St Patricks Elementary School

What an exciting time at St. Patrick School. We are working each day on Christmas activities, especially the play. The students are really putting their best effort into our performance.

Reading/Language Arts: We will not have a story in our reading book this week. We will have special Christmas spelling words. The words are: Mary, Joseph, Jesus, Christmas, Wise Men, December, Angels, shepherds, donkey, manger, Nativity, Hosanna, Messiah, Bethlehem, Savior. We will also review some of the grammar and writing skills from the year.

Math: We will spend some time this week reviewing skills from the past few weeks such as telling time, even and odd, graphs.

Classroom News: Our Christmas play will be on Friday, December 18, at 7pm. Students should be in the classroom by 6:30. They are on Safari, and should wear tan shorts, white button up shirts, and tennis shoes.

Second grade will have a gift exchange next week. Girls will buy a gift for a girl and boys will buy a gift for a boy. Please try to keep within the price range of $5 to $10 dollars. If this is a problem, please feel free to let me know!

 We are very excited to share the Christmas story of the birth of Jesus with you in our pageant this year.    Your child will need to wear a white t-shirt and tan shorts under their costume.   The class is doing a wonderful job learning the words to their song and practicing the moves they will be performing on stage.  Please have your child in the classroom by 6:30 on Friday evening.  Thanks!

We will have a gift exchange this year in First Grade–boys bring a boy gift, girls bring a girl gift.  The gift can be from $8.00-$10.00.  Please have all gifts under our tree by December 18.  If you do not wish for your child to participate, please send me a note in his/her planner.

Reading Language Arts

There will not be a spelling test this week.  We will be discussing parts of a story as we enjoy various Christmas trade books.  We will be reading ”Frosty the Snowman”, “The Crippled Lamb”, and “The Grinch Who Stole Christmas.  Your child will be recognizing characters, setting, main idea, plot and genre of these books.                            

  FORMULA THREE 

We will be practicing sight words.

 Math

  We will then begin a unit on subtraction.  Please continue to practice addition as well. 

Science

We will complete our unit on Matter.  I will assess the students on Friday.   

Important Dates

December 18 @ 7:00 St. Patrick School Christmas Pageant

Help St. Pat’s win $100,000! All you have to do is go to uscellular.com/callingallcommunities, click on Vote For Your School, type in the code B7VVKXF, and type in St. Patrick School 224 Center Avenue Weston, WV 26452. The school with the most votes wins the money. Be sure to tell everyone you know to follow these instructions to help us win.

Secret Word:  Pageant

St. Patrick School

Weekly Bulletin

December 14, -22, 2009

Monday, December 14, 2009 (Moore) (Jackson, Kraus)

 Tuesday, December 15, 2009 (Kraus) (Derico, Moody)

 The H1N1 booster flue shot will be given at the Lewis County Health Department from 5:00 – 7:00 for students age 9 and under.

 Wednesday, December 16, 2009 (Reed) (Jackson, Kraus)

          Staff will meet after school at 3:15 for an in-service. 

 Thursday, December 17, 2009 (Reed, Clevenger)

 Friday, December 18, 2009 (Moody) (Moore, Reed)

             Today is banking day at St. Patrick School.

 The annual Christmas Pageant will be held at 7:00.  Students are to report to their classrooms at 6:30.

 Monday, December 21, 2009 (Derico) (Derico, Moody)

             The staff Christmas dinner will be held at the Hickory House Restaurant at 6:00.

 Tuesday, December 22, 2009 (Clevenger) (Jackson, Kraus)

             Christmas Party for the students will be held at 1:00. 

             A student prayer service will be held at 2:15 in the church.

 December 23, 2009 – January 3, 2010 – No School – Christmas Break

             Students will return on Monday, January 4, 2010

Our can food drive is going well. Please keep sending in those cans. The winner will receive a dress down day. The Drive ends this week.

Congratulations to Albert Naim and Kyle Bryd for coming in First and Second in the Spelling Bee.

Reading -We will be reading The Best Christmas Pageant Ever this week. The students may take an AR Test on this and write a book report.

Grammar – Students will be working on various grammar reviews.

Spelling – Test Friday- This list will be in your child’s planner.

Writing- Students will be working on a Christmas Book for our upcoming Author’s Day.

Math -Students will be reviewing various procedures. We will have a division quiz on Thursday.

