Sign up to volunteer at Choice Time here!
Trimester 1 Parent/Teacher Conferences - Friday Dec. 12
Click the appropriate link below to sign up for a conference with your child's contact teacher.
2nd grade families - Sign up with Mandy here.
1st grade families - Sign up with Samantha here.
Weekly News
11/3/25-11/7/25
As we went “Around the World” this week, we learned more about oceans and landforms, how to write our names in Sanskrit, and about one of the principles of Kwanzaa. We also had a guest speaker, Luca’s mom, who shared about Day of the Dead! If your family has a history or traditions from around the world that you would like to share with us, please reach out to your contact teacher so we can get something scheduled! And if you would like to be a Choice Time volunteer, please sign up here: https://calendar.app.google/FDjkAJZGjkyGcEtUA.
Our second field trip is next week, on Wed, Nov. 13! We will be visiting the Lam Museum of Anthropology at Wake Forest University to tie in with our Knowledge and Choice Time units. For this field trip, please make sure your student brings a lunch. Arrival and dismissal times will follow our regular schedule. We do not need parent chaperones for this one either, but if you want to join us, please reach out to your contact teacher to discuss.
In Literacy, first graders got more practice with long a, e, i, and o using our ee and magic e patterns. We’ve also been talking about capitalizing proper nouns and got started on long u. Long u can be the trickiest since it doesn’t always say its name (e.g. tube vs cube) so that may be one to practice at home. “How do we figure out which sound it’s making?” We’ve been practicing using context clues to figure that out. In Knowledge, we read versions of “Little Red Riding Hood” from China and Botswana and compared the stories using Venn Diagrams!
Second graders continued to work on punctuation, commas, and quotation marks to get ready for our first book report! We also continued reading “Bedtime Tales” and are writing a report on one of the trickster tales in the book, “The Hare and the Hedgehog.” We are focusing on how to plan, draft, and edit and plan to finish next week. We also took some time to review the /oi/ boys! Think TOY or OIL. The “/oi/ boys” make the same sound but look totally different! We learned how ‘their,’ ‘they’re,’ and ‘there’ also sound the same, but have different meanings and spellings. Ask your student to tell you the trick that helps us know which spelling to use! Students also reviewed the sound/spellings /or/ > ‘or’ and /ar/ > ‘ar,’ as in FOR and CAR. In Knowledge, we read and learned about the paper, writing, and calligraphy that was used in ancient times of China and students worked in small groups to create a book of facts about China. We will add to our book as we learn more about China, including The Great Wall of China and the importance of silk in their culture.
In math, first graders finished the second topic on subtraction! We also started Topic C this week. We are talking more about addition and subtraction fact families and finding the unknown part in a problem (e.g. 10 - ? = 6). This can get more challenging conceptually so we will be working hard to practice.
Second graders are moving right along with composing and decomposing numbers. We started and finished Topic I this week! I was excited with how well our students picked up on this math skill. We learned to count the total value of ones, tens, and hundreds by using place value disks. We also learned and practiced how to exchange 10 for 1 when moving up in value and how to problem solve in situations where we have numbers with more than 9 ones and 9 tens. The end of this module is drawing near with only one topic left to cover. We are making great progress and hope to finish this module before we break for Thanksgiving!
Small notices: We are starting to run low on Friday snacks. We just need something small like graham crackers to keep us going until regular snack time. Please send something in if you can - no eggs or nuts. Also, please keep Pokemon cards at home during the school day. If you want to arrange with other families to do games or swaps after school that families can supervise, it sounds like the students would be very interested! If you have questions about this, please reach out to your contact teacher.
Critter Corner Update!
Thanks to all of your amazing donations, Shadow and Mr. Fuzzy Cheeks are in great shape with their supplies for the next few weeks. Thank you, thank you again! They are two happy little piggies.