Friday March 25th

Bring A Toy To School Day tomorrow!

We have earned a special day for our great listening during special classes.

Your child may bring a toy to school tomorrow - Friday March 25th.   I will not be here but Mr Reimers will be subbing.  It is supposed to be “Dress Like A Book Character Day” but I prefer that we skip this since I will not be here.

All toys must be labeled with your child’s name. 

 They will be able to bring out to play during choice time and possibly recess depending on the weather.  

Please do not send toys with electronic components (battery operated or noisy), multiple pieces, something valuable or breakable. 

Thank you.

Mrs Confer

Any questions please text or email.

773-968-9657

aconfer@stjoebears.com

Week 26 - March 14- 18

March 14-18

Coming up

Positivity Project - Love of Learning

3-14. - No School - Teacher Professional Development

3-16 Late Start

3-17 St Patrick's Day - Wear Green

3-18 National Let’s Laugh Day is March 19. We will share jokes on Friday.

Please practice a joke for you child to share.

3-23 1st Grade Pajama Party program!  

4/1 Spring Break Starts

Program Details

On March 23 please have your child wear pajamas to school and bring a stuffed animal.  We  will be performing for students during the school day. That evening please arrive at St. Joe High School by 5:15.  Bring the grandparents, aunts, uncles, and neighbors.  This is a very enjoyable program.  The children have been working very hard to prepare a great show for you! 

Academic Updates

We will:

• Focus on the “or” sounds in words like: born, thorn, torn, etc.

• Continue our geometry unit

• Begin to study fractions 

• Focus on the love of learning

• Continue to work on +/- fact fluency

• Compare and contrast

• increase our writing stamina

Week 25 - March 7-11

March 7-11

We had a blast with Seuss week!   This week we will continue to focus on books as we work our way through the whole school March is Reading Month book brackets that our awesome media team has put together.  Books always win! 

Report cards will be coming home this week.  Once you’ve had a chance to look them over please let me know if you have any questions or if you’d like to meet to discuss your child’s progress. 

Academic Updates

We will:

• Focus on the “er, ir, and ur” sounds in words like: bird, word, mother, purr, stir, etc.

• Begin a geometry unit

• Continue learning about light and sound (at home look for examples of transparent, translucent, and opaque objects!)

• Learn about the idea of social intelligence

• Continue to work on +/- fact fluency

• Compare and contrast

• More writing and editing

Coming up

Positivity Project : Social Intellegence

3-8 Author Visit

3-19 National Let’s Laugh Day-start working on your jokes:)

3-23 1st Grade Pajama Party program!  

Mark your calendars! On March 23 all Lincoln Firsties will take the stage! The three first grade classrooms will be performing a musical revue called Pajama Party.  Children will be asked to wear their pajamas, slippers, and robes on this day.  Children will perform for the school during the day.  In the evening, there will be a performance for the families in the auditorium at St. Joseph High School. 

**Each child has a speaking part.  Please check for these in Friday folders and practice daily!

Things to practice at home

Read!

Lexia!

Moby Math! 

Sight word flashcards

Addition/Subtraction flashcards facts 0-10

Week 24 - Feb 28 - March 4

Feb 28-March 4

Academic Updates

We will:

• Focus on the “ar” sound in words like: charm, warm, alarm, bark, star

• Do several assessments in order to have very recent data for report cards

• More writing and editing

• Review addition and subtraction strategies

Performance!

Mark your calendars! On March 23 all Lincoln Firsties will take the stage! The three first grade classrooms will be performing a musical revue called Pajama Party.  Children will be asked to wear their pajamas, slippers, and robes on this day.  Children will perform for the school during the day.  In the evening, there will be a performance for the families in the auditorium at St. Joseph High School. More details, including times, to follow.

**Each child has a speaking part.  Please check for these in Friday folders and practice daily!

Dr Seuss Week

We are kicking off a rather long poetry unit with some Dr. Seuss favorites this week.  We will Celebrate his birthday on March 2nd.

Let’s Get Moving!

We had a local author visit and read with us! Breckyn Bussey is a senior at St. Joe High School and she has written a book called, “Let’s Get Moving!”  The children really enjoyed the book and getting to know a real author!  They asked me to include the link here in hopes you might purchase the book for them.  Miss Breckyn is Miss Reimer’s cadet teacher and is right across the hall every afternoon.  She would be happy to autograph books for the class. 

Week 23 Feb 22-25

February 22-25

Academic Updates

We will:

• Meet Bossy R, beginning our study of r-controlled vowels

• Work on writing A LOT this week

• Use adjectives to describe

• Celebrate Twos Day (2-22-22 on Tuesday)

• Distinguish between transparent, translucent, and opaque objects

Masks

I’m sure there are many varied opinions regarding the removal of the masking requirement in St. Joe Schools. Please talk with your child about your expectations for masking. If you expect your Firstie to be masked, please make that clear to him or her.  I will no longer be policing this. I will talk with the children about respecting each other’s decisions.  Please reinforce this at home so that we can all get along and not have on-going debates in the classroom on the topic.

