St. Christopher School

The way things were going I thought that I might have to skip right over November class news and write about December!  Hopefully everyone is well and back to normal operation at home.  I'd like to begin by thanking all of you parents for spending time with your children and helping them to create hats for Hat Day.  All the hats were fabulous and the children had great fun parading around in them.

Although November began with days off from school and will end the same way with Thanksgiving coming, we still have the middle of the month to work with!  The story of the first Thanksgiving and the study of Native Americans will be our focus for this month.  We wil take a close look at what life was like back in the early days.  Through the use of stories, pictures, games, hands on crafts, and authentic Native items, the children will gain new and deeper insights about Native culture which was so different from their own today.  We will be working on simple and complex patterning which ties in well with the beautiful designs found in Native American artwork.  The children will also learn about the Mayflower voyage and the difficulties endured by the pilgrims as they began their new life in America.

We continue our strong focus on phonics and pre-reading skills by participating in songs, language chart readings, worksheet activities, phonetic bingo games, journal writing and creating lots of word lists.  We are already starting to sound out unfamiliar words through context and we are starting to recognize some sight words. Very exciting!

The new character trait for November is TRUTHFULNESS which means being honest and doing things with pure motives.  The lion is the animal chosen to represent truthfulness because lions never lie!  The story of the lion will teach the children about the difference between truth and falsehood and how to accurately predict what a real lion will do based on its' body language.  Some children are naturally true to the core and blatantly honest which makes them such a delight to work with.

Just a reminder that parent-teacher conferences are fast approaching.  You will soon receive a confirmation notice reminding you of the date and time of your conference.  Please be punctual so things will flow smoothly.  Thank You so much for your continued helpfulness, generosity and cooperation.  I also appreciate all that you do to keep me informed.  It will be nice to have a chance to meet with all of you at conference time.  It seems too early to say this now, but it will be here before you know it so...Mrs. Foran and I would like to wish you all a very happy and blessed Thanksgiving!