personal narratives. In phonics, we are learning the dropping rule when adding suffixes and irregular spelling of words with vowel digraphs such as ea. We are reviewing sentence rules every day, such as punctuation and capitalization. We are doing weekly math fact worksheets on Tuesdays to help highlight where each student needs practice. Memorizing math facts with answers up to 20 will help the students transition to 2-digit math. We finished our mid-year testing and we are making great strides as a class! 

Here are a few important dates coming up:
March 2:  Mass at 8:30 a.m.
March 7:  Report cards will be sent home.
March 19:  St. Joseph's Day Mass 8:30 a.m. (First grade will be doing the readings.)
March 28:  Early dismissal 11:45 a.m.
March 29-April 1:  Easter Break
April 2:  Snow make-up day

Catholic Schools Week was a lot of fun for first grade! Our school theme was St. Joseph goes for the gold. On Monday, we celebrated the USA by wearing red, white, and blue and we made cards for community helpers. This year we made cards for my oncologist, while second and third graders made cards for local firemen and police officers. On Tuesday, we dressed in spirit wear, received a soft pretzel snack, and had no homework. On Wednesday, we had our Jump Rope for Heart, which we did with our prayer partners. On Thursday, we had our school olympics where students did relays and other games mimicking the Winter Olympics. First grade did the skeleton races. Then we had lunch with our parents. Friday, we ended our week with school Mass, an open house, and an afternoon of board games with our prayers partners. Throughout the week, each class picked a country to learn about. We picked Indonesia, as one of our first grade parents is from Indonesia. She helped me teach the class about Indonesia by making three different finger foods from Indonesia for the kids to taste, giving us Indonesian money to explore and compare to our money, and lending us a flag. We learned a lot this week and had tons of fun doing it!