Dear Parents,

I just wanted to let you know that, as a gala auction item, Ms. Atcheson, Ms. Druhot, and I are offering "Fun and Games at Chuck E. Cheese."

This will be for the auction winner plus 3 guests. Approximately 2 hours of fun along with pizza and tokens.  Date and time to be worked out between teachers and parents.

The Gala Auction will be held February 4, 2012 at Olde Towne Athletic Club from 7 to 11 PM. Tickets are on sale at http://gmefoundation.org - $35 and $45 at the door or you can Download 2012GALATicketformto purchase tickets in advance. Visit the website for a sample of items to bid on. All proceeds go back to GMEF.

The proceeds will be used to improve our school by providing funding for programs such as technology, educational curriculum and facility improvements. The GMEF will accumulate and distribute resources beyond those provided by Cobb County or the PTA, in order to further enhance, foster and enrich the educational experiences of all students at Garrison Mill.

Thank you for your support!

Dear Parents,

            Happy New Year!  We hope you had a wonderful holiday!  We can’t believe the year is half over.  We have made so much progress but we still have a lot to accomplish before the year is over.  With your help, here is what we will be expected of your child for the 3^rd 9 weeks of school:

Reading:  As we read and discuss many different types of books, we will continue to review the characters, the main idea, be able to recall the details from the beginning, middle, and end of a story.  We will also explore and identify the difference between fictional text and nonfictional text.   Then we will compare and contrast fiction vs. nonfiction.   Lastly, we will identify details and facts from a nonfiction book.  A great website that we will use is “Go Pebbles”.  They have a lot of non-fiction books that we will begin researching our favorite animals during our computer lab time.

Phonics:  We will continue working on identifying short and long vowels, vowel diagraphs, R-controlled vowels, compounds, antonyms and synonyms, nouns (subjects)/verbs, adjectives, homophones,  and word families too. 

Writing:  We will continue to work on “informational writing” where we will create stories that will tell about something we have done by generating ideas, adding more details and producing a good closure.  We will continue to edit our work by looking for complete sentences, capitalization and periods. Then we will move into learning how to write a realistic story as well.   

Math:  This quarter we will be working on making fair trades with $ bills up to $20 and counting combinations of coins to $1.00,  working with #’s to 100,  more graphs and tallies, telling time to the ½ hour and a hour, fractions (1/2,  1/3,  1/4), and Facts up to 18 (addition and subtraction) . We will also introduce double digit addition and subtraction without regrouping.   Please practice their math facts.  We have done really well with our addition facts but we still need practice with our subtraction facts.  We will continue to take weekly timed tests on each one!  The 3^rd Quarter outline is provided in this packet! 

Science:  We have a lot of fun things to learn about this quarter in Science. We will be learning about Shadows and Light, plant parts, and the basic needs of plants and animals!  This will be a fun quarter!  We will have another High Touch/High Tech session on Plants.  Be on the lookout for some fun projects!!!

Social Studies:  We have really enjoyed learning about so many famous historical figures this year!  This quarter, we will be learning about Harriett Tubman, Theodore Roosevelt, and George W. Carver.

Therefore, we really appreciate all of your continue support to help your child achieve mastery of their standards for 1^st Grade.   Please continue to read every night, review the story by questioning your child, and practice their math facts to 18 for addition/subtraction (especially SUBTRACTION)!  We have also included a letter about AR points for the quarter.  Please read the attached letter as well.  Your kids are very excited about this new challenge!   Lastly, we are in need of glue sticks and white notecards!  We are all out!  We would gladly accept any donations!!!  Thank you!!!

Sincerely,

Mrs. Clark and Mrs. Druhot

Dear Parents,

I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving Break!  I enjoyed meeting all of wonderful family members at the Grandparent Luncheon!  I know your children really had a great time performing for everyone!  Looking ahead, I can’t believe December is already here!  Here is a glance of what we will be doing:

Dec. 1:  PTA Mtg. 6:30 pm and Reflections Reception 6:00 pm

Dec. 3:  Foundation Pancake Breakfast

Dec. 8:  International Night 6-8 pm

Dec. 13:  Gr. 1-5 Checkpoints Testing for Language Arts (This is a County Test that will be used to see what the children have learned from the beginning of the school year to now.)

