This Coming Week

• Next week is a short week; Monday is a full day and an early out day on Tuesday. 

• Tuesday we will have a first grade “read-a-thon” from 9:00am-10:00am. Students are welcome to bring pillows, blankets, etc. and should bring their 5 favorite books to read during that time. I will also have books available.

I am so thankful to be able to teach 1^st grade with this wonderful group! I hope you have a great Thanksgiving break!

A note from the PTA

Long-sleeved t-shirts, hoodies and sweats will be available to be ordered TODAY - THURSDAY. You can pick up an order form outside the front office at Butler Elementary. The colors will be red with gray ink or gray with red ink. If you have any questions, contact Stacie Skelton at stacieskelton@gmail.com. This will be the LAST order. They WILL BE delivered before Christmas.
No late orders will be accepted.

Thanks,
Stacie Skelton

First Grade Update

Thank you for a great set of parent teacher conferences. I am so thankful to have your wonderful children in class with me! Here are just a few highlights of what’s been happening in first grade.

•  We have covered quite a bit in reading the past couple weeks. By now your child should know the “sh”, “ch”, “ph” and “wh” sounds. They should also be able to identify all short vowel sounds as well as long “I” and long “a”. They are making great progress but will go even further if you continue to read with them each day, please.
• In math we are completing our addition unit this week and moving into subtraction. Please check out www.pearsonsuccessnet.com with your child’s user-name and password given to you at our conference. That will give you an idea of what we’re covering and allow your first grader to review at home.  
• Please don’t hesitate to contact me with any questions or concerns. Thank you for all you do!

Halloween

A HUGE thanks to those who were able to help with our pumpkin carving activity on Friday! It was a blast! Just as a Halloween reminder, costumes are allowed however, no masks or weapons of any kind. It’s going to be a great day!

Just a couple of winter reminders and requests!

Now that it is starting to get colder please make sure your child comes to school with appropriate winter clothing.  Unless it is raining or snowing we still go outside for recess so please send them prepared. Also, with winter also comes runny noses. If you are able to donate our class could always use some more kleenex and Lysol/Clorox wipes to keep ourselves healthy. Thank you for all your support!

Hooray for Pumpkins!

Just in case you missed the note that went home on Monday here is a copy of it. Please let me know ASAP if your child can't bring in a pumpkin for whatever reason. I will make sure that they have one! I have 4 parents that have communicated to me that they can come, a couple more would be great, please let me know if you are able to. Thanks!

Dear Parents,

         With Halloween coming up first grade has an exciting activity planned for this Friday (October 26). We will be weighing, measuring, and carving pumpkins, as well as counting all of our seeds in our pumpkins! If you could please send a pumpkin to school with your child by Friday I would appreciate it. I apologize for not getting this note home before UEA, our schedule got a little hectic. If for whatever reason, you cannot get a pumpkin for your child, will you please let me know ASAP and I will make sure that they have one. This pumpkin needs to be small enough that your child can carry it, but large enough that it can be cut open and seeds counted.

         Because we will be carving and counting we are asking for several parent volunteers. If you are able to come Friday morning from 8:30 to approximately 10:00 please email or send a note back to school by Wednesday please. I look forward to this exciting fall activity! Thank you!

         -Miss Stanger

Happy October!

I can’t believe another week has flown by and that it’s already October! This week especially I have noticed huge improvements, they are learning so much! Something you could be practicing at home that would greatly benefit us in class is finding page numbers within a book. Some have got it down, others could use some practice. Any book will do and just ask them to open up to a page (even within triple digits through 100).

Many papers went home on Friday! Please take some time to look through them and review them with your child. A note also went home about picture day; it is on October 11. Finally, below is information on our reading program for the week (We will be starting this story on Wednesday). Have a great three-day weekend!

Big Idea/Big Question (This is the theme of our unit in class.)	Question of the Week (This is the theme/question for this week’s instruction in class.)
Animals: How are people and animals important to one another?	What can we learn about wild animals by watching them?
Phonics Skills (These are the letters and sounds we are learning in class.)	Spelling Patterns and associated Words (These patterns connect to our phonics skills we are learning this week.)
Short u (ŭ) Final consonant blends	Short u with final consonant blends: bump   crust   dusk   dust   hunt   jump   just   lump   must  trust
High Frequency Words (These reading words should be practiced and memorized.)	Story Words (These reading words are words from this week’s main selection.)
home    many    them    into	elephants   hippos   park   zebras
Oral Vocabulary (Try using these words in your conversations at home.)	Handwriting Practice (Students can practice the writing of these letters in manuscript this week.)
world   forest   desert   chatter  silent   snort   medicine   poisonous	Uu, Qq Letter spacing