November 2, 2025

Last Friday, first graders brought home the annual Tom Turkey homework assignment. We read the story, Turkey Trouble, and talked about how the turkeys are trying to disguise themselves leading up to the Thanksgiving holiday.  It's a fun way for the children to show their creativity and "dress up" the turkeys. We will write about them in class. We ask that the children return them by, Tuesday, November, 4 but of course can be returned before. The children love seeing them and reading about their adventures.

During conferences we have had several parents request classroom Amazon wishlists. It is so kind to ask what things we may need to enrich learning and/or replenish things used frequently. We appreciate your thoughtfulness and generosity.

Mrs. Cummings

Ms. Robertson

Mrs. Ulrich

This week was Red Ribbon week. It was a fun week of themed dress up days, ending with our storybook character costumes on Friday. Friday was our second pep rally, where the MP cheerleaders and football players welcomed Gators and guests. 

We finished our unit on addition and subtraction to 20 this week with a fun Math or Treat activity planned by Mrs. Ulrich. The children solved 10 pages of addition/subtraction problems and got treats for each page. It was a fun way to close out that VERY long unit! We also had fun culminating read aloud activity. It was a scavenger hunt and activity planned by Mrs. Cummings. The Pumpkin elf is a sneaky fellow! Thanks to all of the parents who assisted!

Next week we will spiral back to data analysis and will continue to work on fact fluency throughout the year. Developing automaticity with facts is an important skill as students move to older grades. Upcoming units in math are Geometry and Number Sense/Place Value

In literacy we continued looking for words with digraphs, which are 2 letters that make one sound. The most common are wh, ch, ck, th and sh. We have been learning beginning blends and contractions. The parent letter is below for our new reading unit.  In Module 4, Better Together, we discussed concepts like sportsmanship, working together and collaboration. These go hand in hand with our continuing social studies unit on citizenship.

We are continuing to work on writing during our literacy time as well as through journals. Each day, students write in a journal and illustrate the story. Sometimes finding a topic can be a challenge for some, so they may appreciate talking with a parent or family member about some possible topics. Many of them write about a vacation, party, sports game or practice, movie night or other family event. We focus on proper usage of capitalization, punctuation, spelling and meaningful ideas that follow the same story line. We encourage them to use materials in the room as well as their resources to find proper spelling of words.

In science we have been learning about animals and their young. Students have been researching animals in Pebble Go to see how they grow and change. We learn about their habitats, food, life cycle, young, prey and predators. We have also learned "fun facts". Did you know that female cheetahs chirp like a bird to call their young? They also have black stripes around their eyes to protect them from sunlight.