Mrs. Norman’s First Grade

Ms. Diana, our custodian, came to our room and showed us the tiara she wore at her quinceanera. A quinceanera is a birthday party. It is special because it was her 15th birthday. Ms. Diana said to be careful with the tiara. We got to see her special ring with a 15 on it. She wore a pink dress. The girls in her court wore red dresses.

Today is Sierra’s birthday! :)

Today was library. If you forgot your books, you need to bring them soon. We will not have library next week because it is a short day next Wednesday due to the Thanksgiving break.

We will be reading our stories at Barnes and Noble on Friday at 4:00.

Please remember book orders are due online this Friday.

Don’t forget your BEE books.

Natalie said, “We got to have bread with a chocolate coin in the middle. In England for their birthdays their moms and dads hide coins in the cake. If you get a coin, it means you will have lots of money when you are older.”

Hope said, “Our whole day was really fun and the part that I liked was recess and lunch because my mom put a roll in my sandwich container and I thought it was a sandwich.”

Olivia said, “We had chocolate coins today in a roll and we had a Swedish fish.” (Shh Olivia!)

Garrett said, “We had lunch.”

Gabriela said, “Today we had library. I got a ticket.”

Jackson said, “We made a class book. We wrote about our birthday traditions. I put eyes on my vowels.”

Corbin said, “We had a really fun day today.” :)   :)    :)     :)     :)

For those of you who aren’t parents…
As a first grade, we just finished a six week unit about needs and wants. We looked at how people in different circumstances meet their needs and how values and culture influence wants. It is one of the best units all year and at the end the kids choose a country and tell how the people there meet their needs. They needed to be able to tell us WHY they eat the food they eat, wear the clothes they wear, and live in a certain type of shelter. It was great. We set it up like a science fair and other classes and parents came through each of the rooms.
Here are some pictures!

The first grade will be doing a holiday program on Wednesday December 17th at 6:00PM. This is the time to invite grandma and the whole gang! There aren’t many opportunities for this, so please plan on attending. More details will come home at a later date.

Today was the first day of our “Celebrate” IB unit. We will look at traditions and celebrations from our own lives and from other cultures.

We would love for you to share your experiences with traditions from cultures or religions that the students may not otherwise have much exposure to.
Here are the different traditions/holidays we will be learning about. Please email me if you would like to share your knowledge with the class. We usually have IB Monday-Thurs from 2-3ish, but are fairly flexible. I like to leave this open each year because it means more to the students if things come from their own families.

Week of…
Nov 17- coming of age traditions: quinceanera, bar/bat mitzvah, weddings
Nov 24- thanksgiving, 4th of July
Nov 1- Kwanzaa, Ramadan, Diwali- other December/winter holidays
Dec 8- Christmas, Hanukkah
Dec 15- Christmas from other parts of the world
Jan 5th- New Year’s, Chinese New Year

*If you are a super-parent and would be able to arrange a visit from an outside group/speaker or other parent, go for it! Just let me know when and who will be coming.
*Please also let me know if you would be willing to have the whole first grade listen to you, or if you would be willing to visit the other two classes.

Thanks so much. The kids are very excited. This is definitely a favorite!
Natalie Norman

We shared our Halloween stories in kindergarten.

Mrs. Norman still made us work on Halloween! Ugh. It’s a lot of work being so smart!

Parade time! Mrs. Stone was Strega Nona!!

In some places in Africa, they keep their ankles covered because it is a private part, but they do not wear shirts. We don’t cover our ankles. but we wear shirts and pants to keep ourselves covered.

We learned about a little girl who lives in the rain forest in Brazil. They paint their bodies with red color from seeds. She takes a canoe onto the river, but has to be careful because there are alligators, snakes, and piranhas. She sleeps in a hammock.

We saw what Muslim women wear. They wear a hijab to keep themselves covered.

We learned that Jewish boys wear a small, round hat called a kippah to remember that God is above them.

In one place in Africa, the girls wear beaded necklaces to show how old they are. The girls also wear a special head piece when they are old enough to marry.

Just to clarify…

The homework for this week is to study spelling words (see the insert in the BEE book for ideas on how to do this) and to start your project.

The spelling test will be THURSDAY.

There is nothing to turn in on Friday, but please bring your BEE book to collect new homework.
***Please bring a backpack to take home goodies and projects on Friday.

Laycee said, “Three more days until Halloween.”

Olivia said, “We made turkeys with Mrs. Stone.”

Corbin said, “We had a fun day.”

Natalie said, “We did an art project today.”

Claire said, “We had brain gym today.”

It’s a new quarter today. We changed desks. We changed spots on the floor. We took out our old data notebook pages and put new pages in. We wrote down our new goals.

Olivia and Laycee held the flag of England during the assembly. We saw some kids dance. We saw them sing a ton of songs. We saw lots of flags. They showed us all the countries we are learning about.

We learned about clothing.

We liked this day!

By Mrs. Norman’s class