We had some mystery reader fun and some St. Patrick's Day fun in first grade! The Wonkey Donkey by Craig Smith was read to the students. It is a hilarious story about a three-legged donkey. The use of adjectives in the story had the students cracking up laughing. Some important upcoming dates are below. 
March 19th: St. Joseph's Day Mass at 8:30
April 5th: Race for Education
April 17th: Early Dismissal
April 18th - 21st: Easter Break
April 23rd: Underwater Science Assembly
April 26th: SJS Golf Tournament
April 30th: Field Trip to the Whitaker Center

We have had a busy, but fun February. First, we celebrated the 100th day of school. Then Ms. Pam planned an awesome winter carnival for the students with games, prizes, cotton candy, and popcorn. Then we had a Valentines Day Party in the classroom with more games and treats. And in honor of Oral Hygiene month, we had a guest come in and read a story, talk about good oral hygiene, and she gave some awesome gifts to the students to help them take care of their teeth. Below you will see some pictures of winter carnival fun, some of the fun we have when stuck inside for recess, and our work and experiments done to help us learn good oral hygiene. Some important upcoming dates are: 
March 6th: Ash Wednesday Mass at 8:30
March 13th: Report cards sent home
March 15th: Mega Shambuck Party
March 19th: Feast Day of St. Joseph Mass 8:30 (first graders lead Mass)
April 5th: Race for Education

We had such an exciting Catholic Schools Week! From the opening Mass, to the Jump Rope for Heart, to gym games, and super hero games with our prayer partners, we had a great time all week! Then the fun continued today when we celebrated the 100th day of school! Below are some important upcoming dates:
Feb. 13:  Sub Sale pickup in church library 
Feb. 14:  Winter Carnival and Valentine's Day party; If your child wants to bring in a Valentine for each of their classmates, they will be able to hand them out at the Valentine's Day party
Feb. 15-18:  No school
​Feb. 16: Daddy/Daughter Dance 

Catholic Schools Week is upon us! The following is our schedule:
January 27th: Opening Mass 9:00 am
January 28th: First grade will make cards to thank our local firefighters.
January 29th: Dress down in our favorite superhero t-shirts; Students will receive a soft pretzel snack at school from the Home and School Association; No homework!
January 30th: Dress down in spirit wear; Please wear sneakers and comfortable clothing for the Jump Rope for Heart; Students will participate in the Jump Rope for Heart; Students will attend a pep rally in the afternoon.
January 31st: Wear gym uniforms with silly socks; Students will participate in gym games; Parent lunch will begin at 12:00; Family skating party at Magic Elm will be held from 6:00 to 8:00.
February 1st: Students will make thank you cards for our priests and deacons. Closing Mass will start at 8;30, followed by an open house for prospective families from 9;30 to 10:30. First grade will have superhero fun with their prayer partners in the afternoon.

The 100th day of school happens to land in the middle of Catholic Schools Week this year.  I love to celebrate the 100th day, but I am going to wait to celebrate till Monday, February 4th, since we already have lots of fun scheduled for Catholic Schools Week. For the 100th day of school, I would like all students to collect and bring in 100 of something small. 

After lots of Christmas fun and hopefully a relaxing Christmas break, we have returned to school ready to jump right back into work! We are learning about animals migrating, hibernating, and adapting. We are doing fact families in math and final stable syllables in phonics. We are doing writing practice using adjectives and details. And most importantly, we are reading! Students should be reading at least 50 minutes a week for their reading logs. At this point in the year, the students should be doing a large majority of the reading, if not all the reading. Students should also be memorizing their math facts with answers up to 20. Here are some important upcoming dates:
January 5th: Open house from 10:00 am to noon for new families
January 9th: School Mass at 8:30
January 16th: Progress Reports
January 21st: No school for Martin Luther King, Jr. Day
January 27th to February 1st: Catholic Schools Week (more details will be sent home soon)

We had two great mystery readers this month. The first read The Invisible Boy by Trudy Ludwig. The book is about a boy named Brian that no one notices in school and is left out by everyone, until a new boy comes to school. The book explains how small acts of kindness can make someone else feel full of color, complete, included and loved. Then the students had a snack and did an exercise practicing how they can "fill" one another with color. The second reader this month read Dino-Christmas by Lisa Wheeler, a story that walks us through a dinosaur Christmas, complete with a snowball fight. Our readers then gave out a sports ball to all of the students, since Dino-Christmas is part of a series of books about dinosaurs playing sports. They also provided indoor snowballs for all of us to have a very big snowball fight in the gym. It was tons of fun! 

