Happy New Year

Happy New Year Families,

I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas and that you're ready to begin 2014! We will take the first 2 days back at school to review procedures for everything. Please help out by reminding your child to turn in papers each morning. I do not look in their folders on a regular bases. This is one of the many procedures we will be revisiting. We will begin our new math topic on Geometry. This should be a fun unit, and we want to keep practicing our adding and subtracting too. :-) We will be working on making connections to text in reading and reviewing our word families.

I'm looking forward to seeing everyone on Thursday!

Weekly Update

Hello  Families,

We had an exciting week filled with many fun activities. See my previous blog updates for our photos!  I will update our blog with academic information in the upcoming week or so. Two practice packets were sent home. The packets are intended to be a little each day or so to help prevent regression over the time off. Please continue reading, and practicing addition facts and sight words daily.

I wish you all a very merry Christmas and happy New Year!

Happy Birthday

Happy Day After Christmas Birthday,

Sawyer!!

 

 

 

 

Oh What a Morning!

We had a jam packed morning of fun! First our Mystery Reader (Miss Grimes's dad) was revealed at 9:30. Then we celebrated Emma's birthday. Finally, we were able to make our beautiful snowflakes! Thank you to all of our parents and grandparents that were able to help us today! We couldn't have done it without you!

Mystery Reader reading Twas the Night Before Christmas.

 

Happy Birthday Emma!

 

 

Snowflake Making

 









Mystery Reader

I missed you today! I did not forget about our 2nd Mystery Reader clue. The clue is, "My name is spelled the same way forward and backward." You will get the 3rd clue in the morning and our Mystery Reader will arrive at 9:45.

Weekly Update

Hello Families,

Thank goodness for warmer temperatures! We were finally able to get out for recess on Thursday and Friday this week. We’re working hard at getting ready quickly for recess and at the end of the day. Please help your child by practicing at home in this order: snow pants, boots, jacket, scarf, hat, mittens. We keep scarves and hats inside of the jacket sleeve and mittens in the baskets above the hooks.

Math

We are working hard on our basic subtraction facts. Fewer than by 0, 1, and 2 has been tricky for some. Please use “fewer than” in your daily conversations at home if possible. For example, “I have 2 fewer oranges than I need. I need 5. How many do I have?” Remind that fewer is that same as less and it is the number taken away in a subtraction problem. We learned how addition and subtraction is related and that knowing our addition facts can help us figure out a subtraction problem quicker. This concept is tricky for some also. You can practice this at home with actual objects like marbles, candy, coins etc. We will have the assessment on Wednesday and begin a unit on geometry when we return from winter break.

Reading Workshop

This week we learned how our schema helps us understand non-fiction text. We know that good readers think about the schema they have on a topic before reading, and they keep track of the new schema as they read. Good readers also read over and over and over when reading about something which they have no schema about. Good readers also realize then they have misconceptions in their schema and they delete those files and replace with the correct information.

Good Fit Books

Most children at this age have trouble identifying good fit books independently. Please be sure your child is reading good fit books at home. If they are hard to find the little books that come home every few days are perfect! J

***Look for the following characteristics when helping your child find a "just right" book: It is read not too fast, but not too slow. He/she knows all or most of the words. The topic is age appropriate.***

Writer’s Workshop

Everybody should have turned in their first draft of their personal narrative story. Each student worked with me on the beginning of their story. As they dictated I wrote the first part for them. They then needed to copy that and add the middle and ending independently. These will be edited and final copies will be written sometime in January. We’ve come a long was as writers! J

This Week I Really Learned!

I hope you’re enjoying your child’s T.W.I.R.L. journals. We love reading your letters each week.  Students are more motivated to write when they know they will receive a letter back. Even a short letter is better than no letter at all. Thank you for taking the time to write each week. J

Word Workshop

We worked on 3-letter beginning blends this week. Help your child notice words that use 3-letter blends like street, stripe, squint, scrap, skip.

Grammar

We learned that days of the week, months of the year, and holidays are all capitalized all of the time. Encourage your child to transfer this information into any writing they do.

Special Events

Next week we will enjoy some festive activities. Wednesday we will make a special project that your child will bring home to you on Friday. Thursday is our snowflake making morning. Thank you for to everyone who is able to join us. I will send a letter home with the exact time and information early next week. Friday is our Polar Express day. Your child is welcome to come to school in jammies and we’ll enjoy hot chocolate while we watch the movie. J

Enjoy your weekend!

 

Happy Half Birthday!

Alexis!

 

Weekly Update

Hello Families,

I hope you’re all surviving the cold! We’ve had two consecutive days of indoor recess, and we’re feeling a little restless. Hopefully some warmer weather will come our way next week, so the kids can enjoy the new snow. J

Math

We reviewed topics 1-4 and had an assessment on all of the material. These will be coming home next week. An “M” means your child has a solid understanding of the material and is on target for understanding upcoming math skills. A “P” means that your child has a partial understand of the material. A “D” means your child is struggling with the concepts in these units and does not meet expectations. While I work with small groups daily, I’m not able to get to every child every day that needs extra help. You can help at home by: reworking missed problems on assessments and in class work, making up similar problems, add, subtract, and compare numbers in everyday situations, and use math academic language. (greater than, less than, in between, subtract, addition, addend, difference.)

