Life was very busy in the last week of school in 2012!  We welcomed two guest readers, enjoyed a variety of Grinch Day activities, sang at the school holiday sing-along, and wrapped up the year with a classroom party.  I am particularly grateful to ZP's mom, CB's mom, and NT's mom for organizing the party.  Many thanks to all the parents who contributed to the party.  The children seemed to have a wonderful time.  I certainly enjoyed watching their joy!

I hope that you have been enjoying a relaxing and rejuvenating holiday season with family and friends.  Most of my extended family gathered this past week, and now that we have returned home I am eager to see the children and learn about their holiday adventures.  

I have just a few notes for you as we prepare to return to school on Wednesday, January 2.  

In January, we will begin the Math Masters program (also known as "Rocket Math") to practice quick recall of basic addition and subtraction facts.  More information on this program will go home next week.  

Homework will resume the week of January 7.  Homework packets will now include a writing component and word study activities will be reduced.  Please see the homework cover page for details.  Math homework will consist of practicing math facts in conjunction with Math Masters.  

Finally, I am deeply grateful for your kind thoughts and generous gifts.  Words do not adequately express my appreciation, so I must resign myself to a simple, "Thank you very much!"

Tomorrow we will begin our study of winter holidays around the world.  Over the next two weeks, our class will visit each of the other first grade classrooms to learn about a winter holiday celebrated in another country.  We hope to expand the childrens' awareness of the beautiful patchwork of our global community.  This is a wonderful opportunity for you to discuss your holiday traditions as a family, why they are important to your family,  and how they may be the same or different as other holidays from other countries or cultures. 

We will finish our math unit on graphing this week.  Please ask your child to describe the process of collecting data, representing data, and describing data.  You may want to review the questions from last week's post with your child in preparation for the graphing assessment.

Thursday, December 20 will be our "Grinch Day."  If you have a copy of Dr. Seuss' How The Grinch Stole Christmas, I would love to borrow it for the day.  We will have regular lessons during the day, just with a Grinch theme.  Students are welcome to dress as their favorite character from the story.  :-)

Friday, December 21 will have the school sing-along in the morning and our class party in the afternoon at 1:00.  The room parents will be in touch with more information. 

Please note that there will be no homework packet the week of December 17-21, and we will not have spelling tests that week.

Finally, Mill Run is in contact with an elementary school in New Jersey whose students lost their homes and entire personal belongings in Hurricane Sandy.  The first grade classes are collecting gifts for two kindergarten students:  Gianna and Hannah.  One of our third grade teachers will be delivering the items we collect this weekend, so if you would like to contribute, please send in any donations by Friday, December 14, before 2:00 pm.  Your generosity is much appreciated! 

Here are the wished-for items from Gianna and Hannah's families:
- wrapped and labeled toys or games
- gift cards to Walmart, Toys R Us, gas stations, Lowes, Target, or Sears

Thank you!

We have begun our social science unit on economics.  In first grade, that means we will learn about the differences between wants and needs, goods and services, and consumers and producers.  Here are some ideas for you to support our learning at home:

• Look around your home.  Discuss which items are wants and which are needs.
  
• Discuss your job.  Ask your child whether you provide a good or a service. 
  
• Ask your child to help you identify ways you are a consumer.  Have you ever been a producer? 
  
• Discuss the importance of saving money and making wise choices about spending.  
  

In math, we have begun a unit on graphing.  In graphing, we will explore the following questions:

• How do we collect data? We can use a survey.
  
• How can we represent the data we collect?  We can use a table, bar graph, pictograph, or a tally chart.
  
• Why is it important to represent the data accurately?  We want our audience to be able to interpret our graph.
  
• What language can we use to interpret a graph?  We can discuss results using terms like more than, less than, fewer, greater, equal, and about.  For example, "There are more students bringing lunch from home than students buying lunch today." Or, "Fewer students will buy a salad than students who will buy pizza."  
  

Thank you for your support with practicing the sight words listed on our word wall.  It is wonderful to see the students gaining confidence with reading and writing these words.  Mastering these will help the children make connections to other words.  

I will close with one of my dad's favorite jokes.  :-)

Why did the chicken cross the playground?
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To get to the other slide!