Week 20 - Jan 31 - Feb 4

Academic Updates
We will:
Continue to work on summarizing
Review and practice our decoding skills
Study Long U words (blue, few, new, clue, stew, etc.)
Work on elaborating when we write
Build, compare, deconstruct numbers using base 10 blocks
Introduce mapping
Explore vibrations and sound

HOMEWORK BAGS

Every Monday I will be sending home a homework bag for the week.

This is a way for your child to practice daily skills like handwriting, sentence construction

reading, sight words and math facts. For families that I conferenced with, these is a required

activity to get your child caught up. For those of you that I did not conference with this is

an optional but encouraged activity. Homework is done over the course of the week and

the bag returned on Monday. Children that have their yellow sheet complete will receive a

prize from the prize chest.

STEM

I’d be grateful for continued help growing our collection of items for STEM time:

toilet paper/paper towel tubes, egg cartons, duct tape, painter’s tape, popsicle sticks,

thin and short dowel rods, elmer’s glue, and pipe cleaners.

If you have any of these items we will put them to good use!

Valentine’s Day

Reminder: all our Valentine enjoyment will be done in-house.  Please do not send anything in.

Snacks Needed

Children are consistently forgetting to bring two snacks or they are bringing very small

snacks and are still very hungry.

I could use some donations of large bags of pretzels, goldfish and other prepackaged

items for children to have for snack.

We celebrate the 101st Day of 1st Grade in style! This day is a big deal and falls on February 15 this year.  The theme is 101 Dalmations.  We will be making dalmatian shirts with 101 spots in class. 

Please send a t-shirt with your Firstie that can be painted to school by February 11th. (Some children may forget so if you are willing to purchase a multi pack that would be great)

If you will not be able to send in a shirt, please let me know so that I can arrange for extras.

White short sleeve oversized undershirts work great.

We will enjoy reading the book 101 Dalmatians, fix 101 pieces of snack, and do loads of fun writing and math activities. 

101st Day Snack Sign Up.

Please Click Here to provide food for our 101 pieces of snack.

Planetarium

Our class will attend a show at the Upton Planetarium on Thursday, February 17. 

For children that are absent:

February Choice Board

Meet the Author of Click Clack Moo, Betsy Lewin	Read for 20 minutes	Spend some time reading some silly poems on Fizzy Fuzzy Funny
Work on Seesaw assignments	Play a board game.	Have a family member name a number.  Tell them 10 more/less and 1 more/less for each number they say.
Make a map of a room in your house and label everything in it.	Go to Wixie and make some exciting Valentines for your family!	Organize your toys or do a chore for your family.  Write about what you did.
Give this a try: Beaver Coding	Make a list of everything in your refrigerator.  Put the words in ABC order.	Write and illustrate a story.  Make the setting your home and a family member or pet the main character.
Practice addition and subtraction flashcards	Spend 15 minutes on Lexia.	Check out Math World! Choose the level you’d like to work on.

Week 19 - Jan 24-28

Academic Updates
We will:
Count large collections of objects
Add and subtract 10s
Study Long E words (speak, tree, please, beak, etc)
Summarize text
Read fairy tales

STEM

I’d be grateful for continued help growing our collection of items for STEM time: toilet paper/paper towel tubes, egg cartons, duct tape, painter’s tape, popsicle sticks, thin and short dowel rods, and pipe cleaners. If you have any of these items laying around we will put them to good use!

Half Days

We have half days on Thursday and Friday.  Enjoy your afternoons!

Masks

Students have been going through a lot of masks lately.  I think they’re easier to misplace since there are so many other things to keep track of this time of year. If possible, please be sure your child has extras in his or her backpack. 

Valentine’s Day

Valentine’s Day in 1st grade is very low-key, but we do celebrate! We make our Valentines in class, so please DO NOT have your child prepare them at home.  We will have hot chocolate, festive cookies, exchange 

Valentines, and watch a movie.  This is for students only.

101st Day

We celebrate the 101st Day of 1st Grade in style! This day is a big deal and falls on February 15 this year.  The theme is 101 Dalmations.  We will be making dalmatian shirts with 101 spots in class.  Please send a t-shirt with your Firstie that can be painted to school by February 11th.  If you will not be able to do so, please let me know so that I can arrange for extras. White short sleeve undershirts work great. We will enjoy reading the book 101 Dalmatians, fix 101 pieces of snack, and do loads of fun writing and math activities. 

Planetarium

Our class will attend a show at the Upton Planetarium on Tuesday, February 17. (February 17 is going to be one amazing day!!) This is for students only.