Ms.Soulas' Classroom

We have finished our 12 Days of Kindness, here are the lyrics so you can sing-a-long! A great big smile to everyone 2 helping hands 3 friendly greetings 4 heartfelt compliments 5 fabulous hugs 6 notes of nice thoughts 7 gracious thank yous 8 acts of encouragement 9 lively laughs 10 simple surprises 11 sky high fives 12 winter wishes The first grade word detectives have been practicing lots of strategies to help them become stronger readers and earned their badges! They aren't afraid to persevere and solve m ystery words and long words  because they've got tools they can use! Read words you do know in a snap Break long words into smaller parts Break the ending off the word and solve the root word Look out for vowel teams Watch out for unusual suspects (contractions and compound words) When your first grader is reading at home, encourage them to use all their tools to solve tricky words, and if one tool doesn't work, they can always try another!  ...

Here are some highlights from the week... We have started our 12 Days of Kindness, which coincides with the 12 days before winter break. We will be adding to our song each day (to the tune of the 12 days of Christmas) and practicing both the song and acts of kindness. We are up to our 6th day of kindness! Here they are so you can practice at home: A great big smile to everyone 2 helping hands 3 friendly greetings 4 heartfelt compliments 5 fabulous hugs 6 notes of nice thoughts 7 gracious thank yous On Wednesday, we met with our 4th grade buddies. The fourth graders have been learning about electricity, energy and power and the buddies got to create their own wind power machines (aka pinwheels). After making them, they got to test them with some great conditions: blue sky and strong gusts of wind! This week, in honor of Hanukkah, the first graders learned how to play Dreidel! They got to use their math skills to take half of the pot when they got "hay"and coun...