DECEMBER
NEWS
Brooke Grove
Elementary School
Olney, Maryland
December
First Grade
First Grade Newsletter
Introduction
THANK YOU! We greatly appreciate all of
those families who were able to meet with us
during Parent Teacher Conferences. If you
were unable to attend or would like to
schedule future meetings with your child’s
teacher, please feel free to contact them
directly. We are so grateful for all of the
support you have given us and for continuing
to work with your children at home as well.
Many thanks,
Ellen Herron
MaryKay Hirsch
Kathleen Schwartz
Varysa Williams
Mindy Oxman
Reading
In reading, we have spent the first half of the
marking period reading fiction books.
Students work on different comprehension
skills. Some of these include: asking and
answering questions about key details,
describing key details in a book such as
beginning, middle, end as well as characters,
problem, setting, and solution. Students have
practiced identifying the central message in a
story as well as comparing experiences of
characters. The second half of the marking
period we will be reading informative texts.
Students will retell key details, ask questions
to clarify meaning of difficult words, as well
as use context clues in order to determine
meaning of words.
Math
In math, we are working on solving different
types of story problems. Some story
problems may have the ending result
missing where others may have one of the
addends missing. An example is:
Ms. Hirsch has 10 balloons. Some popped.
Now she has 3. How many balloons popped?
We will continue to work on different
addition and subtraction strategies as well
as practice explaining our thinking and ways
to solve problems.
Writing
In writing, we recently finished writing about
a culture that was different than our own. We
are working on using research in order to
create our own books. The rest of the
marking period, we will be writing an opinion
piece about our favorite animal as well as a
personal narrative. We will continue to work
on using appropriate capitalization and
punctuation throughout our writing.
First Grade Newsletter Page 2
Science & Social Studies
In Social Studies, we will be discussing
artifacts from the past and present. We will
be classifying the events from the past and
the present.
In Science we will describe how magnets
change an object’s motion. We will also
classify magnetic materials.
Reminders to Students
 Congratulations on bringing in
the most cans for our food
drive!
 Practice your addition and
subtraction facts
 Go for the gold has begun!
READ! READ! READ!
Field Trip
We will be going on a Field Trip to
Imagination Stage on December 21st. Please
keep your eye out for a parent permission
form. Also, we will need a few chaperones per
class. Please be sure to wait for confirmation
from your child’s teacher about attending the
Field Trip.
Upcoming Events
Craft Night
December 8th- 6:00- 8:00
Go for the Gold Calendar Due
December 1st
Days off School

December 24th- January 4th
Thank You
Reminders to Parents
Our winter holiday begins on December
24th until January 4th. Please continue to
read with your child throughout the
winter break!
Special thank you to all of the families who
were able to join us at conferences.
Additionally, thank you to all for your continual
support inside and outside of the classroom. We
wish all of you a wonderful winter holiday full of
good times with your families and friends!