Second Quarter, here we come!!!!!!

Just finishing up with conferences.  Believe it or not, I had a wonderful day meeting with everyone.  I love hearing how you feel the year is going and it really makes my day to see and reflect on what we have been working on!  I always feel that I could do something better, and keeping you informed is one of them.......  here goes my attempt at correcting that....


This quarter we are working on addition facts, fact families and subtraction facts.  I want to ensure that each child has a solid foundation before we go on....  We will add higher numbers as we grasp sums of 0-10 and move up to sums of 20.  We will look at the relationship between addition facts and subtraction facts.  


In reading, we are all reading different books.  We will work on understanding what we read and what we need to know to pick just the right book for each of us.  We are also hoping to begin journaling daily.  I feel like we have not had the time daily to do this, and we are now ready for it.  


As for other happenings, Emily has been talking about the elections in Social Studies.  
For Science, I have been talking about the solar system, the moon and the planets, and how the position affects our seasons.  When we finish that, we will move to how the seasons affect plants and animals and then onto characteristics of plants and animals.  


Our current projects are taking a collection of items to the Roanoke Valley SPCA and making a donation to them as well.  We will also take a field trip there as well as to downtown Roanoke to visit the Farmer's market.  We will see  where we can buy food grown locally, talk with some of the vendors, and even try some of the goodies.  
We will also picnic downtown.  At this time, we have 4 parents going with us, so we should have plenty of help.  


For December, we will make some no-sew blankets.  For this project, we will be in need of fleece.  Each blanket  will require 3 yards of fleece, 1.5 yds. of 2 coordinating colors. Does anyone have any fleece that they could donate?  I am going to purchase some this week at JoAnn's Fabric because it is on sale.   


Thanks for all that you do to help us!!!!!!!

For those of you that have brought in supplies for Angels of Assisi, Thank You!!!  We have adopted them as our service project this quarter.  We found a home for the dog that we fostered and our very excited to make a delivery of goods to the shelter.  We will be accepting goodies until November 11th.  

On that note, we are hosting the bake sale on November 9th.  The proceeds will go to Angels.  Please send in a baked good wrapped in individual packets that we can sale during lunch that day.  If someone would like to come in and help us with that they are more than welcome....  Another alternative to baking would be to put strawberries in a bag.  That was a big hit last year.  Or even little sammies, the small ice cream sandwiches.......

We saw Good Night Moon at Hollins today.  The kids really enjoyed it.  The show was awesome!!!!!  We will study the phases of the moon and look at some other works of Margaret Wise Brown to follow up with the play.  What a wonderful writer!

Our next field trip will be Nov. 3rd.  Permission slips will go home today.  Make sure that they get returned promptly.  We will need bagged lunches that day as well as appropriate clothing.

I would love to take a field trip to the Farmers Market in Downtown Roanoke.  I would need some parent volunteers for that.  If anyone is available Monday the 14th, please let me know.  It would be a half day trip, leaving in the AM.  We will also stop and make the donation to Angels of Assisi on that day.  

Remember, questions or comments, please let me know.........

Community Service Project - Angels of Assisi

Our class will be doing community service projects throughout the school year.  Our first one is to take donations to Angels of Assisi.  Today we spent the day with a dog that I am currently fostering.  The kids had a great time and were very helpful with the care of Levi for the day.

Our class is currently taking the following items as donations for Angels of Assisi.   

Sam's Club Gift Card

Purina cat, kitten, dog and puppy foods (dry)

Regular Kitty Litter

Rabbit Food

Rabbit Shavings

Cat towers

Kitty litter scoops

Dog & cat toys

Paper towels

Small rags for cleaning

Towels

"Scrubbing Bubbles" cleaner

Sponges & scrub brushes

Window cleaner

Bleach

Laundry detergent

If anyone has any of these items that they would like to donate, please send them into Keri's classroom.

Thank you!

Fall Festival!!!!  Can you believe that Fall Festival is only a week away?  I can not!!!!  We are planning some great activities and hope that you are getting excited!!!!!!
We are in need of several items that perhaps you have lying around the house: newspapers, recycled containers that we can use for a craft, and paper bags.  Please send in what you have.   Containers can be all sizes. 

Remember that we will be meeting up there at 10:30 and that all children must have supervision at all times.  You will be responsible for bringing your own lunch and fruit snack for both days.  You will also want to bring a refillable water bottle.  If you are in need of directions or additional information, please email me.

This week is our Booker T. Field Trip on Thursday.  Don't forget a heavy fruit break and a yummy lunch.  We will be doing lots of walking.  You may want water shoes as well.  We will be back at school by 2.   Dress appropriately! 

 Keri and Emily's class' on our walking field trip to Hollins.  Look at what we saw:

Roanoke's First Recycling Center

        Hollins University's Community Garden  We got some great ideas for our own garden. 

                                                   A bonus, we got to pet the horses.

                                         The painted recycling collection cans were really neat!

                                            And artwork on Hollins campus was great too!

This Monday is a teacher work day so there is no school.  

We will be going on another field trip on Thursday, October 6th.  We will go with our "buddies" from RuthAnn's class next door.  We are heading to my farm in Wirtz and then to Booker T. Washington National Monument a few miles from my place.  We will compare present day farms from those of "yesteryear".    Please pack a heavy fruit break snack that day as we will be eating later than normal.  A water bottle will be helpful also.  We will be leaving school at 9 AM so don't be late.  It will be an all day field trip and we should be back around 2. 

We are getting into the swing of things.  Thank you to everyone for coming out to the gathering.  It was fun getting to know you and listening to your questions.  I am very fortunate to have such a great group of parents to go with my great group of kids.  
Thank you to everyone who remembered our attempt at having a "peanut free" Monday lunch.  It will just help us as we get together with our buddies.  If your child does have peanut butter, we will just remember to clean especially good and wash our hands after we eat. 
The kids would really love to do show-n-share and it was decided that we will do this on Friday mornings.  Please remember that we only want to bring in items that are not fragile and can be stored in the backpacks. 
If you have not already done so, please remember to send in a baby picture or two for our project.  We would also love to know birth weight and/or height.  We are charting our growth.  If you have a chance to talk with your child about times when they were little, that would be great.  Share with them details such as when they walked, talked and learned to ride a bike, etc.  We are creating a time line of our lives
and this info will help us. 
Thanks!