December Happenings

It's hard to believe that Thanksgiving has come and gone!  Here we go right into December!
 I thought families would enjoy some photos from our last Outdoor Learning Day.  We read the book Over and Under the Snow by Kate Messner.  It's a great book that explains where animals go in the winter.  After reading, we went outside to look for possible animal winter homes in our woods.  Then we made homes that we thought some animals might enjoy.  The photos are of the homes we made. 

Students decided to donate the money ($66.65) we made at the Farmers Market to Rosina Wallace.  They are hoping she can use it towards building her new barn or towards food for Ferdinand. 

Our class will be having a Winter Solstice celebration on Thursday, December 20th.  We will spend most of the day outside celebrating the start of the winter season.  We will have a campfire to stay warm and cook food.  We will also have some activities like skiing and snowshoeing.  It should be a lot of fun and we will need lots of help.  Please let me know if you can help out. Be on the lookout for a note and an email this week with more specific details about this event!






Has your child been using Reading Eggs?  If they have, you might have noticed that they can also access Mathseeds.  The school has a subscription for both of those programs so please check out Mathseeds too! 






Students will be snowboarding in PE starting Dec. 3rd, through to the holiday break.  They  will have snowboards and helmets for students to borrow during class, but students are allowed to bring their own snowboards and are encouraged to bring their own helmet on their PE days.

Enjoy December!!

September/October Happenings

We are off to a flying start in first grade!
We have spent much of our first month getting to know each other and learning about our classroom and school community.  Our study of community will continue as we start learning about Waterbury/Duxbury.  We have already visited many of our classmates' houses by using Google Earth.  This week we will spend our outdoor learning time doing a scavenger hunt while taking a walking tour of Waterbury village.  We have also welcomed Dana Hudson into our class to help us broaden our understanding of our local community.  She organized last Friday's field trip to Woodard Dairy Farm, Hunger Mountain Orchard and Grow Compost. The children had a wonderful time and learned lots about these local businesses.   Our community unit will culminate with a Farmer's Market on Thursday, October 18th.  All first and second graders will be selling items they have made with many local resources.  For example, applesauce is one item our class will be making and we will be using the apples the children picked at Hunger Mountain Orchard!  The students will be given an opportunity to be a buyer and a seller at the market.  Each student will be assigned a shift to work that evening and of course they can buy whenever they aren't working.  All items are usually $.50-$1.00.  We will also be having Open House that evening as well.  You are welcome to visit the classroom with your child before or after their "shift" at The Farmer's Market. 

There are a few things I want to make sure everyone knows. 
At this point your child should be bringing their folder home every night and returning it to school each day. 
You should be seeing a Weekly News composition book coming home each Friday.  Your child writes to you in this on Friday and you should be writing back to them over the weekend or sometime before the next Friday. 
Your child should be bringing home a book bag (a clear zip-lock bag with their name on it) and books each night and returning it to school each day.  So far your child has been choosing which books to bring home but that will start changing this week.  Reading groups will be starting so your child should be bringing those books from group home to practice.  Now your child will have reading group books AND ones they have chosen.  You can ask your child which book(s) in their bag are the ones from reading group. 
Please don't forget to check out the important dates listed on the right.