Also, below, are pictures of our candy canes left by St. Nicholas in our shoes, Christmas show pictures, and more Christmas fun. Please see the previous post for the December schedule of events. 

Mrs. Oliver has started a wonderful new behavior reward system at school. Each student gets a mega-shambuck at the beginning of the trimester. If they have any "bucks" left on their mega-shambuck card at the end of the trimester, they get to go to the mega-shambucks party. The first trimester's party was a country-western theme, complete with line dances, snacks, drinks, and even square dancing (Mrs. Bortner taught the students square dancing in gym). It was so much fun! We also met with our fourth grade prayer partners in November and made a blessings trail mix, watched Peanuts Thanksgiving, and got to know one another. Here are some things we will be doing in December:
December 5th: Report card distribution
December 6th: St. Nicholas Day
December 10th: Christmas Program at 6:30 in the social hall
December 21st: Early dismissal at 11:45 to start Christmas break; We will have our classroom Christmas party this day if anyone would like to send in a snack, please let me know. 
January 3rd: Welcome back to school! 

We had some great mystery readers help us celebrate Thanksgiving. First, our guests read How to Catch a Turkey by Adam Wallace. The story is about a turkey running loose in a school before Thanksgiving and he gets himself into some funny situations. They then shared some turkey lollipops with everyone. The readers got many laughs from this story. Our next mystery reader read a nonfiction selection called Thanksgiving is... by Gail Gibbons. The book told us all about Thanksgiving, it's history, the way we celebrate it today, and how we should be thankful for all our blessings. Our reader then gave each student a kit to make their own turkey and a snack. They loved making a craft to take home! We, in first grade, are thankful for our mystery readers! 

First grade has been learning a lot and having a lot of fun! We enjoyed Halloween games, treats, and a movie on Halloween day. We registered to vote and voted for the governor of Pennsylvania. We celebrated our fundraising success, with our top 3 sellers getting prizes. In addition to all of the fun, we're learning a lot and I can already see a huge improvement in reading levels across the whole class. We're reading and spelling words with digraphs, blends, sneaky e, and suffixes. We're working on sentence writing, using interesting details. We are studying nouns, verbs, and adjectives. In math, we have moved back to addition, this time with answers from 10 to 20. In social studies, we've been learning about Columbus and early America. We will continue learning about early America with our study of Thanksgiving. Here are some important upcoming dates:
November 12: Veterans Day Mass and program
November 16: End of First Trimester; Dress down for a donation of $1 or more for hurricane relief
November 20: Early Dismissal 11:45; Dress down for a donation of $1 or more for hurricane relief
November 21 - November 26: No school - Happy Thanksgiving! 
November 27 - 29: Secret Santa shop
November 30: Mega Shambucks Party (so far, all first graders are still eligible for the party!)

We had some great Halloween mystery readers in the past few weeks. First, we enjoyed Corduroy's Best Halloween Ever by Don Freeman. In this adorable story, Corduroy and his friends are preparing for a Halloween party but Corduroy is having a hard time deciding what costume to where. Our next reader read The Ghosts go Haunting by Helen Ketteman, where ghosts and witches and other scary creatures haunted a school. The verses in the story were written to the tune of the Ants go Marching, making it a fun read! After the books, our guests shared snacks and bags of treats for the students. The students are really enjoying the mystery reader program so far!
(Please scroll down to see important dates coming up and previous posts.)