Today we had the honor of having the author, Kyle Mullen visit Benson School.  Kyle lives in Itasca and wrote the book Pat, the Platypus.

Hello,

It is so very hard to believe that our winter break is almost here.  It seems like just yesterday that we decorated our room for the Christmas season.  I wanted to share some photos of our classroom.  I will be taking the students' work down prior to the holiday party so that families have the art work for  Christmas. 

Family Traditions

Reindeer writing

If You Take a Mouse to the Movies writing

The Best Gift of All...

Hello First Grade Parents,

We have more talent to share.  It has come to my attention that our very own Brianna Murray will be performing with her competitive and performing dance team.  She will be at the Brookfield Zoo in the heated Holly Jolly Theater this Sunday, December 15th at 5:00. She will also be performing downtown at the Daley Center at noon and at Stratford Square Mall at 4:00 on Monday, the 23rd.  Brianna will be performing her award-winning solo and she will also be performing in a group dance, "Christmas Don't Be Late."  Sooo...if you are looking for more holiday family fun why not try to attend one of these performances and cheer Brianna on!

Good Morning,

This week we will be doing reading assessments.  There will be no spelling test on Friday.  Those students that receive reading extensions or extra practice reading will not be receiving it.  Please make sure that your child practices the high frequency/story words that came home early last week on yellow paper. The children will only be tested on their ability to read the words, not spell them.  I will begin testing this week.  Hopefully today!

Today all the first and second graders took a pledge to read, read, read...  After that, we read for 2,014 seconds in our pajamas.  Some of us were read to by parent volunteers, while others read independently.  It was lots of fun!  It was very hard to move around in the library due to the number of students so please know that I made an effort to locate all of our students, but I probably missed some.

All Aboard for reading fun!  We lined up our chairs to resemble a train as we read our weekly basal story, Fun With Fish.  Each time we read a page we said "Choo-Choo".  Later, we practiced our spelling words using really smelly markers. 

Hi First Grade Parents,

Please enjoy our photos of our fun-filled day.

Did you know that your small intestine is about 20 feet long?

We love to read "back-to-back" with our friends.

Thumbs Up-Thumbs Down Spelling is a great way to practice our spelling words.

Happy Wacky Wednesday!

Today we read our weekly story, Where Do Frogs Come From? in the front hallway so that all who passed by would hear what great readers we have become!  We also practiced our spelling words by playing "Tall/Small Spelling.  The children reached for the sky for "tall" letters, touched the ground for "fall" letters and put our hands on our hips for "short" letters.  For fun you can practice at home in this way.  I also took a few pictures of our classroom bulletin boards that highlight our November work.  Our huge turkey has "thankful" feathers on it.  Each child wrote one important thing that he/she is thankful for.  We also wrote a persuasive paragraph.  Each student pretended to be a turkey and wrote why it wouldn't be a good idea to eat him/her for Thanksgiving dinner and we also practiced our handwriting by copying a Turkey Acrostic Poem.  I hope you enjoy our photos.