O Come, O Come Emmanuel

December is upon us, and that means celebrating and learning about the richness and beauty of the liturgical season that is ADVENT. In first grade, we will learn about Advent through the creation of an Advent lap book where we will understand the meaning of the 4 candles:

The wreath's symbolism of the Advent (coming) of Light into the world is clear. The gradual lighting of the four candles, one on each Sunday of the Advent season, combined with the liturgical colors of the candles (purple is the penitential color used during Advent and Lent; rose is a liturgical color used only on Gaudete Sunday in Advent and Laetare Sunday in Lent) help to symbolize not only our expectation and hope in Our Savior's first coming into the world, but also in his Second Coming as Judge at the end of the world. Our books will be assembled in the order of: HOPE, PEACE, JOY, LOVE.

The progressive lighting of the candles symbolizes the expectation and hope surrounding our Lord’s first coming into the world and the anticipation of his second coming to judge the living and the dead. As we "light" each of our candles in our lap books, we will read stories, watch videos, write and create special representations for HOPE, PEACE, JOY, LOVE. Our Advent lap books will come home on December 18th. I hope it becomes a beautiful keepsake to be enjoyed year after year.

'Tis the season for all things bright and beautiful, and first grade at St. Mary's school is FULL of special activities and events. Please mark your calendar for the following important dates!

1) TOMORROW! 12/4 - Holiday Bazaar - Please send money in the shopping envelope provided last week if you would like your child to shop at our holiday bazaar tomorrow. We will be shopping at 9:30AM in the Main Hall if you would like to join us for the fun - just sign in at the front office. *It's also crazy sock day tomorrow! Your child may wear any fun socks they'd like tomorrow. :)

2) This Thursday 12/6 - Field Trip for Shrek the Musical at the Marriott Lincolnshire -Please pack a regular snack and lunch; we will field trip in the morning and eat lunch upon our return. Just a heads-up for those ordering hot lunch: The Quest website says 1st & 2nd grade field trip on Wednesday (this is wrong!). Please check the status of your hot lunch order.

3) Friday 12/14 - 1st and 2nd Grade Advent Musical at 1:30PM in Church - Come watch the first and second graders perform the annual Advent Musical. Your child will need to wear dressy black and white outfits (traditional "choir colors") unless they are assigned a part that requires a costume. I will email parents directly with instructions for these students.

4) Tuesday 12/18 during lunch - Cocoa and Cookie Sale - Students in grades 1-8 may buy cocoa and cookies during their lunch. Every item will be sold for $1 each.

5) Wednesday 12/19 - 1st Grade Christmas Party - If you would like to contribute to our holiday fun, please CLICK HERE. We will join our 7th grade Mass Mates to watch the Polar Express together, snack on popcorn and hot chocolate, and make a jingle bell keepsake. Principal. Strutzel has asked us NOT to wear PJs on this day; instead, it will be a Christmas Top Day - Red, green shirts, sweatshirts or Christmas themed shirts on top, uniform on the bottom.  Students may bring pillows and blankets for the movie.

We will be reading tons of wonderful literature this month; there's so much to enjoy right now! As we prepare our hearts for Advent, we'll reflect on The Sparkle Box story, where a little boy learns about giving, kindness, and love. Students will write about living this story in their own Advent journeys. We've written a poem about preparing our hearts for Jesus and colored a quilt to cover the baby Jesus. We have already read fiction and non-fiction stories about reindeer and completed a "directed draw" on Rudolph. These are all hanging in the hall! We are also learning about Elves and learned how to write letters when we drafted a letter to Santa. We'll continue our letter writing skills with our class "furry friend" - Scruffy the Dog. St. Andrew, St. Nicholas, St. San Juan Diego, Our Lady of Guadalupe, and St. Lucia will round out our saint studies this month. We'll also learn about the Legend of the Poinsettia.

This week first graders take the Unit 2 assessment in reading and the Unit 4 assessment in math; in addition, we have moved on to Unit 3 - Lesson 11 in reading and Unit 5 in math. We'll dive in to base-10 blocks, greater than/less than, turn around facts and fact families (which we practice daily with Rocket Math, too!), +0 and +1. Hopefully we'll be ready to take our Unit 5 assessment prior to Christmas break.

I would like to wish each of you an Advent filled with quiet anticipation. If Christ is going to come again into our hearts, there must be repentance. Without repentance, our hearts will be so full of wordly things that there will be 'no room in the inn' for Christ to be born again. Our joy is a joy of anticipation...As Edward Hays so beautifully says, "Take time to be aware that in the very midst of our busy preparations for the celebration of Christ's birth in ancient Bethlehem, Christ is reborn in the Bethlehem of our homes and daily lives. Take time, slow down, be still, be awake to the Divine Mystery that looks so common and so ordinary yet is wondrously present."
 

Giving Thanks

Thank you for assisting your children as they completed their saint reports. They were very proud to present and read these to their classmates, and the reports are now hanging on in the hallway. We'll continue to pray to the saints as we look to them as models of living a Godly life. We'll study about individual saints all year on various feast days.

