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!

Good-Bye February, Hello March!

February has been a wild-n-crazy ride this year with the polar vortex swinging into 52 degrees Fahrenheit then plummeting again, bringing lots of illness to school! The good news: March arrives this Friday! Here's a recap of what we have learned in February, along with some fun photos of our Valentine's Day activities. A BIG THANK YOU to all the parents who helped organize and run our combined first grade Valentine's Day party! It was so well-organized and packed full of a variety of super-fun activities. We are so thankful for all the hard work and loved that was poured into our celebraion.  
In Guided Reading our circles continue to change as the students grow and change. Some groups meet more often than others with me, and I hope your child is able to articulate what their RED folder responsibilities are as not all groups receive a new book every day. If not, please feel free to contact me or ask any questions you may have. I am super proud of their progress so far, and we will continue to work hard these next few months in preparation for second grade. As a group we read Cam Jansen: The Valentine Baby Mystery. We are able to sustain attention very well for read-aloud chapter books and are able to discuss characters, setting, details, and sequencing as we nosh at snack time. Our next read-aloud chapter book during snack time is The World According to Humphrey. It's great to explore different authors and book series as we grow as readers and immerse ourselves in the world of chapter books! During the month of March, we will do an author study, so stay tuned...

Religion has been extra fun with the involvement of our Mass Mates. The 7th graders read the Scripture passages on the Sermon on the Mount (Luke Ch.6:20-26) as well as The Golden Rule, then helped their first grade buddy color and cut out "Keys to the Kingdom." Each key contained a beatitude on one side and a friendly definition of the meaning on the reverse side. We bound the keys together with a brad fastener, and the students were supposed to bring them home and read them to their family. I hope your child was excited to show you their hard work! Saints we learned about this month include St. Elizabeth of Hungary, a princess who devoted her life to Jesus and the poor. We also read the book Saint Valentine, one of my favorite books on the saint as it is accompanied by Robert Shabuda's dramatic mosaics evoking the time period in which the story takes place. We learned how St. Valentine was a man whose goodness and faith brought about a miracle, and whose name lives on today in one of our most celebrated holidays. We also watched the short children's cartoon on the Apparition of Our Lady of Fatima, where the children were introduced to Saints Fransisco and Jacinta Marto. 
  
Honest Abe and General George have been our focus in social studies. We read non-fiction books about both presidents and completed a writing project on President Lincoln that is now hanging in the hallway. Since February is always Dental Health month, we read the story George Washington's Teeth and completed a Scholastic News about taking care of our teeth! In science we had a blast completing experiments using candy hearts. Using water, soda, and vinegar we predicted then observed what happened when we dropped candy hearts into each liquid: Sink or Float: When an object is more dense than the liquid, it sinks. Also, the amount of air found inside the candy or liquid will determine if it floats to the top or sinks to the bottom. The more air, the bigger the possibility the candy has of floating. For example, since soda has air bubbles, you will notice some candy floating to the top. Dissolving candy: The type of liquid matters when dissolving candy. Vinegar is the best at dissolving the candy hearts because it is an acidic liquid. Since vinegar is acidic, it dissolved the candy faster than the soda (a sugary drink) and water.

In math, we will take our Unit 6 assessment this week since we were not quite ready for it last week. Our next Unit will be all about geometry and attributes.

We have filled our behavior jar with virtuous behavior, showing respect, responsibility, love, and courage! The students voted on a pizza party and movie for this Wednesday, February 27th. If you are interested in helping defray the cost of the cheese pizzas, please send in a few dollars in an envelope marked "class pizza party." If you are NOT okay with your child watching the movie How To Train a Dragon (rated PG), please let me know right away. This is the movie the kids wanted, but I want to make sure all parents find it an acceptable movie. Odds are we will not make it through the entire movie.

MARK YOUR CALENDARS for our upcoming first grade St. Joseph/St. Patrick Mass on Tuesday, March 19th at 8:20AM. Students lead the Mass with readings, petitions, carrying gifts, or dressing up as saints for this special Mass. Mrs. Blomeke will prepare the entire first grade with their liturgical music selections, and first grade will be the choir for Mass that day. We hope you can join us that morning.

This week is very busy. I'm sure you've received an SMS email blast with details, but here's a recap:

• Tuesday 2/26 - Spirit Wear,  FSO Dance Mini-Marathon Fundraiser, Electronics Day declared by Principal for the Day

• Friday 3/1 - Mass at 8:30, celebrating end of 2nd Trimester with Honor Roll and Virtue of the Month; 2019-2020 Tuition contracts due

Enjoy the Valentine's Day photos below!

Sorting and Graphing with Candy Hearts

Valentine's Day Party FUN!!

100th Day Festivities and Catholic Schools Week Wrap-Up!

We were finally able to wrap-up Catholic Schools Week last week, the students especially appreciated no math homework on Monday in honor of Student Appreciation Day. :) I hope you all enjoyed your special thank you letter your child wrote in honor of Parent Appreciation Day. Thank you, parents, for your support of Catholic education. You are truly giving your child a gift to last a lifetime.

