December!

Wow, I can't believe that it is already almost halfway through this month.  We are continuing to work hard with all that we do and at times we need reminders on the simple routines and rules of our classroom that we worked very hard to learn the first few weeks. ;)

I look forward to parent/teacher conferences as our time to chat about your developing First Grader. Please keep in mind that conferences are about 20 minutes and I have them back to back both days! I will do my best to stick to the time but you may be waiting for a couple of minutes if anyone comes in late or we go over a minute or two.

We are starting a new unit in Reading Workshop that focuses on "meeting" and understanding/analyzing the characters in our books. You can help to reinforce this at home when your child finishes reading a book to you. Have him/her retell and discuss what they notice about the character, did the character change at all throughout the book, what are words to describe that character, etc.

I am impressed with the hard work that the students did on their very first gumball quiz! We had many gumballs this first week. Please keep in mind that your child may be practicing the same facts for more than a week depending on whether they successfully completed the quiz in that time frame. If your child does not receive new flashcards on a Monday that means they did not complete the quiz the week before and will retake it that week. I stressed to the children the importance of not bragging and being proud of everyone's accomplishments, even if it just means for trying very hard. We are all working at our own pace.

Thank you to those of you that offered to help run a Holiday Workshop next Friday! I will be in touch shortly. If anyone else is still interested that would be wonderful! Please email me to let me know.

The next two weeks will be spent traveling the world and learning about how some other countries celebrate the December holidays! Today was our first country and the students learned about Mexico!

Challenge:  Which continent is Mexico located on?  Please email me by Friday with your child's answer for a prize.
Please remember that your child needs to be the one to answer! :)

Updates

This week the students learned about reindeer in the wild! We read some informational text about the animal and worked to create an organizer with facts about them. The students are working on a booklet about reindeer where they unscramble words to make a complete sentence and illustration. We also worked SUPER hard at putting our facts from the organizer into a piece of nonfiction writing. The students did such a great job, I am so proud of their progress. Those are now hung in the hallway for display with a cute reindeer that they made.

We are working hard at practicing strategies for retelling in Reader's Workshop. The students are learning to identify the setting, to follow the order of events in the story, and to balance the details. We will continue with retelling next week as well, then get into character traits.

Please continue to practice the sight words that come home, especially those particular words that your child does not know automatically (within a few seconds).

Next week we will begin timed Math Fact quizzes with an activity called "Gumball Math".The students will have their own paper gumball machines hung in the classroom and each week that they master a fact quiz (get all correct within the set time), they will have a paper gumball added to their machine. A detailed letter explaining this will come home next week.

Have a great weekend!  Here is a challenge for the students! Please email me your child's answers! 2/3 earn a little prize.

1.  What kind of an animal is a reindeer?
2. A reindeer is an excellent ________________.
3. What word means putting events in order?

Thanksgiving Feast!

We had a great Thanksgiving Feast last Tuesday! The students made adorable placemats (which you now have seen) to tell something that they are thankful for. It also helped to show what a place setting looks like! Here are a few pictures from the feast. I hope all of your families had a wonderful Thanksgiving!

Writing Workshop!

We have been working hard at writing our small moment stories. Students have also begun to meet with their writing partners to help them with this process. One goal of meeting with our writing partners is to help the writer think about what details can be added, based on the questions by the listener! It is also a way to help plan out what to write about, by telling a partner first. Here are a few pictures of partners reading their writing at the end of a Writing Workshop time.

Happy Veteran's Day!

Last week we spent some time learning about Veteran's Day and discussing how special and important veterans are. One of the activities we did was to brainstorm a list of words to describe veterans and then we did a directed drawing to go with it. They came  out adorable. Happy Veteran's Day to all the men and women that have served (or are currently serving) our country! We thank you!

Power Outage!

We can work in the dark! So impressed with the students this afternoon. In the middle of Math the building's power went out and we just kept on working hard.

Some Pictures

Tomorrow is our assembly for the election! Students are encouraged to wear red, white and blue! I will be out tomorrow at an all day conference. The students should be given their sight word packets for homework by the substitute. If they are missing something when they get home it is ok. I will make sure they get it on Wednesday.
Here are some pictures from our Halloween craft/workshop day. Thank you again to the volunteers for all of your help!

These are the little witches we did before Halloween to go along with an adjective activity. I read aloud "The Brave Little Witch" and then we brainstormed adjectives for witches. Students chose the 6 adjectives they wanted to use to describe their witches. :)

Halloween /New Challenge

I hope everyone stayed safe during Sandy! Tomorrow is Halloween and we have some fun activities planned after lunch. A big thank you to parents that could donate their time/materials to help make this happen! Tomorrow I am letting the students know that we will be videotaped in the morning. This is very exciting for our class. I am hopeful that even though it is Halloween, the students can focus and do their very best. I hope that all the kids get a great night of sleep and are ready to show off their great learning tomorrow! I am also hoping for lots of clips moved to purple for not only behaving/listening, but also really participating during the lesson.

