Author: Columbia Public Schools

Mrs. Bushmann’s
First Grade Flight Notes

1st grade Lee Expressive Arts School

Nov. 3, 2018

Important Dates
Mon-Thurs. Nov. 6-9
Parent/teacher conferences AND Scholastic Book Fair
Thursday, Nov. 9
McDonalds fundraiser
Business loop McDs.
Friday, Nov. 10
No school, conferences
Tuesday, Nov. 14th
Literacy Night
Come one come all!!
Fun family event!
6-7 pm
Thanksgiving Break
Nov. 22, 23, 24
No School
Wed. Dec. 20 1:00
All-school spelling bee
Dec. 22nd-Jan. 3rd
No school-winter break

Grade Cards
Please see your child’s grade card in the enclosed white envelope. I’m looking forward to seeing everyone next week at parent/teacher conferences. This grade card is just a tiny snapshot of your child. At conferences I will share their work with you and talk about all they are doing. I look forward to seeing everyone.
Pizza Hut Reading Program
See the flyer in this week’s folder for details on how your child can earn a free personal pan pizza by reading. Please fill out the reading chart and return at the end of the month. Thanks!
Scholastic Book Fair
During Parent/teacher conferences
This is s a great fundraiser for our school. Please consider buying books from the fair to help support our schools and programs like the One Read. We loved reading Ivan this year!
Spelling Bee
Please find the enclosed flyer with details about this school-wide project. We will have a small class bee in our own classroom to determine the winner (s)! For our school spelling bee that will be held on Dec. 20th. The flyer has a list of words that would be worth studying.
We will be doing a major fairy tale integration. We will let you know as soon as possible when the 1st graders will perform.
Paper towel tubes needed!
Please send in any and continue to save for us and send in through January!

Reading: When your child brings home a book in a baggie to read to you, please sign the form and return the book the next day, or as soon as possible. Thanks!
Writing: We are working on a writing craft rubric. We are trying to paint a picture in our listener’s mind and write using our 5 senses. We use an opening line, write supporting details and then an ending. We are working on interesting, descriptive language.
Math: In Unit 3 we are learning how to talk about what strategy we’ve used to solve a problem. We are learning to talk about our math thinking and how we’ve gotten an answer. Our focus this week was word problems. We are using number lines to help us solve problems. We also are learning to skip count using a calculator.
Science: We have started our bone study. Anyone with any expertise feel free to come visit with us about our amazing bones. We love learning how our bodies work. Our animal this week is a gorilla! He reminds us of Ivan.
Word Study: We will begin with a review of short vowels, being sure every word has a vowel (syllable too!) and that it’s the correct vowel. We have done short a and I and will move on to short u next week.

School Arrival and Dismissal
Remember that the children are allowed into the building at 7:35. There is no supervision before this time. The tardy bell rings at 7:55. That is the official start time to our day. If your child is a parent drop-off in the morning and you would like to have them eat breakfast you should plan to drop them as close to 7:35 as possible. This way they have time to eat their breakfast and be ready to learn at the start of our day. All children are expected to be here by then or they will be marked absent or tardy. We will dismiss buses first this year at 2:50 and then parent pick-up will start at 3:05.

SNACKS
We could use any donations of snacks that you would like to send. Snack suggestions are: graham crackers, cheese crackers, goldfish, Chex Mix, pretzels, grapes, apples, pudding, etc. I appreciate you helping out with this. If each family would send a snack for our class once a month, we would have enough. We have 19 students.

You might want to label and send a light jacket to school that could hang on your child’s hook. It is quite lovely with the new air-conditioning, but several of the children found it to be colder than they are comfortable.
Children are welcome to bring a water bottle to school.

Questions? Concerns?
Please call me at school at 214-3530. I am always here by 7:15 and I stay until 3:15 (usually later, but always til then). You may call me at home at 445-3942. Email is also a great way to contact me. I read it several times a day. I have an open door policy and parents are welcome to visit anytime.
Lottie Bushmann lbushmann@cpsk12.org