Social Studies-Students will have a Natural Resources of our State test on Tuesday.

Religion- Students will have a Saint Quiz on Wednesday.

In addition, WVU has donated some tickets to the girls basketball game on Saturday Dec. 19 at 7pm in Morgantown.  With the tickets that I have you only pay $1.00 to get into the game.  Any parent who would like tickets please let me know, they will be on a first come first serve basis.

Classroom News -

If anyone would like to send in cleaning supplies for our classroom it would be greatly appreciated. (Clorox Wipes, Lysol Spray, etc.)

We are collecting canned goods for Christmas food baskets.  Each grade is asked to bring in a specific canned food.  Fourth grade has been asked to bring in canned green beans and pinto beans.  We will continue collecting cans through December 18.  The upstairs classes ( 3rd, 4th, and the 5th and 6th combined) are competing to see which class brings in the most cans.  The grade(s) which wins will receive a reward.

Our annual Christmas Play will be held on Friday, December 18th. Please be working on your play part. I will be  telling your child about their costume soon.

We will be having a gift exchange in fourth grade.  The students will draw names and receive a little interest inventory about that person.  Gift price limit:  $8.00-$10.00       If you do not wish for your child to participate, please let me know.

Help St. Pat’s win $100,000! All you have to do is go to uscellular.com/callingallcommunities, click on Vote For Your School, type in the code B7VVKXF, and type in St. Patrick School 224 Center Avenue Weston, WV 26452. The school with the most votes wins the money. Be sure to tell everyone you know to follow these instructions to help us win.

Secret Phrase: A King is Coming

Thank you parents who donated their time and energy making the Secret Santa Workshop such a success!

Reading – We are reading “Dinosaurs of Waterhouse Hawkins”.  The selection test will be on Thursday.

Spelling – Spelling words are:  excuse, scene, muscle, explore, pledge, journal, science, schedule, gigantic, scheme, Japan, excellent, exclaim, fascinate, ginger, scholar, scent, dodge, smudge, and schooner.  Challenge words are:  extraordinary, reminisce, acknowledge, prejudice, and allergic.  Test will be Friday.

Grammar – Grammar lesson this week is on Principal Parts of Irregular Verbs.  Test will be on Friday.

Math – We will be reviewing multiplication this week.  Test will be Friday.

Science – We will finish up chapter 5 this week with a test on Friday.

Social Studies – We are studying battles of the Civil War. 

Classroom News -

Gifts for the gift exchange need to be brought in by Friday.

Students need to be in the classroom Friday evening by 6:30 to get ready for the play.   The Christmas play begins at 7:00.

Please continue sending in canned peas and cranberry sause.  The class who brings in the most cans will receive a dress-down day next Monday.  The food drive ends Friday.

Next Tuesday, December 22, we will be walking to the Senior Center to sing Christmas songs.

Secret Phrase:  A King is Coming!

Congratulations to Chris Swiger who will be our 6th grade representative to the Lewis County Spelling Bee and to Khori Lowther who is the alternate. 

Thank you to the parents who organized and worked the Santa Shop.  The students loved it.  They bought presents for their family members and friends.  It was great!

This will be a very busy and exciting week, we are getting ready for our Christmas Play and we have several classroom Christmas activities planned.   Rmember our Christmas Play is Friday December 18th, at 7:00  p.m.

Reading:  This week we will be reading Elizabeth Blackwell, a play about a women who becomes a doctor in the 1800’s.   The selection test for Elizabeth Blackwellwill be Thursday.  We are also reading  “The Best Christmas Pageant Ever” 

Spelling:  Unit 3 Lesson 5  One word or two word compound words, test on Friday.

Grammar: We are studying prepositions. 

Writing:  This week we will be writing a short story about Christmas for our Author’s Day.

Math:  We will review chapter 1 on Monday and have test on chapter 1 on Tuesday.  We will begin chapter 2.

Science – We are working in Chapter 6.

Classroom News:

Our canned food drive is going well. Please continue sending in canned peas and cranberry sause.  The class who brings in the most cans will receive a dress-down day next Monday.  The food drive ends Friday.

Gifts for the gift exchange need to be brought in by Friday.

Our annual Christmas Play will be held on Friday, December 18th. The sixth grade students have all learned their parts.  Please work with your student to select an outfit to wear for the play.  We have talked about their roles and they have a good idea of what they would like to wear.  

