Pajama Day!

The students have reached their goal of filling up the warm fuzzy jar. Because of that we will get to have a pajama day here at school! We will have our pajama day on Thursday, February 6^th. The students may wear pajamas and slippers to school but please make sure they have some shoes to change in to for gym. Please leave any stuffed animals at home. Congratulations to the students for making their goal!!

Reader's Theater

Last week first graders practiced the play Looking for the Muffin Man, adopted from the song "The Muffin Man". Each student was assigned a role of either the Narrator, Girl, Boy, Man or Woman. The final performance was on Friday. Each group did an excellent job reading smoothly and using intonation when reading a question. Ask your child about their role!

212 Newsletter

Phonics:  Over the past couple weeks we have been focusing on long vowels that can be heard in cake, rope, and bike. This week our focus was on the open vowels, long o and long e which can be heard in the words buffalo and me. We practiced building different words with long vowel pattern and took a peer spelling test at the end of the week.

Reading: The past three weeks in reading we have been talking about the elements in a story which include: characters, setting, problem, and solution. We read the story The Little Red Hen and identified the story elements. We had a great discussion about the hen and why she does not share the bread at the end of the story. This week we practiced the reader’s theater story Looking for the Muffin Man adapted from the song “The Muffin Man”. We practiced using intonation and reading with expression.

Writing: We continue to focus on writing personal narratives. A personal narrative has a beginning, middle and end and always has a problem and resolution. Ask your child about some of the topics we have written about in our personal narratives.

Math: We have been learning about place value. We worked with cubes, longs, and flats to help understand place value, ask your child to explain these new terms. In math this week we did lots of comparing and contrasting of two digit numbers. Each student cut out a set of animal cards, which included the height and weight of various animals. We compared different animals to find out which animal weighted more. Students used base ten blocks to add larger two digit numbers together. We also talked about the symbols <, less than, >, more than, and =, equal to. The whole class caught on right away to the <, > symbols. We had fun turning the symbols into fish mouths, where the fish mouth always wants to eat the larger number. 

Gingerbread Man: The gingerbread man is still missing! We have received postcards of sightings of him throughout the United States. He has been seen in New York, Missouri, Arizona, and even Canada!

AIMS Web Test: Last week Friday was a whirl wind day of testing of both the Reading and Math AIMS web test. Everyone did a great job and put in their best effort. I was very impressed with how the class handled our flexible schedule for the day.

No School: Don’t forget -- no school next week Monday January, 20^th. 

Book Order Reminder

Just a reminder that our Scholastic book orders are due this Thursday January 16^th.  Please get the orders to me with a check or place your order online with our class activation code J4VKC.  Remember, if you place the order online the class gets free books! Thanks for all the orders, putting books in the hands of our children is the best way to improve their reading!  

All About Hearing Aids

Last week we had a guest join our class to help us learn about hearing aids and how they help people hear better. Jessica taught the class about what the inside of the ear looks like and how a hearing aid can help people with a hearing loss hear better. We learned that hearing aids come in all different colors including zebra print! Students were able to design their own hearing aids on a coloring sheet. Thanks again to Jessica for coming in and teaching us about hearing aids!

Family Game Night

Family Game Night is coming this Friday, January 17th, located in Sibley gym from 6:00-8:00pm.

Enjoy a FUN evening of playing board games with other Sibley Families!

*Try a game you haven't played before!

*Learn to play an exciting math game from one of the teachers!

*Join in one of our large group games!

*Some participants can win a lunch with Mr. Williams!

A slice of pizza and bottle of water for $1.00 from 6:00pm until gone!

Holiday Party

The Holiday party was a blast! The class had fun making reindeer ornaments and doing a candy cane relay. There were lots of laughs and giggles during the candy cane relay. We enjoyed some tasty snowman donuts. Thanks again to our parent volunteers for all of your help and for making it a great party!

Check out our cool reindeer ornaments!

In the candy cane relay students needed to pass a candy cane to each other without using their hands.