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a different one for each letter of the alphabet.  We have been learning about positional words - above, below, beside, and directional words - left and right.  We did activities on the smartboard and a book that had Christmas images that we placed in the correct locations.  We really enjoy our technology time - smartboard activities, computer lab, and the ipad all give us an opportunity to work on our skills. 
•  One of the science activities that we did was creating a book about reindeer.  We learned six facts about reindeer - Did you know that ALL (male and female) reindeer grow antlers?  Then we decorated the book to look like a reindeers head and traced our hands to make the antlers. 
•  We survived our Christmas program day - it was a lot of work to learn all of the words to the songs we sang.  But it was also a lot of fun!  It was great to see so many people there to hear us sing. 
•  The weather outside has been cold, but we try to get out for a little bit of recess each day.  We are getting pretty quick at getting our snow pants, boots, coats, hats and gloves on. 
•  Merry Christmas to each of you from all of us in Junior Kindergarten!
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• 1^st Grade ~ Emily Eichler & Shauna Remily
• Merry Christmas! We hope this finds you all enjoying the holiday season with family and friends. The first graders are sure ready for Christmas and loving the snow! Here are the latest "happenings" in first grade:
• We have learned 58 brand new high-frequency words, short vowel sounds, nouns, verbs, and consonant blends. We began learning about the "silent, but bossy, e" in words like kite and make. Our stories are even becoming longer and using challenging words.
• In math, we are still learning different strategies to solve math problems. One strategy we have been working on is making groups of ten. We use this method when adding two 2-digit numbers. We also use the make-a-ten strategy with money, where we think of ten pennies as a group of ten, or a dime. We also finished a unit on solving story problem.
• In science class, we have learned all about life cycles. The students really enjoyed learning the life cycle of a frog, butterfly, sunflower and tree. We also learned that animals and plants must grow and change for a life cycle to happen. We will plant sunflower seeds and pinecones when we return to school in January. We love science experiments!
• Social studies class has been filled with learning about the first Thanksgiving, and most recently, the world. We learned about cities and towns, states, countries, and continents. It is always fun to learn new information in social studies class!   

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