Students need to be in the classroom Friday evening by 6:30 to get ready for the play.   The Christmas play begins at 7:00.

Congratulations to Austin and Shawn for winning the top two spots in the class Spelling Bee.  Austin will be representing our class at the County Spelling Bee in January and Shawn will be the alternate.  I am very proud of them!

Our canned food drive is going well. Please keep sending in those cans. The winner will receive a dress down day.

This week we will continue reading The Whipping Boy.  The students will be completing a character description activity and writing a summary of the story.  Quiz- Thursday

We will not have a spelling test this week;  however, we will be doing some work with a few Christmas words as well as applying spelling in various writings the students are completing.

Writing-  The students will be completing their Christmas stories told from an animal’s perspective.

Math- We will be reviewing number patterns, ordering numbers, and multiplication facts.

The third grade will be using their netbooks this week for our usual activities:  writing, math drill review, spelling practice.  They will also be researching information on northpole.com as well as researching the origin of Christmas carols.

We will be practicing this week in the afternoons for our upcoming Christmas play.

Fluency Reading-  Our Fluency Reading Selection this week is the Christmas scripture.  The students did not get to read Twas the Night Before Christmas to the other classes on Friday due to some schedule issues.  We will be doing this Tuesday morning.

Religion- We will be finishing up the work on the saints this week.  Each student has a study guide that they may take home and review.  We will review and play a ’saint bingo’ game and then do a quiz on Wednesday  of this week.

Classroom News -

We are collecting canned goods for Christmas food baskets.  Each grade is asked to bring in a specific canned food.  Third grade has been asked to bring in canned corn.  We will continue collecting cans through December 18.  The upstairs classes ( 3rd, 4th, and the 5th and 6th combined) are competing to see which class brings in the most cans.  The grade(s) which wins will receive a reward.

Our annual Christmas play will be held on Friday, December 18th at 7:00.  The girls will need to wear a white t-shirt (long or short sleeve), shorts (any color), and white socks and white tennis shoes.  They will put their hair up in a pony tail.  The following items will be provided for them:  bright pink poodle skirts (my mom is making these), a pink scarf, and bow for their hair.  The boys will need to wear blue jeans, a white t-shirt, sunglasses (optional), white socks, and black shoes (dress or tennis shoes).  They can slick their hair back if they wish.  As you can imagine be now, the students will be performing a 50’s style song for the play!!  If you have any questions, please give me a call.

Students need to be in the classroom Friday evening by 6:30 to get ready for the play.   The Christmas play begins at 7:00.

Please send in gifts for the gift exchange by this Friday.

Thanks to those parents who helped with Santa’s Secret Shop!

Secret Word Phrase:  Happy Birthday, Jesus!

Hello parents,

The students may start bringing in gifts to put under the Christmas tree for the gift exchange at school. We’ll exchange gifts at the Christmas party on December 22. Each girl needs to bring in a girl gift, and each boy needs to bring in a boy gift. The gifts should be no more than $10.

Help St. Pat’s win $100,000! All you have to do is go to uscellular.com/callingallcommunities, click on Vote For Your School, type in the code B7VVKXF, and type in St. Patrick School 224 Center Avenue Weston, WV 26452. The school with the most votes wins the money. Be sure to tell everyone you know to follow these instructions to help us win.

Reading-This week in reading we will be reviewing all the letters of the alphabet. These letters are: B, D, J, K, P, T, F, S, V, Z, H, A, E, H, L, R, M, N, Q, X, I, O, C, G, W, and Y. Our sight words are: I, am, one, little, two, three, the, a, have, four, it, is, to, my, we, like, he, and for.

Math-This week in math we will be working on the proper sequence of numbers. The children will be doing activities where they have to find the number that comes next. We will be doing numbers 0-30.

We will continue to go to the library every Thursday. It is important that you read your child’s book to them, and make sure it is returned to school by Thursday every week.

Important dates:

12/18/09- Liturgy will be at 8:15. Today is also banking day.

12/18/09-The Christmas pageant will be tonight at 7 pm in the St. Pat’s gym

We are collecting canned goods for Christmas food baskets. Each grade is asked to bring in a specific canned food. Kindergarten has been asked to bring in boxed stuffing. We will continue collecting food through December 18.

