Social Skills Lessons with Ms. Allison

The first graders have all recently started having social skills lessons with our school social worker, Ms. Allison. We had our first lesson this morning. We all really enjoyed it and learned a lot. Be sure to ask your child to tell you all about it.

Coding

The Hour of Code is an organization that promotes computer coding in schools. They have a week in December where they want everyone to join in and try some coding activities but you can do it anytime. We started at the beginning of the year with coding apps on our iPads and we have also tried some of the coding activities on the code.org website. The crew loves it. They may also work on it at home. They just need to go to the Resources page of our crew blog, click on the Code button and log in. I think all of the crew knows how to log in now. I sent home their password cards home earlier in the year. If anyone has forgotten or lost their password just send me an email and I will send you their password. There are many activities there but the most popular were the Minecraft, Star Wars and Frozen activities. We will be having an evening at school where you can come in and see some of the coding activities for yourselves. Be sure to stop by on December 5th from 4:30 to 6:30 pm.

Articles for Parents about Coding for Kids

Engage Kids with Coding by Letting Them Design, Create and Tell Stories

Coding Class, Then Naptime: Computer Science for the Kindergarten Set 

Hour of Code


Coding Apps We Use (We are still waiting for the district to add some coding apps to our new iPads, though.)

Book recommendations

This week I want to recommend books by Jan Thomas. These books are funny and similar in style to the Elephant and Piggie books by Mo Willems. Most of the students in our crew are able to read these books on their own. We have read many of her books but not all of them. Your child may have brought some of these books home to read to you in their book bag. I have pre-ordered the two books she has written that will be coming out in January. Below are a few photos of her books - taken from her author website.

Literacy Tips for Parents - Short article that shares some great tips for parents

More Book Recommendations from Mrs. Knott's Book Nook

A Gift of Reading

Thank you to the families who purchased books for our crew at the book fair. We are loving them! We are especially enjoying the fact that we never have to return them to a library - they are here for us to read any time. Thank you for sharing the gift of reading with us!

Important Dates
12/1 Pajama Day for First Grade

12/5 Family Coding Night 4:30 - 6:30 pm at Renaissance

12/6 Gifts for our Adopted Family are due

12/8 Field work to Joyous Chinese Cultural Center

12/18-12/22 Climbing Week for our crew during PE. Sign up here to belay.

12/22 Field work to Pacific Ocean Marketplace and King's Land Restaurant

12/22 Winter Party 3:00 pm 

Thanksgiving Feast

Today was our Thanksgiving Feast at school. We enjoyed having so many parents come and eat lunch with us.

Sliding!

We went over to RSS to take a look around the outside and to test out their big slide while they were out of school. Needless to say, we had a great time!