Dec. 14:  Gr.1-5 Checkpoints Testing for Math

Dec. 15 &16: We will input on answers for both tests using I-Respond.

Dec. 15:  We will have HTHT in-school fieldtrip!  This fieldtrip’s topic will be on Sound!

Dec. 21:  This is our possible day for our Holiday Party for the Kids.  As soon as we receive our official schedule and time, I will let our room moms know so we can plan accordingly!

Dec. 19-22  Possible AR Movie Reward:  I will be sending out an email to inquiring who will be leaving town early for the Holidays!  I want to make sure everyone gets to participate if they have earned their points!  Everyone is doing a great job reading and taking their AR tests!!!  Thank you to all of the parents who have helped out in the mornings with AR testing!  I truly appreciate each of you and you have made our jobs much easier!!!

Take care,

Jill Clark

Parents,

There will be club photos taken for the school's yearbook on the morning of Thursday, November 10th for any student who has participated in any after school club.

This may include:   Chorus, Art club, Young Rembrandts, Odyssey of the Mind, Drama Club, Chess Club, Golf Club, Spanish Club, Cheer Dance, Club Scientific, Cub Scouts, Student Council, Wee Deliver, News Crew, Safety Patrol, etc. Please be sure to make your child aware of this activity which is strictly voluntary.

Beachside News Update:

Conferences: We just wanted to thank everyone for coming to Conference Week. We enjoyed sitting down with everyone and letting you know how well your child is doing in our class!

Centers: We just wanted to say thank you for the following parents who provided centers this month: Mrs. Kennedy, Mrs. Milham, Mrs. Rhue, Mr. McGill. The kids had a terrific time! Thank you to Mrs. Barrows and Mrs. Prince for sending in treats for the kids as well!

Turkey Feather Project:  Your child received a Brown feather today in their blue folders.  This is a family project.  Please be as creative as you would like!  We can't wait to see how everyone decorates their feather.  They are due next Thursday, November 10th.

Grandparents Luncheon: On Thursday, November 17, we will be singing Thanksgiving songs! Please join us in our classroom at 10:20. After our performance, we will go to lunch at 10:45. Be sure to visit the bookfair during the week too.

AR Books:  AR books have been sent home as of last Friday.  We have several children who are already taking tests!  They are very eager to try this new task and earn points.  Please remember to read the book at least 3 times and quiz them before returning the book.  Thank you for the parents who have been coming in to help assist with taking AR tests!

 Here is what we have been learning in our classroom:

Phonics We have been learning about suffix -ed and -ing, vowel diagraph ee, and VCCV.  We will be learning about the silent E and long vowels.

Writing:  We will continue to practice writing narrative pieces. We have also introduced how to write pattern books!

Math:  We have been learning how to count coins and dollar bills.  We will be learning about shapes and graphing in the next few weeks!

Social Studies:  We have been learning about Ben Franklin.  We are now learning about Thomas Jefferson, Lewis & Clark, and Sacagawea.

Science:  We will be learning about Magnets.

Technology:  We will be learning about webbing and graphing.

High Touch/High Tech:  Today, we sent home our First Grade scheduled in-school fieldtrips for the year.  Please sign and return your child’s permission slip with your payment of $27.00 to us by October 14^th.  Please make checks payable to Garrison Mill Elementary School.  Thanks :-)

CoGAT:  Our testing will begin this Wednesday and last through Friday.  Please make sure your child is on-time daily. The test will start at 8:00 a.m.

Homework:  There is no homework this week due to testing!  The only thing that is due this Friday, October 7th is our Family Scarecrow Project.  Just remember to read nightly!