Reading Workshop

We are learning about our schema and how good readers use their schema to help them think about and understand what they read. Our schema helped us understand a story about a little girl trying to deliver a package in a winter blizzard. We know that we were able to imagine how Irene felt in the story, because we have a thick schema file on snow and winter! J We always want to be building our schema. This is best done by reading, reading, reading!

Good Fit Books

Most children at this age have trouble identifying good fit books independently. Please be sure your child is reading good fit books at home. If they are hard to find the little books that come home every few days are perfect! J

***Look for the following characteristics when helping your child find a "just right" book: It is read not too fast, but not too slow. He/she knows all or most of the words. The topic is age appropriate.***

Writer’s Workshop

We are working hard on our drafts of our stories. We’re still working on identifying a story instead of something we like to do. Practice telling stories at home about funny, sad, or scary things that have happened.

This Week I Really Learned!

I hope you’re enjoying your child’s T.W.I.R.L. journals. We love reading your letters each week.  Students are more motivated to write when they know they will receive a letter back. Even a short letter is better than no letter at all. Thank you for taking the time to write each week. J

Word Workshop

We reviewed beginning and ending blends last week. Ending consonant clusters were difficult for many children. Watch for words ending in nk, ng, ft, lp, lt, and mp when reading with your child. Ask him/her to say the ending cluster with and without the vowel before it. Next week we will start learning about three letter beginning clusters.

Grammar

We learned how to identify and capitalize proper nouns. This is a skills that needs to transfer to real writing. Encourage your child to write letters and thank you letters and challenge them to capitalize all proper nouns.

Volunteers Needed

If you have a super duper pencil sharpener at home and are willing to sharpen classroom pencils for us, please let me know, and I will send them home with your child. There is no hurry, and would help us out a lot!

I would like to do a 3-dimensional snowflake project. The snowflakes are easy to make once you learn, but would be difficult for first graders to do it all by themselves. I’m wondering how many parents we could get to come in on Thursday, December 19 from 10:00 – 11:50 to help our little hands cut, fold, and tape. Please let me know if you could help out. It would be great to have one adult per child if possible. (Aunts, uncles, grandmas, and grandpas are welcome to, but please no other children.)

Enjoy your weekend!

 

Birthdays

Happy birthday Anahi,

 and happy half birthday, Xavier!

 

 

Weekly Update

 

Hello Families,

I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving and enjoyed the time with family and friends. Five days seems like a long time to be away from school. I’m excited to be back with the kiddos tomorrow. J

Math

We finished our introduction unit on subtraction. The assessment was given on Wednesday before break. Because it is the end of the trimester, we will be reassessing this topic and changes will be shown in trimester 2 on the report card. It’s important that students be able to add and subtract based on the information in story problems as well as pay attention to the addition and subtraction signs.

Reading Workshop

We have finished with our retelling unit. This is a skill that should be practiced every time a child finishes a book; whether it is read to him or her or read independently. A fiction retell includes characters, setting, problem, solution, beginning, middle, and end. A non-fiction retell includes the main idea and facts that go with the main idea.

We are beginning our unit on schema this week. Our schema is a file cabinet in our brains that holds everything we know and all experiences we’ve had. Reading comprehension can be directly related to the amount of schema we have. We always want to be building our schema. This is best done by reading, reading, reading!

Good Fit Books

Most children at this age have trouble identifying good fit books independently. Please be sure your child is reading good fit books at home. If they are hard to find the little books that come home every few days are perfect! J

***Look for the following characteristics when helping your child find a "just right" book: It is read not too fast, but not too slow. He/she knows all or most of the words. The topic is age appropriate.***

Writer’s Workshop

We are working on drafting our personal narrative story. This week we will record our characters, setting, beginning, middle, and end on a story mountain.

 

This Week I Really Learned!

I hope you’re enjoying your child’s T.W.I.R.L. journals. We love reading your letters each week.  Students are more motivated to write when they know they will receive a letter back. Even a short letter is better than no letter at all. Thank you for taking the time to write each week. J

Word Workshop

We reviewed beginning and ending blends last week. Ending consonant clusters were difficult for many children. Watch for words ending in nk, ng, ft, lp, lt, and mp when reading with your child. Ask him/her to say the ending cluster with and without the vowel before it. This week we will start learning about three letter beginning clusters.

Grammar

We continued talking about plural nouns. Regular plural nouns add an s to the end of the word; dog = dogs. Nouns that end in s, x, ch, sh, and z require es to be added to the end; church = churches. Nouns that end with fe need to be changed to ve and add an s: knife = knives. Some nouns don’t change at all: deer = deer, and some nouns completely change: die = dice. Watch for these when reading with your child and point them out.

 

Volunteers Needed

If you have a super duper pencil sharpener at home and are willing to sharpen classroom pencils for us, please let me know, and I will send them home with your child. There is no hurry, and would help us out a lot!

I would like to do a 3-dimensional snowflake project. The snowflakes are easy to make once you learn, but would be difficult for first graders to do it all by themselves. I’m wondering how many parents we could get to come in on Thursday, December 19 from 10:00 – 11:50 to help our little hands cut, fold, and tape. Please let me know if you could help out. It would be great to have one adult per child if possible. (Aunts, uncles, grandmas, and grandpas are welcome to, but please no other children.)

Enjoy your week!