Turn away from sin, and be faithful to the Gospel

It is hard to believe that Lent is upon us! We will say good-bye to Ordinary Time (green) this Tuesday with Mardi Gras and will learn the vocabulary and meanings behind this Catholic celebration. We'll taste King Cake, so please be sure to send your child a special treat that day if there's a food allergy. I'll email a list of ingredients once I have the cake in hand. :) Lent (purple) begins on Ash Wednesday, and the first graders will be practicing the pillars of prayer, fasting, almsgiving, and good deeds. If we do really well with these concepts, we'll move on to Corporal Works of Mercy. Our saint focus will be St. Therese of Lisieux as we learn to make small sacrifices every day during Lent. We'll also learn about St.Dismas, St. Katherine Drexel, Saints Perpetua and Felicity, and of course St. Joseph and St. Patrick. We will study the Stations of the Cross and complete an all-time first grade favorite Mass Mate project: Stations of the Cross eggs. I'll be sure to blog about our Lenten journey as we pray together these next 40 days...

We have a super-exciting "March Author Madness" competition this month! Each day we will read two selections by two different authors (starting with Dr. Seuss, of course!), and the students will vote on their favorite author/book. We'll begin with 16 authors and work our way down to the final two authors and championship vote the week before Spring break (Spring break is March 25-29). It's a great way to expose the kids to a variety of authors as well as to read tons of great literature in a short amount of time. We'll be charting the progression of the competition on large charts in the primary hallway, and both first grade classrooms (and the school) will be able to see and compare the results. It's going to be a BLAST!

• Your child should have brought home a Dr. Seuss book report sheet this past Friday. This is due March 8th. We'll be reading biographies about Dr. Seuss and Thomas Rivera this week, and the children will be presenting their Dr. Seuss reports on Friday. 

This past week we worked really hard learning about contractions. We focused on 'll/'d and will continue this week with 've/'re as well as using our contractions in sentences. This skill will be practiced throughout the month of March. Your child will also begin bringing their Journeys book home each evening to read the weekly selections. They can also show you how skilled they are at locating topics within a book using the table of contents. We've learned the academic word "grammar" and what this means in reading and writing...ask your child and see if they can tell you!

In math, the students did a good job of bringing in a variety of objects to use in our shapes museum. Thank you for your support with this! They're really enjoying geometry, and this week we dive into 3-D objects and symmetry. These are some super fun FREE online games for your child to explore shapes and symmetry: Cat in the Hat Sketch-A-Mite, Magical Shape Hunt, and Symmetry Painter.

In science we will learn about chameleons, their habitat, and adaptations for survival. We will also begin our science unit on the study of light. This ties in great with RAINBOWS and a quick study on color. What better time to dive into this than the month of March when we will also be reading literature about leprechauns and learn about the country of Ireland? (Rainbows and pots of gold, anyone?) The students will be bringing home a letter this Monday about a special at-home project on constructing a leprechaun trap. These traps are due on Thursday, March 14th as we'll be hoping to catch a leprechaun in our classroom on the feast of St. Patrick - Sunday, March 17th! They can put all their knowledge of STEM + IMAGINATION into action for this fan-fave project. Our first-grade St. Patrick/St. Joseph class Mass will be held on the feast of St. Joseph,Tuesday, March 19th at 8:30AM in church. Mark your calendars - we hope you can join us!
 
Remember that all students who have registered for the 2019-2020 school year may participate in Spirit Wear Mondays, beginning tomorrow, until the end of the year. Please let me know if I can assist you in any way with the registration process.

I wish you all a peaceful weekend. Let us pray for one another!