Reading:  This week we will be reading the story; Learning To Swim.  The selection test will be Thursday

Spelling:  Unit 3  Lesson 2  Using just enough letters.  Final test will be Friday.  Our classroom spelling bee to select a representative for the county spelling bee will be Wednesday, Dec. 9th.

Grammar:  Unit 3 Lesson 2  Verbs, Objectives, and Subject Complements,  test Friday

Writing:  We will write a set of rules, and learn how to eliminate wordiness.  The students have been reading their DAR essays out loud to the other students. We will continue to work on them.  The completed essay is due Friday Dec. 11, 2009

Math:  We will continue with Chapter 1-lesson 1.5 with a test on chapter 1 on Wednesday.

Social Studies:  We are working on Chapter 4

Science:  Test on chapter 5 on Wednesday.

Religion- We will be finishing up the work on the saints this week.  Each student has a study guide that they may take home and review.  We will review and play a ’saint bingo’ game and then do a quiz on Wednesday or Thursday of this week.

In addition, WVU has donated some tickets to the girls basketball game on Saturday Dec. 19 at 7pm in Morgantown.  With the tickets that I have you only pay $1.00 to get into the game.  Any parent who would like tickets please let me know, they will be on a first come first serve basis.

Classroom News -

We will have Mass on Tuesday at 12:00.

If anyone would like to send in cleaning supplies for our classroom it would be greatly appreciated. (Clorox Wipes, Lysol Spray, etc.)

We are collecting canned goods for Christmas food baskets.  Each grade is asked to bring in a specific canned food.  The fifth and sixth  grades have been asked to bring in canned peas and cranberry sauce.  We will continue collecting cans through December 18.  The upstairs classes ( 3rd, 4th, and the 5th and 6th combined) are competing to see which class brings in the most cans.  The grade(s) which wins will receive a reward.

Santa’s Secret Shop will be held December 8th-10th. Items will cost ranging from $0.50 to $1.50Santa’s Shop will be opened these three days. Everything available will cost between 50 cents and $1.50. On the first day, the grades will have a scheduled time to go. During this time, the students may purchase Christmas gifts for whomever they wish. Please make a shopping list with your child and send the list and money in a sealed envelope. The shop will also wrap each child’s purchases. Only children who bring money to shop will return on the following two days

Our annual Christmas Play will be held on Friday, December 18th. Please be working on your play part.

The toy drive, mitten/scarf/hat drive, and the collection for the angel tree will end on Friday, December 11th. We ask that everyone send in their donations to make Christmas a little more special for those in need.

Help St. Pat’s win $100,000! All you have to do is go to uscellular.com/callingallcommunities, click on Vote For Your School, type in the code B7VVKXF, and type in St. Patrick School 224 Center Avenue Weston, WV 26452. The school with the most votes wins the money. Be sure to tell everyone you know to follow these instructions to help us win.

The students have exchanged names for a Christmas gift exchange.  Along with a student’s name for the gift exchange   they also received a list of ideas for gifts.  These gifts should cost between 8 and 10 dollars.  Please stay within this price range.   Our class gift exchange will be Dec. 22.

Only two weeks until our Christmas play. We have been working hard, and everyone is very excited.

Reading/Language Arts: Our reading story this week, Anansi Goes Fishing, is based on an African folk tale. The spelling words for this story are: basketball, weekend, birthday, bathtub, backyard, raindrop, grandparent, someone, something, riverbank, driveway, bedtime, mailbox, rattlesnake, earthquake.
Please make certain that there is no space between the two little words.

Math: We will begin +6 math facts this week. We will also practice graphing information on different types of graphs.

Religion: We will continue to learn the Seven Sacraments.

Classroom News: Our Christmas play will be December 18 at 7pm. Second graders are on Safari. They should wear a white shirt (preferably a button up shirt, but a polo shirt would work), tan uniform shorts, tennis shoes, and possibly some type of thick sock that would bunch around the ankle.

Santa’s Secret Shop will be December 8, 9, 10. All items are .50 to 1.50. Please put the money and shopping list in a Ziploc bag.

I will place an order from Scholastic on Wednesday evening. Please have all orders in by Wednesday morning. If the order is for Christmas, please indicate this, and I will call you when the books come in.

Second graders will have a gift exchange for Christmas. Boys will buy a boy gift and girls will buy a girl gift. The price range is between $5 and $8 dollars. Please try to keep within that price range.