About Me

My name is Christie Bethel and I graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. I have been teaching at Banks Road Elementary since it opened up in 2009. My current teaching experience includes teaching first grade at Willow Springs Elementary and 2nd grade at Lillington Shawtown Elementary. I am a Fuquay native, but now call Apex home. I love animals, especially my cat Bootsie and my parent's yellow lab Lucy. I completed my first half-marathon in April 2011. So when I'm not at school, you will find me at the gym or on a trail running or playing soccer with my friends. I was honored to be selected as Banks Road Elementary's Teacher of the Year for 2013-2014.

Meet our class!

Meet our class!

Class Schedule

8:45 to 9:15- Morning work, breakfast, and bathroom
9:15 to 9:25- Read Aloud/Calendar
9:30 to 10:15- Specials
10:20 to to 11:00- Writer's Workshop
11:05 to 11:30- Lunch- table 1
11:35 to 12:35- Math
12:40 to 1:00- Team Time
1:00 to 1:30- Recess
1:30 to 1:40- Snack/Restroom/Read Aloud
1:40 to 2:10- Science and Social Studies
2:10 to 3:35- Daily 5
3:40- Dismissal

Important Dates

- Friday, November 22nd- Jason Knowles’ birthday
- Wednesday, November 27th- Book-It! due for the month of November
- Thursday, November 28th- Thanksgiving- No School!
- Friday, November 29th- No School!
- Monday, December 2nd- Ansley Ayers' Birthday
- Wednesday, December 4th- Track out day

-Monday, December 16th- Hank Gozy's birthday
- Friday, December 27th- Will Poplin's birthday

Monday, April 2, 2012

Newsletter for the week of April 2nd

-Reading- This week we read a lot of stories about spring.  Now that the weather is nice and we tracked back in, we hit the ground running.  We read about spring and the weather it brings, eggs, Easter, and of course April Fool’s Day!
-Science- We started a new unit on Organisms, and we will be learning about living things! We discussed things that living organisms have to have: sunlight, water, food, and space.  We then used our sense of smell, hearing, touch, and sight to observe four seeds.  We observed a pea seed, a kidney bean seed, a sunflower seed, and a pumpkin seed.  We also planted our seeds and will do daily observations to see how our seed changes.  Ask your child which seed they planted!
-Math- This week we began working on telling time. We really focused on being able to tell time to the hour, where the longer, minute hand is on the 12. We also worked on telling time to the half hour.  Since there are 60 minutes in an hour, we know that if it is 6:30, the hour hand needs to be half way between the 6 and the 7, since it is half way to 7:00. We have two songs that we sing every day to help us learn telling time.  Have your child share these two songs with you!  
-Wilson Fundations- We finished up our unit where we were learning about closed syllable words where we tap out 4 sounds. In order for a word to be closed syllable there are some rules: 1. There is only one vowel, 2. The vowel must be a short vowel, 3. The word is only 1 syllable, 4. There must be at least one consonant after the vowel. An example of a closed syllable word is: melt. To mark this word up, we would put the breve over the short e; put a swoop under a word, followed with a lowercase c. Have your child how to mark up the word melt.
Important Information:
-          Spring Pictures- We will be having pictures on April 10th at 11:25.  If interested in purchasing a class picture those need to be bought ahead of time.  It is one class picture for $10.00.  Individual pictures do not need to be purchases now. But if you would like a specific pose for your child, please turn that information into me before April 10th.

Homework for the week of April 2nd


Math
Complete attached Math Expressions pages:
7-12 (Homework- front and Targeted Practice - back)
7-14 (Homework- front) DO NOT DO THE BACK!!!!  
*Please have your child check back over their work. There are many students who are making careless mistakes.


Spelling
Sight Words this Week:

many        before       called       every     follow

Your child needs to choose 2 of the 6 activities listed.  In addition, they should also read the sight words to a parent each night. Please make sure you are using your neatest handwriting and using the lines correctly.
Pick 2 of the choices below:
*Write each sight word 3x each.
*Use each sight word in a sentence.
*Rainbow write your words in 2 colors for each word.
*Write your sight words in ABC order.
*Write each word neatly. Trace over all the vowels in each word with a blue crayon.
*Write a story and use each of your sight words. Underline each word as you use it in the story.

Reading
Read for at least 10 minutes each night. Record the title of the book on the back of the sheet.


Wilson
Fundations
Complete the Wilson Fundations sheet.  We have been working on “closed syllable words.” These are words that have only 1 short vowel and are followed by at least one consonant after the vowel. An example is: this.
*Please make sure this sheet is turned in on Thursday with all of the other homework.


Reminder:  Please return your assignments completed, including name on all of the homework, in your Homework Folder on Thursday morning!  J