I am in the process of getting a new battery charger for my camera so that is the reason behind the lack of pictures lately!

We had our first Mystery Reader on Friday! Ms. Phillips, our librarian, came and read a fun book called "Bats in the Library".  I am still looking for more parents willing to become a mystery reader. Or maybe you know someone in a specific line of work that would love to come in and read a book and share a bit about their job. Please let me know! In the past I've had firefighters, bee keepers, boat captains, nurses,etc.

Last week we spent a lot of time learning about bats.  Here are some challenge questions for your child! You may email me their answers and 2/3 correct earn a little prize. :)

1.  What kind of animal is a bat?
2. What are the names of the two groups of bats?
3. What is a baby bat called?
Good luck!

Halloween and the Book Fair

Hi Everyone,
I sent a notice home on Friday regarding Halloween and hoping to have a fun Halloween craft day with your help. Unfortunately I did not get any volunteers so I will not be able to do this. Maybe families didn't all have a chance to check the folders so I am still holding out some hope! I guess I just thought I would have some since I had a lot of parents that checked off that they could be there for the field trip. I will most definitely do some Halloween fun activities in the classroom anyway, I just had thought this would be a fun way to celebrate this crazy day with no candy or party. :) If anything changes and anyone can still participate, that would be fantastic!

Our class will go to the Book Fair onWednesday (also a half day). If you are sending money in with your child please at least have a conversation with him/her about what books you are hoping to see come home. Also please have a conversation about things such as pencils, posters, etc. and whether any money is to be used for that. A note attached with the money would be even better and such a help! For example, "Here is 10.00. Sam should get two appropriate books and if there is any extra money he can get a pencil." Thank you for your help!! The kids love the book fair and it can be overwhelming to them when they come in without any idea as to what they can get.

Spiders!

This week part of our learning has been all about spiders!!! We started the week by creating a schema/new learning chart using thoughts on post-its. Then we read some nonfiction books and worked in pairs to write down some facts about spiders. Students also learned about fact vs opinion and we identified statements about spiders as either fact or opinion. Students wrote down one fact and one opinion and then attached it to a directed drawing of a spider. They are adorable. Here are a few pictures of the learning, I apologize for the blurry photos from my camera on my phone.

 

Sight Word Homework

Hi everyone,
I hope you all had a nice weekend. This week we will begin sight word homework. Each week (unless for some reason I do not assign it) students will come home with a sight word packet and about 5 new sight words on cardstock. We will have gone over these words in class already and practiced putting them in ABC order.

The homework packet has a cover sheet that outlines which part of the packet should be completed each night. The homework should not take more than 10 minutes to complete each night. If for some reason you have a hectic night, you can always put that night's assignment to the side for the next night but the key is to always be practicing these words and to have all activities complete by Friday. On Fridays I will collect the whole packet.

Each night you will notice I ask the students to do a quick practice of the words. This can be done in a variety of ways and I encourage you to mix it up for your child so he/she is not bored with the practicing. You can write the words on a piece of paper, tape index cards with the words around the house and have the students go on a word hunt for the words by checking off when they can find each one, you can have your child practice saying and spelling the sight words using white boards or magnetic letters, you can clap out the letters and say the words, use play-dough to form the letters of the words, make two sets and play memory, and much more. Some of these practice activities are things that can be done while you are making dinner or packing lunches. I do know how hard it is to find extra time on school nights but I also know how beneficial it is to practice, particularly those words that your child demonstrates difficulty with.

You might say that your child knows all of the words and doesn't need to practice - I would encourage you to have your child practice spelling them anyway in various ways as they may know how to read the words automatically but may have trouble spelling them correctly. Sight words will go on the word wall and students are encouraged to spell these words correctly in their everyday writing. The students will also accumulate their words onto a silver ring to keep in their binders. The ring can be used and read at home, in the car, on the plane, etc. Maybe your child is writing in a journal and having trouble with a word - tell him/her to take out their word ring and see if the word is there! I encourage students to use their resources! :)

Please contact me if you have any questions regarding the sight word homework! Thank you for your support.

Buddy Reading

In Reading Workshop we have been working hard at learning to be good buddy readers. The students are paired with a buddy to read with and will do so a couple times a week during this time. They are learning that they can plan out how they want to read and that they should talk about the books that they are reading. Buddies are paired together based on reading abilities and can choose to choral read, echo read, one buddy reads one page and then they switch, or one buddy reads the whole book and then they switch. They love having options and are doing a fantastic job! Here are a few pictures!

Picture Day!

Hi everyone!
Sorry for this last minute post - I hope everyone is able to check this tonight! I thought that a memo went home from the office regarding class picture day but apparently that did not happen and I was not in school on Friday due to my daughter being sick. We have our fall pictures tomorrow morning, October 9, luckily before lunch. I apologize for any confusion. I thought something would have went home. Thank you. :)

Apple Picking!

Despite today's weather the children had a great time! The students had so much fun picking their huge Honeycrisp apples! Here are some pictures from our little field trip.