During the month of November, we are learning about the virtue of gratitude. We have learned the ASL motions for "giving thanks to God" and are learning to pray "prayers of Thanksgiving." We also created our "Wall of Remembrance" where we pray daily for our loved ones who have died and are in heaven with Jesus. We are thankful for God, our family, and our faith!

Be thankful that you don't already have everything you desire ... if you did, what would there be to look forward to?

Be thankful when you don't know something ... for it gives you the opportunity to learn.

Be thankful for the difficult times ... during those times you grow.

Be thankful for your limitations ... they give you opportunities for improvement.

Be thankful for each new challenge... which will build your strength and character.

Be thankful for your mistakes ... they will teach you valuable lessons.

Be thankful when you're tired and weary ... because it means you've given your all.

Find a way to be thankful for your troubles and they can become your blessings.

Our Wall of Remembrance

I am proud of the students for their hard work this past week learning about bats and informational text. We will wrap up this week with fictional stories on bats and take our assessment to see how well we've grown our SCHEMA about this literature-based science topic! The students have also really enjoyed our realistic fiction chapter book A Veterans Day Visitor, and we'll finish that story and write an acrostic poem using the word VETERAN. Speaking of chapter books, we have been reading Ilene Cooper's adorable beagle dog series called Little Lucy - much to the great enthusiasm of the first graders. :) We have read Little Lucy Goes to School, Lucy's Tricks or Treats, and are now reading Thanks to Lucy. If you're looking for a wonderful series that's accessible to early readers and has endearing characters and relationships, be sure to check it out.

The first graders and I want to give a huge THANK YOU to all the parents who volunteered to help with our Halloween party, whether that meant you could attend and run a game, or whether you supplied prizes or treats or decor for the class, it all made our day super fun and special. After this post are a few shots from our fun day as well as some great pictures from our STEM center building creations.

CONFERENCES ARE ALMOST HERE! I'm looking forward to meeting with everyone for parent teacher conferences next Monday, November 19th. In case you missed the email for sign-ups, you can sign up here to reserve your spot. Conferences are for parents only (no children) and are 15 minutes long. I encourage you to let me know ahead of time of any specific questions you have so that I may be well-prepared to make the best use of our time. The children will be attending school that Monday from 7:35-11:15AM. Please send a snack and water bottle. 

Thank you for your support, parents! Enjoy the photos below, and I wish all of you a blessed and Happy Thanksgiving!
 

  



Cookie Decorating Fun
Thanks, Mrs. Davis!





YUMMY!!

Bingo Fun with Mr. Washington!

Pumpkin Bowling with Mrs. Jankowski 

OUR S.T.E.M. CREATIONS 

Spelling Sight Words with Play Doh

Pumpkins, Plants, Bats and Saints!

We are FLYING through the Fall season here in first grade! Your children did a WONDERFUL job completing their inventions and presenting them to the class. Their creative, hard work is now on display in the school library. Check out our mock Henry Ford assembly line and finished "candy cars"! (All of our inventions photos are at the end of this post.)

Our next project will involve researching and writing about a saint. We'll choose our saints this week in class and bring home a one-page writing assignment to complete in time for Thursday, November 1st - All Saints Day. We'll learn about the current cultural celebrations that comprise Halloween and understand the differences between these celebrations and the Catholic roots of Halloween. We'll understand that saints are models for us to emulate in our lives, and we'll learn about All Saints Day and All Souls Day, attending Mass on November 1st. If you have any photos of deceased loved ones that you would like to send to school for our "Remembrance Prayer Wall" - please send them in! We will pray together with the "Communion of Saints" and learn what this means.

* A SPECIAL NOTE! This year for Halloween, our SMS community is putting "Faith into Action" by bringing in special items for the homeless to show our compassion for those less fortunate. Please send your child in their costume for Halloween, along with as many small toiletry items that your family budget can spare. An email was sent with details from St. Mary School. Please be generous, and thank you for your support!

We had a BLAST on our field trip to Goebberts Pumpkin Patch, despite the sleeting weather! Thank you to all of the parent volunteers who came to help. I hope you enjoyed checking out the pumpkin, gourd and corn that your child chose. In Science we'll continue our study of plants through October, wrapping up our study of pumpkins this week. We are also diving into BATS - both fiction and non-fiction, skeletons, and Halloween literature. These topics will be covered in language arts, science, and math. PS - If any parents got a good group shot of first grade at Goebberts Farm, please email me the photo, and I'll post it on the blog! Thank you. :)

The October Scholastic book order has been placed, and November/December is coming home this week. November is the last order I will place prior to Christmas, so be sure to plan ahead! There are some excellent deals in the Holiday Gift Book flyer. Paper orders are due Friday, November 16th, but I will accept online orders until Wednesday, November 21st. Our order will have plenty of time to ship and be distributed prior to Christmas break.

Congratulations to Fr. Denis who celebrated his Jubilee 50th Anniversary as a priest! Thank you for faithfully serving our community, Fr. Denis! Here is a banner we made in his honor:

Our Inventions!

  

Trip to Goebbert's Pumpkin Farm