Our 100th-Day celebrations last Tuesday were woven throughout our school day. The students wore their t-shirts and showed their friends their creative designs. The children wrote about their #100 art projects, and these are on display in the hallway. Since we have 3 specials on Tuesday, the specials teachers also incorporated the #100 theme. In Technology, Mr. Henschle used a special app to show the kids what they would look like when they are 100 years old. In music, Mrs. Blomeke wrote a 10-note phrase that they sang 10 times to make 100 notes! In STEAM, Mrs. Blakeslee had the students estimate then conduct how high 100 drops of water would fill a cup. We learned a 100th-day poem, made 100th-day glasses, and joined Mrs. Weaver's class at the end of the day to complete different exercise activities 100 times. It was a fun-filled day! Photos are below.

Reminders for this week:

Monday, February 11th - Special Food Day (Culver's) and Spirit Wear

Wedneday, February 13th - Casual Dress/Out of Uniform Day for February Birthdays

Thursday, February 14th - Wear red with uniform to celebrate St. Valentine's Day; send in valentines for classroom party.

Friday, February 15th - 11:15 am dismissal for 1st - 8th grade; no school for PK and K.  We will have Mass today hosted by 4th grade.

Snowflake Creations

Check out our creations in S.T.E.A.M. with Mrs. Blakeslee! Students created these snowflakes using K'NEX 

and our production studio.

January Happenings

This month we bean our study of snow using the works of "Snowflake Bentley" - a pioneering photographer who perfected a process of catching flakes on black velvet in such a way that their images could be captured before they either melted or sublimated. We learned that snowflakes are clear ice crystals that have six sides, but when they're all piled up together they look white. We learned how to fold and cut patterns to make snowflakes, and each child cut out and "glitterized" three snowflakes to make a mobile. These decorate our classroom. We continued our snowy theme last week learning about the Arctic, Antarctica, and polar animals. Our main focus was on the polar bear and penguin, their habitats, and their special adaptations for survival. We added pages to our science journals on these animals. With penguins, we also read penguin poetry then students chose their favorite poem to copy and write. Then then crafted a penguin, giving it a "fluffy belly" by mixing shaving cream and glue and sprinkling it with glitter. This was a fan-favorite activity. Our science experiments included "Why do penguins swim but don't get wet" and a hibernation bear butter experiment. I grabbed 2 empty food jars and labeled them "hibernating bear" and "awake bear".... we let the hibernating bear jar rest somewhere nice and quiet in the classroom.  The awake bear jar got passed around to each student for them to shake for 25 seconds and hold for a minute or so each.  Then we talked {and wrote} about our findings.

This coming week we will learn about snow men, create "snow" with a special science experiment, read the stories Snowmen at Night and Snowmen at Work, using these themes to write about the story, identifying nouns and verbs. Next week we'll wrap up snow with literature about snow globes, creating our own snow globes and and Arctic Animal snow globes. Our first grade snow projects will be showcased in our primary hallway entitled, "It's 'snow' secret, we're a great school!"

 In social studies we dive in to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. We'll complete a study on the power of words and learn some of Dr. King's "BIG WORDS." We'll learn about Yolanda, Dr. King's grand daughter, and use Dr. King as one source of study in guided reading. If you are able to make it to our Catholic School's Week kick-off and Open House on Sunday, January 27th (beginning with 11:30AM Mass in church), be sure to check out our first grade wall "I Have a Dream" (in the primary hallway) where you'll see the dreams of our SMS Firsties on display.

We completed MAP math testing last week, and MAP reading tests will be administered this week. Students also completed the Unit 5 math assessment in class, and we move on to Unit 6 this week. The class was super-psyched to have our classroom store where they counted up their golden tickets and exchanged them for pennies, nickels, dimes and dollars to shop at store. They were able to utilize calculators to assist with totals, addition, and subtraction. They have so much fun learning about money this way! One of the kids' all time faves this past week was the Doubles Addition to 12 song. Be sure to check it out: Doubles Addition to 12 Song. 

A few quick photos I was able to grab of our math B.U.I.L.D. time!

(keep reading below)

In religion this month our focus has been on the Baptism of Jesus, the parables of Jesus, the Miracles of Jesus, and the return to ordinary time. We reinforced our learning about the Sacrament of Baptism by heading over to the church and visiting the Baptismal font where we filled little heart bottles with holy water. The children brought these home around their neck and are encouraged to hang them up someplace special so they don't leak, and also so that they can bless themselves, their family members, their rooms, and their stuffed animals.

The 100th Day of School celebration is rapidly approaching! Celebrations will be held on Friday, February 1st all day. Your child is responsible for preparing two items for this special day, and information was sent home about this on January 10th. In case you missed it, you can read all about it here! Also coming up is our Valentine's Day party on Thursday, February 14th from 1:15-2:15pm. First graders exchange valentines with their class. More information and a sign-up genius for volunteers will be sent via email within the next week.