Math:  We have 2 new friends that will be coming to your home to help your child learn their Math Facts.  Their names are Nemo the Fish and Splash the Whale.  Your child will receive a bag with one of our friends.  Inside the bag, you will find several games that you and your child can play.  Your child must return our friends to school the next day.  We don’t expect you to complete all the games in one night.  But you should see our new friends at least once every 2 weeks.  We will add games as we learn new skills throughout the year!  We hope you enjoy spending time with our new friends!!!

We would like to thank all the parents who came out for our 1st Parent Centers for the Month of September!  The kids had a wonderful time with each center!!!  We appreciate all of your time and effort to make our centers fun and engaging for the kids!!!  We can't wait to see what we will be doing in October!!! 

Sightwords Update

 Dear Parents,

We are now into our 6th week of school, and it is time for Sight Word Assessments.

• This week, we will assess the first 50 words from the lists in the Sight Word Folders. You received your child’s Sight Word Folder (Girls have Yellow Folders and Boys have Blue Folders) at Open House. If you cannot locate it, please let us know.

• Attached are the next 50 words to know for the 2nd quarter. Your child may need to continue learning the first 50 sight words, but soon, you will want to start working on the next 50 words.

• Don’t forget to sign each list when your child is ready to test, return it to school, and then when mastered, they will receive Coconut Bucks.

• Please sign and return the top list of this packet. A duplicate of this list is attached to the back of the packet for you to keep at home. Remember, it’s important to practice daily- working on the words not mastered but also retaining the words mastered.

 SnacK:  For the safety of your child, please do not send any peanut products to school for snack. Thank you! 

Beachside News Update: 

Math:  We are working on strategies to help us solve and write simple Subtraction problems. We are learning new vocabulary: minus/take away -, equal=, and the difference. 

Phonics:  We have been working on letters/sounds Zz, Ss.  The next few lessons will involve the following letters/sounds for Dd, Ff, Hh, and Gg.

Handwriting: We are working on forming the following letters Zz, Ss, Dd, Ff, Hh and Gg.  Did they tell you what a head line, mid line, and base line is?  

Reading: During Shared Reading time, we are reviewing how to choose the right book for ourselves and how to take care of our books in the classroom.  We are also working on our Fluency when reading and retelling a story using our Braidy Doll. 

Science/Social Studies:  We just finished up our unit on Seasons and Weather. We are now learning about the 7 continent/Oceans and Landforms.   

Writing:  We are working on developing ideas, organizing our ideas and making simple sentences from our thoughts.  Each sentence must have a capital letter at the beginning of the sentence and a period at the end.  An example of our writing this week:  Writing about the weather each day in our Weather Journal

Parent Journal:  We hope you enjoyed your first letter from your child.  Just a friendly reminder! The journal is due back to school on Tuesdays!  We were missing several journals this week.  Therefore, if you didn’t receive your journal this weekend from your child, then it wasn't return to us.  It is very important that they are returned every week.  We will write in them every Friday!

Homework:  This was our first week of Homework. We hope it went well this week.  We know the kids were very excited!  Please make sure your homework is returned to school each Friday! 

Computer Lab:  Every Friday at 8:15-9:00 

Donations from Open House!!  We just want to thank everyone who donated supplies and other needs for the classroom.  Thank you so much for your generosity!  It is appreciated so much! 

Clark’s Beachside News for the Week of 8/22-8/26:

Math:  We are working on strategies to help us solve and write simple addition problems. We are learning new vocabulary: plus+, equal=, and the sum.  Next week, we will be learning strategies to help us solve and write simple subtraction problems.

Phonics:  We are working on the initial sounds for n,o,t

Handwriting:We are working on the following letters Nn, Oo, and Tt.  Ask your child what a head line, mid line, and base line is?  

Reading: During Shared Reading time, we are learning how to choose the right book for ourselves and how to take care of our books in the classroom.

Science:  For the next 2 weeks, we will be exploring the 4 Seasons and the different types of weather.

Writing:  We are working on developing ideas, organizing our ideas and making simple sentences from our thoughts.  Each sentence must have a capital letter at the beginning of the sentence and a period at the end.  An example of our writing this week:  3 things I did this Summer…